Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

Riccioni would be sitting at his desk when Boyd’s big hand would slap him on the shoulder and a loud voice would say, “Tiger, let’s go strafe the concourse.” The two men went to the shops on the concourse, loaded up with bags of chocolate candy, then returned to the office, where they passed out candy to the secretaries. The secretaries stashed the chocolate in their desks. And in the evening after the secretaries had gone home, Boyd went from desk to desk, retrieving the candy.

Perhaps no greater gulf exists in the officer corps of the Air Force than the one between a lieutenant colonel and a full colonel. It is in many ways greater than the gulf between a colonel and a brigadier general. If a man retires as a lieutenant colonel, he may be looked upon by his contemporaries as a man who never broke out of the herd. But a colonel is a commander, part of the leadership—no longer a “light colonel” but a “full bull” who is only one step from being a general.

Riccioni’s need for recognition and his naïveté, were becoming a dangerous combination. He began writing inflammatory memos to superior officers, the contents of which called too much attention to the Fighter Mafia. Once he wrote a letter in which he blasted the F-14 as a grossly inferior aircraft and said that the Navy should consider buying a lightweight fighter. He sent copies to top admirals. In Riccioni’s diatribes he positioned himself as the creator of the Fighter Mafia and even hinted at the true purpose of the study for which he had received funding. There were veiled references to an airplane that one day would embarrass the Air Force by defeating the F-15. Boyd and Sprey were bewildered. On one hand it seemed Riccioni was a glory hound. On the other hand he was so innocent and genuinely sweet that it was impossible to be angry with him. One day Boyd went to him and said, “If you insist on getting credit for the work you do, you’ll never get far in life. Don’t confuse yourself with the idea of getting credit.” Riccioni agreed. But he continued writing incendiary memos.

In May 1971, Congress issued a blistering report on both the F-14 and F-15 and recommended spending $50 million to begin development of an alternative lightweight fighter. Pentagon generals fumed. There was information in the report that the Air Force and Navy considered proprietary. It had to have come from inside the Pentagon. Talk of the lightweight fighter frightened generals far more than would the sudden appearance of a enemy bomber over the Pentagon. It was all the things that careerists fear. It signified change. It went against everything the Air Force held sacred. The brand-new, expensive, gold-plated F-15 was the hearthrob aircraft, the best in the world, they thought. And now the Fighter Mafia was saying it had a better and— quelle horreur—cheaper airplane. Contractors took the congressional criticism of the F-15 and F-14 as a further sign that the lightweight fighter might be worth pursuing. Boyd cautioned those in his office that contractors always wanted to buy lunches and dinners and could easily corrupt the unwary.

In doing advanced conceptual design work on the lightweight fighter, he went over all his notes from the past, from as far back as Korea. He remembered his early E-M work and how difficult it was to prepare accurate E-M charts for the F-86. He remembered the F-86’s countless battles with MiGs. He remembered how, on paper, the MiG was a superior aircraft in almost every respect. But the F-86 had a ten-to-one kill ratio against the MiG. Why? Boyd pored over the notes again and again. Could there be something else, some other element, perhaps an element not covered by E-M, that held the answer? Boyd made a list of attributes of the MiG and the F-86. For days he went into frequent trances as he groped for the answer. In the end he came up with two significant advantages the F-86 had over the MiG. First, the F-86 had a bubble canopy that gave the pilot a 360-degree field of vision, while the MiG pilot’s view to the rear was blocked. Thus, the F-86 pilot had a much easier time observing his enemy than the enemy had observing him. Second, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls, while the MiG did not. This meant that the F-86 pilot could control his aircraft with one finger, while controlling the MiG was so difficult that MiG pilots often lifted weights between flights in order to gain strength. The unboosted controls of the MiG meant that its pilot grew fatigued more quickly than the F-86 pilot but, far more importantly, the F-86 driver could go from one maneuver to another more qu...

