PART 2: THE BIG PICTURE
A NEW AGILITY
I bow to no one in my respect for the courage and integrity of the American soldier. From Bunker Hill to Missionary Ridge, from the stinking black sand of Iwo Jima to the jungles of Vietnam, these men have shown a tenacity, decency and valor unmatched in history. My respect and admiration for them all is boundless.
But with that said, there have never been soldiers like the ones we have deployed today. Never.
These men and women have been asked not only to be warriors, but also policemen, judges, marriage counselors, businessmen, administrators, referees, bodyguards, traffic cops, teachers and ambassadors. They deserve the very best that we as a nation can provide. That means not only material and spiritual support. It means they deserve the best leadership this country can possibly deliver.
Agility is not just something that a fighter plane or even an armored column can possess. Agility in this day and age can and should mean many things that may not seem obvious but which are more crucial to victory than any weapon system.
We’ve seen the spectacular success of Boyd’s ideas on major battlefields with massive armies. My point in writing this essay is simply this: these qualities of agility, speed, precision, lethality… “fingertip control,” and “water flowing downhill” can and recently have been applied to the post-war insurgency, where indications are they can also meet with great success. The problem seems not to be whether or not we know how to do this. The problem seems to be whether or not we want to.
Why is it, do you think, that the United States was able to win a war in Afghanistan in five months, with far, far smaller forces than the Soviets used in the nine years leading up to their ultimate failure?
It’s a complex issue, obviously, but I maintain that it is essentially that the Soviets relied on firepower and attrition – the iron mace – while the US focused tremendous force delicately and lightly and with great precision – the rapier. If the Soviet failure was due to entire armored divisions flattening villages wholesale, the US achieved victory with one or two Special Forces men on horseback calling in precision air strikes that with few notable tragic exceptions hit only what they meant to hit.
In those early days in Afghanistan – long before I read or even heard about John Boyd – I recall hearing a story that caused me some concern. I read of a small unit of American Special Forces troops who had gone into a village, lived there, made friends with the tribal leaders, shared local food and traditions with gusto and yet with humility, ate with local families in their own homes, showed respect for their women and gave their men the honor and deference and the means and the money to provide for their own people.
And then, the next day, soldiers from a regular Army unit entered these houses, kicked the doors down looking for weapons, terrified the women and children, and then left all of those hard-won relationships in ruins.
Now, I don’t blame those soldiers one bit. They are warriors and that is what they are trained to do. They are under fire in a strange land and did not have the benefit of time and training that the Special Forces men had. But from where I sit I see many more opportunities for conflicts like our present one, and not as many for those requiring all of our Air Wings and Carrier Battle Groups (although clearly we need these, and at peak readiness, as well).
My motivation is simple: if the US goes to war, I want her to win. I want to win with as few American casualties as possible, and then, second, with as little collateral damage as we can possibly manage. And that, it seems, will require less mace swinging and more Fingerspitzengefuhl.
What do we have to do to achieve this goal? Well, this seems sensible to me:
Bureaucracy should be agile. Yes, yes – I know: An irreconcilable contradiction in terms. Bureaucracies are dinosaurs defined.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can much longer afford that luxury. An agile bureaucracy is a Pentagon that actively predicts – within the limits of human ability – what weapons, tactics and countermeasures an insurgency will apply against us as thoroughly as they did with the Soviet Red Army Order of Battle in the past.
During the crisis on Apollo 13 a group of very smart men were given the small assortment of socks, clipboards, tape and plastic bags available aboard the crippled spacecraft and told to fashion a CO2 scrubber. They did it.
It seems to me that we need more of this type of gaming. Some of our Special Forces guys should be given the ramshackle tools available to an insurgency and proceed to make every possible weapon out of them that they can think of. It shouldn’t take too much convincing to put these guys to work finding new and unusual ways to blow things up. They need to do it before the bad guys do so we can observe, orient, decide and act to protect our men and women. I refuse to believe that barely educated, seventh-century murdering fanatics can do this faster and better then the men we field in the SEALS, Delta Force, and so on. We need to get inside the insurgents’ decision loop. We need, whenever possible, to anticipate their weapons and tactics so that we have our best countermeasures in place as quickly as possible. Certainly our troops in the field can cycle, innovate and evolve faster than these insurgents. The Pentagon will have to keep up. This is a tail that is going to have to wag a very large and overweight dog. There’s nothing else for it.
