Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Strategy and History)

19 Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2010, Washington, D.C.: US Department of Defense, 1996, cited in Lonnie D. Henley, ‘The RMA After Next’, Parameters, Winter 1999–2000, p. 46. For other examples see for instance Phillip S. Meilinger, ‘Air Targetting Strategies: An Overview’, in Richard Hallion, Air Power Confronts An Unstable World, London: Brassey’s, 1997, pp. 60–1; Phillip S. Meilinger, Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power, Washingon, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995, pp. 31–2; Gary Vincent’s two articles ‘In the Loop, Superiority in Command and Control’, Airpower Journal, Vol. VI, Summer 1992, pp. 15–25, and ‘A New Approach to Command and Control, the Cybernetic Design’, Airpower Journal, Vol. VII, Summer 1993, pp. 24–38. See also Gordon R. Sullivan and James M. Dublik, ‘War in the Information Age’, Military Review, April 1994, p. 47, where the authors lay out a vision of war in the information age, incorporating the same pictogram of the OODA loop as used above. Remarkably, Boyd is not listed as the intellectual father of the OODA loop, suggesting that the OODA construct had already become very commonplace..

20 Such as Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory, London: Frank Cass, 1997.

21 See David R. Mets, ‘Boydmania’, Air & Spacepower Journal, Fall 2004, Vol. XVIII, no. 3, pp. 98–107.

22 See examples in note 19. In addition, see Paolo Bartolomasi, ‘The Realities and Challenges for Concepts and Capabilities in Joint Manoeuvre’, RUSI Journal, August 2000, pp. 8, 9.

23 Thomas Hughes, ‘The Cult of the Quick’, Airpower Journal, Vol. XV, no. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 57–68. Only in the endnotes does Hughes acknowledge that Boyd’s ideas are more complex than this interpretation.

24 See for a recent informed but still unsatisfactory discussion on the merits of the OODA loop in this respect, for instance, Tim Grant and Bas Kooter, ‘Comparing OODA & other models as Operational View C2 Architecture’, paper delivered at the 10th International Command and Control Symposium. Online. Available at: www.ccrp.osd.dod.mil (accessed 15 December 2005).

25 See Jim Storr, ‘Neither Art Nor Science – Towards a Discipline of Warfare’, RUSI Journal, April 2001, p. 39. Emphasis is mine. Referring to Karl Popper, Storr states that ‘induction is unsafe’ and ‘to generalize about formation-level C2 from aircraft design is tenuous’.

26 Hammond, op. cit., p. 13.

27 Coram, op. cit., p. 329. In recent years an attempt has been made to make his work accessible through the maintenance of a website dedicated to his work. See www.belisarius.com.

28 Fadok’s study has been mentioned already. In addition see Anthoni Rinaldi, ‘Complexity Theory and Air Power; a new paradigm for air power in the 21st century’, in Complexity, Global Politics and National Security, Washington, D.C.: NDU Press. Online. Available at: www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/books/complexity/ch10a.html (accessed 11 February 1999), and Michael T. Plehn, ‘Control Warfare: Inside The OODA Loop’, Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, June 2000.

29 Robert Coram’s work focuses in particular on Boyd’s life and less on Boyd’s strategic theory. Grant Hammond’s study surpasses Coram in his rendering of Boyd’s strategic theory, but while touching upon Boyd’s wide array of sources underlying his work, space restrictions prevented a proper discussion of the intellectual background of Boyd’s work.

30 See also Hammond, op. cit., p. 15.

31 John Boyd, The Strategic Game of ? and ?, p. 58.

32 The description of military theory and doctrine are derived from Antulio J. Echevarria, After Clausewitz, German Military Thinkers Before the Great War, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000, pp. 7–8.

33 J. Mohan Malik, ‘The Evolution of Strategic Thought’, in Graig Snyder (ed.), Contemporary Security and Strategy, London: Macmillan, 1999, p. 13.

34 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 128.

35 Gray, op. cit., p. 17.

36 J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, p. 13.

37 André Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy, New York: Praeger, 1963, p. 22.

38 Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley, ‘Introduction: On Strategy’, in Murray, MacGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (eds), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 1.

39 Malik, op. cit., p. 14.

40 Henk W. Volberda and Tom Elfring, Rethinking Strategy, London: Sage Publications, 2001, op. cit., p. 1.

41 Adopted from Henry Minzberg et al., Strategy Safari, New York: Free Press, 1998, p. 16.

42 Gray, op. cit., p. 47.

43 Gray, ibid., p. 44.

44 Richard K. Betts, ‘Is Strategy an Illusion?’, International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2, Fall 2000, p. 5.