IN every war there are military bases where activities are so secret that few people outside the base know what goes on there. These bases have a mystique, a hint of strange comings and goings, rumors of covert organizations that are a cover for even more covert organizations. In the Vietnam war that base was Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB, commonly known as NKP or, by the more irreverent, as Naked Fanny. Activities at NKP were so highly classified that for the first three or four years of its existence the base officially did not exist. But by the time Boyd arrived in April 1972, the word was out: NKP was a spook base.

The heart of Task Force Alpha was the “Infiltration Surveillance Center,” the purpose of which was to monitor acoustic sensors, seismic sensors, urine sniffers, and various other sensors planted along the Ho Chi Minh Trail for the purpose of observing the enemy. Banks of computers synthesized the sensor data and tried to form a picture of what the enemy was doing. Is that a convoy of trucks or hundreds of men marching down the trail? Where are they likely to stop for the night? Might a supply depot be there? Once the computers spit out the information, targeting experts decided what aircraft and what bombs or missiles to send against the enemy. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a network of trails and dirt roads that formed the main route by which North Vietnamese forces operating in South Vietnam were resupplied by cargo-carrying bicycles and small trucks. Seeding the trail with sensors had been the idea of Defense Secretary McNamara’s R&D technocrats, and the project became known as the “McNamara Line.” The $2.5 billion operation was a huge windfall for IBM. The technocrats convinced McNamara that if the trail were wired—as one Task Force Alpha worker said, like a “pinball machine”—the supply chain could be broken and America could win the war. This was America’s first electronic battlefield. It was one of the most highly classified operations of the Vietnam War.

Boyd arrived at a time when something happened almost every day to demonstrate the lunacy of the war. Drugs were so pervasive on base that when he went to the dining room he was given a knife and fork and then a plastic spoon. All the metal spoons had been stolen to use as small containers in which drugs were heated.

In his new job, Boyd saw problems that needed immediate attention everywhere he looked. But 7th Air Force sent down paperwork daily that took hours to answer. Boyd thought Air Force bureaucracy was keeping him from the job at hand. His solution was to respond but to add material that caused 7th Air Force more paperwork than 7th Air Force caused him. “Pain goes both ways,” he said. In only a few weeks the time-consuming requests from 7th Air Force shrank to almost nothing.

When Boyd made a base inspection, he found more of the legacy of laxness left by the former commander: latrines used by enlisted men were covered with scatological graffiti. Boyd called in the senior sergeants from all units on base and said he wanted the latrines repainted and that there would be no more graffiti. They told him that repainting the latrines would only present a new canvas for updated obscenities. Boys will be boys, the sergeants said. Boyd put on his hard face and wagged a long forefinger at the sergeants. “Here’s what I’m gonna do,” he said he told the sergeants. “First, I’m going to have the latrines repainted. Then I’m going to dig a trench off base, out in front of the main gate. And the first goddamn time I see any more obscenity on the walls I’m going to padlock every enlisted latrine on this base. If somebody wants to piss or shit—day or night, rain or shine—he’s going to have to do it in that trench. In front of every Thai person passing by.” He paused to let his message sink in. He knew what the sergeants were thinking. The busiest street in town led straight to the base. A trench dug in front of the main gate would be in sight of hundreds of people. Thais were notoriously finicky about personal cleanliness and privacy. Any Americans seen using the trench would be subjected to considerable disdain. Plus, it was the rainy season, a miserable time in Southeast Asia. The sergeants were not alarmed. They had their own latrines. If this crazy colonel w...

He stalked the office, staring at his underlings, then suddenly walking up to them, sticking a bony finger into their chest, and saying things such as, “If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, then give him loyalty.”

Men in their twenties whose lives have been spent in academics sometimes have a childlike naïveté. This seems especially true of those who study mathematics. And for reasons only psychologists can explain, many young people of extraordinary intellectual gifts and accomplishments also have a deep sense of insecurity. Even the most casual question brought a response from Leopold in which he emphasized his ranking: first of the baby boomers, highest math SAT in his class, second in his class to solo. Leopold was an overachiever, especially after his father died, a year before his Pentagon rotation. He was focused on his career and wanted to be first in everything.

“Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. “Or you can go that way and you can do something—something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.” He paused and stared into Leopold’s eyes and heart. “To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?”

