2007 Boyd Conference
The folks at Defense and the National Interest (DNI) have been kind enough to offer a block of seats to members of the Small Wars Journal / Small Wars Council community of interest. Space is very limited – so it’s first come first serve – and the price is right – free. For additional information see the 2007 Boyd Conference entry at the SWJ Blog.
Excellent
I'm attending already - interested in meeting anyone else from SWC who shows up.
I'll be there Zen. Shoot me a PM.
Running the 4GW Panel
Will be there, running the 9:30 to 10:30 panel on 4GW. Find me during a break!
Cool
I'll send you two a PM before I leave town so we can connect -Dave I'll come find you as well.
Well I'll be flying in that afternoon from a business trip so I will definitely miss all the work, but if all goes well it looks like I will be in the AO in time to join the festivities at the "watering hole TBD."
I wish that was all upside and more the story of my life.
I hope to see some Small Wars Council members there.
The John Boyd collection (merged thread)
Can anyone recommend a good introduction to Colonel Boyd's strategic thinking? I know some regard him as America's greatest strategist, but I know nothing about him beyond the Fighter Mafia/F-16 stuff and OODA Loop. Is there some good stuff of his online, or should I read Coram's book?
There is tons of stuff at DNI
http://www.d-n-i.net/
Yes, DNI is a fine source, although I believe they focus on what he already knew.
Hmm, Boyd as one of the US's greatest strategists?
Well, the sad thing is it may be true. I remember only Mahan as premier league example.
OODA loop merely gives the "tempo" a theoretical framework
What Boyd did on fighters was purely tactical and narrowed on dogfights.
I rate Luttwak at least as high as Boyd due to his work "Strategy: Logic in War and Peace".
Maybe Mitchell was good, too - but I don't know enough about him.
I'd recommend Grant Hammond's book The Mind of War.Originally Posted by Granite_State
Thanks for the recommendations, will read Hammond's book and then Boyd's stuff on DNI. Does his Green Book actually exist, or is it just a way to describe his collected lectures and writings?
Another possibility is Fred Kagan's Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy. Kagan describes the evolution of airpower theory from Boyd to John Warden to "shock and awe."
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...rev/kagan.html
Here's a paper by Boyd entitled "Destruction and Creation":
http://www.belisarius.com/modern_bus...d_creation.htm
Finally, a paper by Hammond entitled "The Essential Boyd":
http://www.belisarius.com/modern_bus...ntial_boyd.htm
better Q might be where should his influence have ended
Boyd seems excellent in fighter tactics and strategy but the central analogy when applied to forces of size seems to hold only when one faces a rational enemy who above all wishes to preserve the lives within the force. An army division can outmanuver and corner an enemy but unless the enemy is willing to surrender you may still have to destroy him and that requires a certain level of political will to support such actions made even more difficult when the opposing force usually justs melts back into the populace rather than die or surrender.
Often we solace ourselve that a force that melts back into the populace is destroyed this in fact is not true they melted effectively on their own terms still armed with knowledge and experience if not actual arms.
I liked Hammond's book more than Coram's FWIW.
DNI and Belisarius are the two websites that have all of Boyds work on them.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Boyd and Lind Rebuttal
Forgive me, but I fancy dropping a bit of a rock in the water.
I believe that Lind has contributed very little that is useful, and is mostly proved wrong when subjected to rigor. He is not military theorist, but rather a self-publicist. Maneuver Warfare, OODA loops and 4GW have wasted time set people on the wrong path.
I also believe that John Boyd, is vastly overrate when it comes to his work on MW, even if you believe there is such a thing, is that belief useful?
“Watch and shoot, watch and shoot”
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I don't know who you are, but I like you already....
Be prepared to get introduced to someone relatively soon named Fabius. You just called his Michael Jordan a horrible basketball player.
Example is better than precept.
Heh. Does that come under the heading of:
~Attributed to James A. Garfield"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."
I shall prepare my popcorn...
This is kind of funny; on my own site this morning, I put down the first paragraph of a piece where I'm going after three "Peacetime Doctrine" Strategic Theories ("Soft Power", 4GW/5GW, and RMA) that seem to think that Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Forrest are either fundamentally wrong or obsolete. I think that they are useful to the extent that they demonstrate areas of negligence or point to areas that require further development in Strategic Thought, but no more. What makes the aforementioned Three Great Military Theorists so great is the simple and basic applicability and usefulness of what they're trying to teach. The newer stuff just doesn't quite cut it there.
And I was horrified by Lind's advocacy of heavy and light teams in the Rifle Squad. There wasn't enough practical difference between the two as he had them to really bother with making the distinction in the first place.
RTK, too funny with the analogy to Jordan.
I never bought any of the 4thGW warfare stuff and i dont believe any thinker of quality did either: Too simplistic; too sequential; too much of a rehash of Marx's epochs but with a liberal democratic switch to it. But it sounded good though and it soothed and it fit neatly in with the airpower/techno fetish of the 90s that all wars could be reduced to targets for destruction and that friction in war was gone; and more painfully for the American Army it produced the nonsensical notion of "maneuver out of contact, "certain knowledge of the enemy," and "quality of firsts."
Hey Tom Odom, I thought in that famous photo of John Warden in flight rompers in Checkmate with SecDef Cheney, John Boyd was in his rompers too albeit mystically in the background nodding approval
gian
I'm not a big fan of 4GW, but I'm sure they do not associate themselves with air-centric, "sterile" solutions or dominant knowledge, etc. Quite the opposite. Warden and Boyd wore the same uniform, but that's about the limit of their similarity.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks