First, off, as I am sure Eric is aware, you have limited space to pursue an issue such as this. This was not a Research MSc, so I went with what I was comfortable with. The limited number of writers I surveyed were the most influential, and well known.

Robert Leonhard is a good friend of mine and I would suggest that his “Principles of Warfare for the Information Age,” actually stands in opposition to his “Manoeuvre Warfare” writing. Robert and I do not agree on all, but I have questioned the source closely. I have all his books, bar one. In my opinion, “POWFTIG” is one of the most of the most important and original works on military thought ever written, and understanding it lead to my rejection of MW of which I have previously been a rabid groupy!

I know and have great difficulty with Shimon Naveh’s work. I fear it is misleading, and draws erroneous conclusions. I am trying to find Shimon to get to grips with him on this before becoming any more strident. Nikolas Zetterling’s rebuttal of Naveh is well worth reading. I know and have read Franz Osinga’s book. I have also met and conversed at some length with Bill Lind, so I submit I have made not come to my conclusions lightly.
I also have Hookers book,
– but obviously my attempts to remove the fuzziness have not been successful.

The use of the Word, “Fraud” may have been better considered in terms of a question, rather than a statement. I do not name names, but submit that some of those progressing the adoption of MW knew that the reasoning was weak, but dismissed that shortcoming for a supposed “greater good.”

The OODA loop I addressed was that as written about by Lind, is not what Boyd had in mind (according to Chet Richards). I have issues with the OODA loop in general, but I was concentrating on Lind’s use of it. Lind did claim it as a unique element, as he did Recon Pull and Mission Command. The defining elements are nothing to do with MW. That is my issue.

I never said that Sun-Tzu thought of in terms of a bloodless victory. I actually said the opposite.

If Lind’s understanding of Recon Pull was so worthwhile, where is the Pamphlet definition? I have received 5-6 emails with “recon pull” explanations and all are different. If nothing else, the role of “recon” is to find the enemy. Not find “gaps”. As someone with some practical experience of conducting reconnaissance, I never understood how using my initiative, (which I was required to do) defined my actions as pull or push. If I was doing my job, stuff was following. Unless recon has good comms, recon is generally useless, so letting Command know where you are is inherent to the process and cannot be avoided.

All in all, if I am only right in the areas where Eric says I am, then I am a pretty happy rabbit!