John Boyd and John Warden Quotes

“The Clausewitzian school seeks to permanently arm the military commander with "genius," which the Prussian himself defined as "a very highly developed mental aptitude for a particular occupation." In the profession of war, this mental aptitude represents a psychological strength that entails a harmonious balance of intellect and temperament and allows one to function in the presence of uncertainty.12 Furthermore, this aptitude can be developed. "That practice and a trained mind have much to do with it is undeniable."13 Thus, Clausewitzians share the belief that the genius of war can be defined and should be taught, a cherished conviction similar to the Jominian belief in the principles of war.”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. . . . The commander continually finds that things are not as he expected. . . [These uncertainties] continually impinge on our decisions, and our mind must be permanently armed, so to speak, to deal with them.11 [emphasis added]”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“Clausewitzian theorists seek to develop a mind-set, or way of thinking, rather than to prescribe rules of war; in the former lies the key to victory in the midst of war's fog and friction.”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“In contrast, the Clausewitzian tradition views the practice of war from a more "nonlinear" perspective.7 Similar inputs, or strategies, often do not produce similar outputs, or desired end-states. War's natural uncertainty makes it impossible to guarantee that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. Two plus two will not always equal four. This unpredictability demands that any theory of war be more heuristic than prescriptive since "no prescriptive formulation universal enough to deserve the name of law can be applied to the constant change and diversity of the phenomena of war."8 As Clausewitz continued, "Theory should be study not doctrine. . . . It is meant to educate the mind of the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-education, not to accompany him to the battlefield."9”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“To borrow a concept from the emerging science of chaos and complexity, Jominians are predominantly "linear" thinkers regarding the conduct of war. They believe in a certain causality, or predictability, of actions taken in war. That is, they believe that similar inputs produce similar outputs. Translated into the language of strategy, if a given plan of attack is devised and executed in accordance with veritable principles of war, it will necessarily produce victory time and again. Believing, as they do, that strategy can be reduced to a science, the Jominians tend to be more prescriptive than heuristic in their presentation of military theory. In other words, Jominian theories tend toward teaching soldiers how to act rather than how to think. Theory should provide answers to the warrior facing the daunting prospect of battle.6”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“For Jominians, the duty of theory is to uncover these immutable truths and to advocate their adoption and use. In the words of Jomini himself, "convinced that I had seized the true point of view under which it was necessary to regard the theory of war in order to discover its veritable rules, . . . I set myself to the work with the ardor of a neophyte."5 The Jominian school acknowledges that the nature of war is complex and dramatic, and that, consequently, its complete mastery is truly an art form. However, the strategy of war is scientific, knowable, constant, and governed by principles of eternal validity.”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“The fundamental difference between Clausewitz and Jomini is that while the Prussian roamed in the psychological and philosophic domains of battle, peering into the metaphysical darkness whence come the intangible but nevertheless omnipresent components of combat, Jomini was more concerned with the more immediate character of war as it exists, and so dealt more with the tangible, less with the philosophic.3”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“Similarly, Clausewitz is often, but erroneously, characterized as eschewing rules of war altogether. While On War is best known and highly regarded for its introduction and evaluation of the moral and psychological aspects of war, Clausewitz does devote a significant portion of his classic work to the presentation of strategic and tactical principles.2”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting

“Admittedly, careful reading of each man's final treatise, Jomini's Summary of the Art of War and Clausewitz's On War, blurs the sharp distinctions some like to draw between their respective thoughts on success in war. It reveals the ironic twist that, in their theoretical approaches to the study of conflict, Jomini is more Clausewitzian, and Clausewitz more Jominian, than many people believe. Jomini is often, and unjustly, depicted as rigid, methodical, and legalistic in his approach to military theory. Yet, in the opening passages of his magnum opus, he defends himself against such accusations. the ensemble of my principles and of the maxims which are derived from them, has been badly comprehended by several writers; that some have made the most erroneous application of them; that others have drawn from them exaggerated consequences which have never been able to enter my head; for a general officer, after having assisted in a dozen campaigns, ought to know that war is a great drama, in which a thousand physical or moral causes operate more or less powerfully, and which cannot be reduced to mathematical calculations.1”
― U.S. Government, John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power's Quest for Strategic Paralysis - Sun Tzu, Aftermath of Desert Storm Gulf War, Economic and Control Warfare, Industrial, Command, and Informational Targeting