Remembering John Boyd’s Legacy
Book title: “Boyd: The Fight Pilot who changed the art of war.”
Author: Robert Coram
Publisher: Back Bay Books (Little, Brown & Company)
Most military leaders, business strategists, or competitive sports practitioners have heard of the “Observe-Orient-Decide-Act” methodology, better known as the “OODA loop.” It’s a theorem which represents a revolutionary means of “Getting inside the opponents decision-making sequence.” For all of his contributions to national defense, the art of conflict, and thinking about how to think, Colonel John Boyd’s legacy is most recognizable for his OODA loop concept.
That was merely one of the many incredible things to which Boyd may be credited, covered in detail Robert Coram’s “Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.” This is not a new publication, released over twenty years ago (January 2002). Yet this book is indisputably one of the finest military histories I’ve read in years. I already knew of John Boyd, as I too received a very watered-down briefing on the OODA-Loop many years ago while active duty. With that familiarity, I quickly snagged this piece off the bookstore shelf and read it in just under a week (works such as these usually take me around a month to consume). This is genuinely one of those books that is difficult to put down.
Our military is mired in an identity crisis and a major transitional era. As such, looking back at times of radical change like those brought on by Boyd’s innovation should make Coram’s book mandatory reading for every military member. More than merely recounting the exceptional impact of a unique servicemember, Coram’s work is suitable today as a reminder that fundamental change in the bureaucracy of the Defense Department often take place at tactical levels, when strategic leaders are so regularly oblivious to the impact of their decisions. It reflects that the U.S. military, perhaps more so than any other standing professional force, can evolve as a result of the thinking and innovation of its junior cadre.
As stated, Boyd’s most renown contribution was the OODA loop methodology. Before that, he had devised a mathematical concept known as the “energy-maneuverability theory” which explains in indisputable mathematical equations how different aircraft perform at every possible maneuver envelope based on its kinetic versus potential energy available. The brief was given to the Air Force chief of staff late in the Vietnam war, addressing the travesty that was the F-111 fighter-bomber, and the brief rocked the entire defense contractor industry and Air Force leadership. various modern aircraft would be designed, including the F-15 (the world’s premier multi-role fighter which Boyd despised), the F16 (which was closer to his ideal aircraft than any other platform), and the F-18 (which was nearly the Air Force’s primary platform until it lost the fly-off to the F-16 and was taken by the Navy to replace the F-14). . Boyd’s E-M theory was the first time in aviation history that air-to-air combat would become scientific and move passed the previous eras’ skill-for-skill’s-sake ideology.
Boyd’s closest friends and followers, known as his “Acolytes,” would take his theorems to confront a corrupt, flawed and ineffectual Defense bureaucracy and regularly succeeded in doing so. His inspired each of them in turn across decades with his iconic “to be or to do” speech, challenging them to either “be” a member of the bureaucracy, or “do something” worthwhile and force necessary changes. The A-10, in addition to the sleek fighter jets of greater visual appeal, is another E-M theory design creditable to Pierre Sprey, a long-standing Boyd Acolyte and one of the few men who could realistically challenge Boyd’s materials and induce significant changes (Boyd would call his friend’s critiques the “Sprey buzzsaw,” the ultimate acid test of his theories). James Burton, one of the very first Air Force Academy graduates (and thus, a “chosen one”), who was fated to have stars on his shoulder as long as he maintained the company line, would instead become one of Boyd’s “reformers,” and challenge the Air Force and Army on corruption and programmatic incompetence. The Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicle, developed in the 1970s, would become a national media firestorm for hiding serious systemic and combat-survivability manufacturing flaws. Burton – then an Air Force colonel – embodied Boyd’s ruthless adherence to truth and fact over dogma and oversee dramatic changes to the Bradley program. Without Burton risking his career amidst the political and media controversy, the Bradley IFV would have all but certainly sent countless soldiers to their graves when it first saw combat in the Gulf War.
These are but a few of the sensational-yet-true events which are owed to John Boyd. As the book approaches the end of Boyd’s life, there is an exploration into the “Ghetto Colonel’s” instrumental role in fundamentally re-vectoring the Marine Corps warfighting ideology, turning a centuries-long obsession with massing for an amphibious beachhead landing into the scalable, adaptive force which the Corps now prides itself to be. There is even a brief, incredible segment investigating Boyd’s key involvement as a theorist and strategist behind the plans for 1991’s Desert Storm, when a retired Boyd would disappear into the offices of then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the months before the war.
Boyd was a fundamentally flawed man: a workaholic, who took the practice of “tunnel vision” to extremes. Many of his mannerisms even present as potential signs of autism, which of course was not publicly recognized as a personality condition during his lifetime but today would be relatively evident due to greater awareness. As with many who present on the autism spectrum, his habits, mannerisms, and personality attributes would prove to be a tremendous asset in his life and not merely a social impediment. Coram, the author, does not suggest anywhere in the work that Boyd was autistic; this is a supposition on my part, but I do think it would offer a compelling explanation into the mannerisms of such an influential human being.
In Coram’s work, the early life of Boyd is such an important cog in understanding the Mad Major’s personality that it’s too important to skim over, and too well written to even consider glancing through. Boyd’s upbringing in the depression-era haunts of Erie, Pennsylvania, where his father died young and he was thus raised by his widowed, intense and often times overbearing mother, set the conditions for his inferiority complex. This core characteristic would lead him to fearlessly challenge other fighter pilots (and never lose), generals and institutions (and seldom lose), and the bureaucracy of the U.S. government and defense department itself (and fundamentally change it).
“Boyd” is not merely a profile piece on a fighter pilot who never actually logged an air-to-air kill in combat. Rather, Coram’s work is an important investigation into how and why the groupthink and bureaucratic insolvency of major institutions like the U.S. military – specifically the unique organism that is the Pentagon – can put the lives and efficacy of our warfighters at risk. It also celebrates the fact that innovation can come from the most unlikely of sources, which again highlights one of the truly great things about our military. Coram’s work, by itself, is simply a terrific and enjoyable read. But it offers much more than a compelling story: it captures the legacy of a group of radical challengers, led by their unorthodox ringmaster, who helped shape our modern military.
