Boyd might be accurately described as both a great air power theorist, and a great military reformer of the late 20th century. The Aerial Attack Study and the E-M Theory are landmarks in military aviation, and his efforts in reintroducing the military to many of the military classics (partially or largely neglected or ignored during the 60's and into the 70's) have gone a long way to at least putting them back on a competitive footing with the systems analysis/managerial styles of thinking so dominant over a generation ago. If anything, Boyd might be described as the Great Tutor, at least to the USMC, if not quite the rest of the US Armed Forces, and as someone who tried to impress upon military minds that war was and is fundamentally an art. Science is there to support that Art, not to displace it. I expect that Boyd would be rather upset with some of what some people have tried to do with his observations. In any case, however, the institutional amnesia of the Armed Forces at the time predisposed open minds to receive Boyd as the font of verboten knowledge.

Wilf wrote:

As Umar Al-Mokhtār points out, SO WHAT? is the acid test of military thought. Is it true? Is it useful?
Or put another way, can you make it, work? And if so, when, where, and how? At the risk of crossing over into the MW thread, some very promising theories or concepts may be difficult or impossible to put into practice, and for a variety of reasons: deficiencies in leadership, discipline, and training; lack of forces or resources; political constraints or considerations; the characteristics, conditions and circumstances of the AOR; the Enemy who gets a vote in this; and last, but certainly not least, CvC's friction. Guderian's ideal of defeating the enemy by destroying his "nerve centres" rather than outright physical destruction of his forces in the field is the classic example of a concept that was great, but impractical. In the event, the Germans had a difficult enough time trying to prevent the escape of Russian troops (who tended either to rejoin their own armies, or to become partisans harrying the German LOCs) from the great encirclements that Armoured Forces made so much easier to achieve than in the past. Similarly, von Manstein performed brilliantly at a number of places; the Crimean campaign was a marvel of manoeuvre - amongst other things - but Sevastopol itself had to be taken the hard way, by the methodical destruction of an enemy that could not be readily turned out of his positions or his defence critically incapacitated by the loss of certain "nerve centres". Months were spent just making the preparations, during which time manoeuvre was more or less out of the question anyway. Second Kharkhov lies somewhere in between the example of the Crimean Campaign as a whole, and the Siege of Sevastopol in particular.

In any case, when some of the finest generals of the 20th century, commanding some of the finest troops of the time, found themselves with little or no choice but to engage in "attritionist"-type methods, then it is vital to accept that not only do concept have limitations - known or unknown - but that there will always be greater or lesser limitations on when, where, how, and by whom those concepts can be used, if at all. I doubt that Boyd himself was not acutely aware of this, but I fear that many of those who have drawn upon his work may not possess this same degree of awareness, let alone an acceptance, of, certain persistent and often irreducible limitations on how workable theories or concepts may be in frail human hands. Personally, I'm more or less fine with Boyd, and some of his work is must-know when dealing with air power matters. As to his role in promoting what came to be MW Theory, I'm still okay with that to the extent that he was trying to get people to think, and using military classics as well as his own unique contibutions to that end - though I strongly disagree with many aspects of MW Theory. I do see him restating many of the military classics from a unique perspective, which is good. I may or may not agree or disagree with his takes on these, but that the way thing's work.

However, to go so far as to claim that Boyd is the "American Sun-Tzu" or at least the "Greatest" of his time or whatever is at least premature; some of his observations and propositions may require a good deal more time to become fully relevant (or at least clearly observable), and some of his (and especially some of his followers') observations and propositions are limited in their practicality or suffer from some critical flaws, just as virtually all theorists do. To echo Selil, Boyd is someone (amongst many others) whose observations and theories are something to be kept in the tool box for use when, where, how, and to whom, they may be useful and workable. Boyd himself took this same approach, and it's the right one