Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

After World War II, both the Soviets and Americans had access to Germany’s research on jet fighters, and both countries went into production on jets based in large part on the German research. The Soviet MiG-15 and the American F-86 Sabre were remarkably similar.

And off he would go for an hour or two talking about a calculus equation, ignoring all Spradling’s efforts to postpone the conversation. Spradling’s contribution was an occasional grunt or noncommital “Uh huh.” Initially he thought that if he didn’t respond to Boyd’s conversation that Boyd would hang up. But after several months of these late-night calls, Spradling realized that Boyd did not want a conversation; Boyd simply wanted to talk. He talked to learn: as he went through his monologues, his thoughts bounced around, various theses were tried and rejected until finally he had gained a better understanding of whatever it was that was on his mind. After an hour or two, Boyd would say, “Thanks for helping me out, Sprad. You’ve been a big help.” And he would hang up.

most celebrated date of the Vietnam War for the Air Force: January 2, 1967—the day of Mission Bolo.

Boyd was disgusted. He could tell that his dream for the pure fighter aircraft had vanished. Yes, he had cut some weight, and yes, he had killed the variable-sweep wing. But it had taken just about everything out of him to fight and fight and fight for so much that was so obvious.

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.

Around NKP the complex was known simply as the “Project.” The official name was Task Force Alpha. Various other code names were associated with the complex: Igloo White, Dutch Mill, and Muscle Shoals.

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.

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.

Hallock sat down with Schlesinger and said in effect, “You must understand that if you want to leave a legacy it is vital for you to make a quick decision about what you want that legacy to be. If you don’t make a quick decision, you will have no legacy. Because after several months you become so caught up in the business of the Pentagon, so enmeshed with the generals, so overwhelmed with the scope and enormity of the job that it will be too late. Pick a few projects and put the full weight of your office behind them. Guide the projects. Nurture them. Know from the very beginning that they will be your legacy. Force them through the bureaucracy.”

“If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, then give him loyalty.”

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.

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.

The experience of General George Patton in World War II is a good example.

“And you must never panic. When they surprise you, even if the surprise seems fatal, there is always a countermove.”

The Generals’ War, a book written by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard Trainor

Richards found that a famous observation by Taiichi Ono, the Toyota vice president who created the Toyota system, held true: companies performing reasonably well will not adopt the Toyota system, although they may showcase isolated elements of lean production. Boyd put it more succinctly: “You can’t change big bureaucracies until they have a disaster.”