In the first staff study Spinney wrote, he recommended that the Air Force cancel a consulting contract with a national company. The CEO of the company took Spinney to lunch and said, “If you try to terminate my contract I will ruin your career.” Spinney looked at the bars on his collar and said, “Ruin my career? I’m a lieutenant. I can’t go down.”

filled with the young and the poor. One day Boyd came to work and told Spinney, “You know, I keep reading in the paper about all the burglaries and robberies around where I live, but nothing ever happens to people in my building. Then I realized that’s because all the burglars and robbers live in my building. I see these people every day and they nod to me and speak and are civil.” Boyd knew that Stephen had a deep interest in repairing electronic equipment. But he had only a vague awareness that, to improve his craft, Stephen repaired television sets and tape recorders and record players for people in the building free of charge. Many of these items had what their owners called “shipping damage.” It was little wonder that Boyd and his family lived in an island of safety amidst a sea of burglars and robbers.

Soon after completing the Backfire research, Boyd walked into the personnel office and said, “I want to retire. Now.” On August 31, 1975, John Richard Boyd retired after twenty-four years in the Air Force. He was forty-eight years old. He told Spinney and Sprey and Christie and Burton that the secretary of the Air Force pleaded with him not to retire. He said the secretary promised to make him a general if he would stay in the Air Force. “I told him no. I don’t want to get on the cocktail and pussy circuit.”

THE 1970s were a low point in American military history. The Vietnam War had humiliated America’s armed forces. The greatest superpower on earth used almost every arrow in its quiver, everything from multimillion-dollar airplanes to laser-guided bombs to electronic sensors to special-operations forces, and still was defeated by little men in black pajamas using rifles and bicycles. Yet, there was little soul-searching among senior generals. They were managers rather than warriors. And when managers lead an army it is their nature to cast blame rather than to accept responsibility. The senior generals who prosecuted the war and the weathervane careerists under them never admitted their failure. They never admitted that their war-fighting strategy—both in the air and on the ground—was flawed. They never admitted they did not know how to fight a guerrilla war. Instead, they looked outside the military for scapegoats: politicians had stabbed them in the back or the media were out to get them. Then they put a fresh coat of paint on the strategy of the past, the strategy that failed in Vietnam, and they pressed on.

Boyd said if a man can reduce his needs to zero, he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.

Generating a rapidly changing environment—that is, engaging in activity that is so quick it is disorienting and appears uncertain or ambiguous to the enemy—inhibits the adversary’s ability to adapt and causes confusion and disorder that, in turn, causes an adversary to overreact or underreact. Boyd closed the briefing by saying the message is that whoever can handle the quickest rate of change is the one who survives.

“Patterns” is also an example of how Boyd thought by analogy, a process that Sprey, ever the pragmatist, found extremely unsettling. Reasoning by analogy not only is backward from the way most people think but is dangerous; one misstep, especially in the beginning, and the entire process can go careening off into idiocy. Sprey found it even more unsettling that Boyd was always right.

Boyd found many such instances in history, and in these victories by numerically inferior forces he found a common thread: none of the victorious commanders threw their forces head-to-head against enemy forces. They usually did not fight what is known as a “war of attrition.” Rather, they used deception, speed, fluidity of action, and strength against weakness. They used tactics that disoriented and confused—tactics that, in Boyd’s words, caused the enemy “to unravel before the fight.”

Boyd, borrowing from Sun Tzu, said the best commander is the one who wins while avoiding battle. The intent is to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about collapse of the adversary by generating confusion, disorder, panic, and chaos. Boyd said war is organic and compared his technique to clipping the nerves, muscles, and tendons of an enemy, thus reducing him to jelly.

A commander can use this temporal discrepancy (a form of fast transient) to select the least-expected action rather than what is predicted to be the most-effective action. The enemy can also figure out what might be the most effective. To take the least-expected action disorients the enemy. It causes him to pause, to wonder, to question. This means that as the commander compresses his own time, he causes time to be stretched out for his opponent. The enemy falls farther and farther behind in making relevant decisions. It hastens the unraveling process.

Here Boyd says that to shape the environment, one must manifest four qualities: variety, rapidity, harmony, and initiative.

Blitzkrieg is far more than the lightning thrusts that most people think of when they hear the term; rather it was all about high operational tempo and the rapid exploitation of opportunity. In a Blitzkrieg situation, the commander is able to maintain a high operational tempo and rapidly exploit opportunity because he makes sure his subordinates know his intent, his Schwerpunkt. They are not micromanaged, that is, they are not told to seize and hold a certain hill; instead they are given “mission orders.” This means that they understand their commander’s overall intent and they know their job is to do whatever is necessary to fulfill that intent. The subordinate and the commander share a common outlook. They trust each other, and this trust is the glue that holds the apparently formless effort together. Trust emphasizes implicit over explicit communications. Trust is the unifying concept. This gives the subordinate great freedom of action. Trust is an example of a moral force that helps bind groups together in what Boyd called an “organic whole.”

To attack the mind of the opponent, to unravel the commander before a battle even begins, is the essence of fighting smart.

The experience of General George Patton in World War II is a good example. Patton was the American general most feared by the Germans. He out-blitzed those who made the Blitzkrieg famous. His tanks rolled across Europe and into Germany and could have punched through to Berlin in a matter of days. In fact, the German high command thought the war was over. But Eisenhower did not understand this kind of conflict and, at the very moment of victory—egged on by jealous and conventional British officers—he grew afraid for Patton’s flanks and supply lines and ordered Patton to stop. The Germans were amazed at the respite. One school of thought says that Eisenhower’s timidity cost another six months of war and a million additional lives.

A crucial part of the OODA Loop—or “Boyd Cycle,” as it has come to be known—is that once the process begins, it must not slow. It must continue and it must accelerate. Success is the greatest trap for the novice who properly implements the OODA Loop. He is so amazed at what he has done that he pauses and looks around and waits for reinforcements. But this is the time to exploit the confusion and to press on. Patton knew this intuitively. He ignored his flanks and kept his armored spear pointed at the heart of the enemy.

This is General Patton’s approach to fighting the Germans. It is Muhammad Ali saying he will “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

Boyd dove deeper and deeper into the study of war. He realized that while wars take place between nations, every person experiences some form of war; conflict is a fundamental part of human nature. To prevail in personal and business relations, and especially war, we must understand what takes place in a person’s mind. And what better place to continue work on a study of conflict than in the Pentagon?

That was all Spinney needed to hear. To work with Boyd meant conflict with the Pentagon, and Spinney was born for conflict. He remembered what Boyd often said: “There are only so many ulcers in the world and it is your job to see that other people get them.” Spinney said yes on the spot.

In the eyes of the Air Force, TacAir had been suspect ever since the old Systems Analysis days of McNamara. Now word was beginning to get around the Pentagon and to a few Air Force bases about Boyd’s new briefing and the group of people around him. They were part of the old Fighter Mafia crowd, goddamn insurrectionists and seditionists, civilians all and not a team player among them. Calling themselves “Reformers” and saying they were part of the “military reform movement.” What the hell was there to reform? When officers dropped in to chide Boyd about his reform movement, they could not resist the temptation to ask him how his ideas fit in with a military placing greater emphasis on technology. “Machines don’t fight wars,” he responded. “Terrain doesn’t fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must get into the minds of humans. That’s where the battles are won.”

Leopold was dismayed. “John, you shouldn’t have given the superintendent the finger.” “Ah,” Boyd said dismissively. “That’s a fighter pilot’s salute.”

BY 1978, both officers and enlisted personnel were leaving the military services in large numbers. They left not because of pay, as military leaders had said for the past few years, but because they were displeased with what they saw as a lack of integrity among their leaders. They thought careerism inhibited professionalism in the officer corps. The military also was having readiness problems; expensive and highly complex weapons systems were fielded before being fully tested. These systems were not only expensive to buy but expensive to maintain, and they rarely performed as advertised. Stories began to appear in the media of America’s “hollow military.” The military’s answer was to place more emphasis on what it called the “electronic battlefield” by buying even more expensive and more high-tech weapons. Somewhere in the military there must have been those who sensed the system was headed toward a meltdown. If so, no one stepped forward to change it.

Part of Spinney’s battle joy was that the Air Force did not know how to deal with his report. One of Boyd’s fundamental dictums when waging bureaucratic war was to use the other person’s information against him. Spinney’s brief was built on Pentagon documents. He understated everything so that any revisions would only make his conclusions more damning. (Boyd’s belief in using the adversary’s information against him is the practical application of Asian writings, particularly The Japanese Art of War, in which translator Thomas Cleary talks of “swordlessness,” or the ability to defend oneself without a weapon, a concept that by implication means using the enemy’s weapon against him. Cleary says this technique can be used in debate, negotiations, and all other forms of competition. He says swordlessness is the “crowning achievement of the warrior’s way.”)

Generals are allowed to indulge their egos as few people in business or government are allowed to do. A general is surrounded by people whose careers depend on what he says on their ERs. Every word he utters is considered as if Moses brought it down from the mountaintop. What in most of us would be harmless quirks seem rather bizarre when codified by a man with stars on his shoulder. And as the number of stars on a man’s shoulder grows arithmetically, his bizarre behavior grows exponentially. Stories abound of a general who would let no one in his office who had a mustache, of a general who ordered a blinking red light be turned on in the hall before he entered as a signal to lesser mortals that they must disappear, of a general who ordered that the back side of traffic signs be painted brown, of a general who ordered that no one walk beside him but instead a respectful two paces behind, of a general who ordered that subordinates wear the same type of headgear he wore, then hourly switched between a cap and a hat. Generals rule with such absolute power that few dare confront them, so when someone has the audacity to point out they are wrong—as did Spinney—they often have no recourse but to fall back on hyperbole and emotion and personal arguments. The Air Force knew no other way to react toward Spinney.

In truth, the Reformers argued not so much against technology as against the improper use of technology. One of the most valuable aspects of “Patterns of Conflict” was that it laid out a framework for assessing different technological approaches. It promoted the application of scientific and engineering knowledge to human needs. “Patterns” is about the mental and moral aspects of human behavior in war. That technology should reinforce that behavior, not drive it, was the argument of the Reformers. Boyd’s mantra was “Machines don’t fight wars, people do, and they use their minds.” He also preached, “People, ideas, hardware—in that order.” Thus, machines and technology must serve the larger purpose. The Reformers believed that America’s technological advantages were being used incorrectly and had, in fact, become a liability.

Leopold had a realistic understanding of how things worked in the Building. A few days after he arrived, he was walking down a hall when he saw an open door. The office was empty. He went in and wrote on the blackboard, “Duty Honor Country.” Then he crossed out the words and under them wrote, “Pride Power Greed.”

One day Boyd said to Spinney, “You know, I like the Pentagon more than I liked Nellis.” Spinney waited. That feral grin sliced Boyd’s face and he held a clenched fist in the air, then jerked it sharply downward and said, “More targets.” His booming cackle filled the office; he was ready to do battle.

THE February 1981 confirmation hearing for Caspar Weinberger as President Reagan’s secretary of defense was reminiscent of a 1960s love-in. Senators knew a flood of defense dollars was about to cascade from Washington and each wanted more than his share. The senators were extraordinarily cordial to Weinberger.

In the meantime, Boyd continued to research and amend and add to “Patterns,” briefing it often. Story after story about Boyd appeared in newspapers around the country. No one could counter Boyd’s briefing because no one in the Building was doing similar work; the Pentagon had no military theorists. Boyd was out there all alone and gaining converts by the day.

Now Time had a news peg for its cover story. But the magazine still needed a Reformer on the cover. Time wanted Boyd or Sprey but, to the utter astonishment of the magazine, both refused. Neither had any desire for publicity. Since Boyd was the point of contact for the Time reporters, they leaned on him to come up with a cover boy. Boyd pulled Spinney aside and said, “You’re going to be on the cover of Time.” Spinney recoiled. “The hell I am.” “Listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you,” Boyd said. “After you testify over on the Hill you are going to be vulnerable. They will be after you. This is your protection.” Boyd knew that when Pentagon bureaucrats seek vengeance the best strategy is not—as many believe—to keep a low profile but rather to become so prominent that any retribution will be seen for what it is. Spinney put on a pinstriped suit and posed for a picture.

THE Air Force has never made a serious study of warfare because every historically based effort to do so has come to the inescapable conclusion that the use of air power should be consistent with or—better yet— subordinate to the ground commander’s battle plans, a conclusion that argues against the existence of an independent Air Force. And since Air Force doctrine is hardwired to the idea of independence from ground forces, this branch of the service remains unable to do any original thinking about how air power should be integrated into the strategy of war. Thus, while Boyd’s ideas became increasingly well known and acknowledged, and while some Air Force generals thought it would be rather progressive to think about warfare instead of program management, Air Force efforts to change were little more than sophomoric public-relations stunts.

In 1982, Boyd and Wass de Czege ran into each other at a West Point symposium on the military reform movement. Wass de Czege told Boyd the new doctrine was about to be announced and that it stressed four tenets: initiative, agility, depth of operations, and synchronization. Boyd though the first three were splendid, a sign that the Army was indeed serious about discarding the old heavy fire-power theories in favor of maneuver warfare. But what the hell was synchronization doing in the new Army doctrine? Synchronization is evening up the front line; it means an Army moves at the speed of its slowest unit. Synchronization is a fundamental part of the old doctrine of attrition warfare, and it obviates all the other changes. An army that relies on synchronization is not an army that practices maneuver warfare. “You synchronize watches,” Boyd shouted, “not people.” Wass de Czege agreed. But he said his bosses had insisted that synchronization be part of the doctrine. Boyd pointed his finger at Wass de Czege and said, “Don’t ever again let them do that to you.” The Army had to change its ways, Boyd said. “They still believe in high diddle diddle, straight up the middle.”

To understand the enormity of the changes Boyd wrought, one must know something about the Marines. First, the Marine Corps, at about one hundred seventy-three thousand troops, is considerably smaller than the Air Force (three hundred fifty-seven thousand), Army (four hundred eighty thousand), or Navy (three hundred seventy-two thousand). Marines live with the constant fear of being subsumed into the Army or Navy. When the Navy, of which the Marines are a part, portions out dollars, Marines always end up holding the short end of the stick. Old equipment that nobody wants? Give it to the Marines. The U.S. Marine Corps is a separate and distinct culture within the military. Marines are considered both primitive and elitist—primitive because all Marines are basically infantrymen, and elitist because they are so few in number and so good at what they do. They are warriors and for them there is no higher calling than defending their country in battle. The battle flags of these proud, sea-going troops go back to the “halls of Montezuma and the shares of Tripoli.” They are the first to fight and they are given the dirtiest and bloodiest assignments. Got a beach held by vastly superior forces that needs taking? A country that needs taming? Send in the Marines. Other services recruit by making promises. The Marines recruit by looking for a few good men. Almost from the beginning, the Marines have been considered the military’s knuckle draggers, men who charge up a hill until they ta...

Marines take precise thirty-inch strides and their boots make one sound. A Marine who is a split second off is more annoying than one who is completely out of step.

Six hours passed and the shadows lengthened across Quantico and a few Marines drifted away. Seven hours passed and the remaining Marines had forgotten Boyd was an Air Force colonel; they looked upon him as if he were the reincarnation of an ancient warrior.

He showed Boyd the official khaki-clad Marine Corps lesson plans for the AWS. “You can’t read these without going to sleep,” he said. “We have the most exciting subject in the world: warfare. And we make it boring.”

When the classes did amphibious exercises Boyd walked from group to group, studying their plans. Once, while the groups wrestled with how to put a landing force on the shores of Iran, Boyd realized the Marines were placing inordinate emphasis on how to establish a beachhead. “That beachhead is looming bigger and bigger,” he said. “You guys are paying too much attention to terrain. The focus should be on the enemy. Fight the enemy, not the terrain.”

“You must have inductive thinking,” he said again and again to the Marines. “There is not just one solution to a problem,” he said. “There are two or three or five ways to solve a problem. Never commit to a single solution.”