I have noticed that a simple, cheap, metal mesh has been welded to the outside of Stryker vehicles:
I assume this is used to pre-detonate incoming RPG rounds that would otherwise penetrate the actual armor. Did we find this out the hard way? I don’t know. But I for one would rather see a few of our own guys shooting RPG’s at empty Strykers out on some test range all day and all night than learn this lesson with real people. When Pierre Sprey and others demanded real-world testing on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, what they got were tests on vehicles whose gas tanks were filled with water. It was only after almost Herculean efforts that defects were corrected and niceties such as anti-spalling Kevlar inner linings were installed. How many lives has Pierre Sprey and others saved? These are not anti-war imbeciles trying to kill a weapons program. These are brilliant engineers and American patriots who want American soldiers to survive their battles.
Blocking or falsifying these kinds of tests should be a court-martial offense. Further, an agile Pentagon should have the power to streamline the delivery of what we need when we need it without delay, infighting or red tape.
The most shocking thing about Boyd’s battles with the Pentagon was that it revealed a general officer class that more often seemed more concerned with seniority and protection of one’s own posterior than with winning battles or protecting the lives of our soldiers. I do not want to be mistaken on this: these officers are, I believe to a man, patriots who love their country and cannot conceive of willfully doing her harm. But all isolated cultures suffer from a lack of perspective, from a lack of flexibility and from a self-reinforcing groupthink that protects the status quo at the expense of the pain of innovation. In the name of the country and the soldiers under their command, this needs to change.
It can be changed. To give only the one example I am most familiar with:
There was a time when being a Jet Airline Captain was about as close as a mortal could come to being God. All flight crews were taught – and most sincerely believed – that this absolute authority in the hands of great experience provided the greatest safety.
And then a jet crashed, and many people were killed. And the jet crashed because it ran out of fuel. And it ran out of fuel because the Captain thought he could make it, and the First Officer was too cowed to tell him he was wrong. That young pilot was, sadly in the most literal sense of the word, scared to death to tell the truth.
Since then, a new idea – Cockpit Resource Management – has made decision-making much more shared. The Captain still has the final say, and that is appropriate. But now First Officers are encouraged – required even – to disagree vocally and forcefully with actions they feel to be unsafe. The Captain is now required to brief the First Officer on the instrument approach he plans to fly. This has dramatically reduced minor errors that can cascade into catastrophes. At all flight critical phases a “sterile cockpit” is strictly enforced, which means that all conversation will be limited to the task at hand and no one gets distracted over who is eating what where after they land.
CRM has been hugely successful. In fact, a pilot/surgeon was so impressed with the results that he has taken many of aviation’s best ideas – written checklists, sterile conversation and actively-shared decision-making and briefing – into the operating room where many shockingly preventable mistakes continue to be made. Here too Gods have to be challenged. But the results speak for themselves… and even the most arrogant Captain would rather learn some new tricks than take two hundred people, himself included, into the ground.
I do not know for certain, but I’d be willing to bet that today’s Pentagon is considerably less rigid than the one Boyd faced in the sixties and seventies. But it took three years of observing a steadily deteriorating situation on the ground in Iraq before a new orientation-decision-action was initiated. That’s way too much observation and way too slow a response. Obviously the political leadership bears a great deal of this responsibility as well. We can do better. These are our men and women out there. I do not think there is a serving officer alive who fully and consciously would let their troops die to save their stars. But it is often very, very hard to get this signal across in a way it will be heard. CRM-like techniques can and should be made mandatory so that top decision makers get accurate and honest information from the people at the tip of the spear, and those who give it should be able to do so without fear of jeopardizing their careers. The faster we can do that – the faster we get and act on information and re-stock the train with what we need now and not two years ago – the more successful we will be.
Oh. And parenthetically, I would give a significant pay raise to every man and woman in the armed services. We need the best people we can get and we need more of them. They have been underpaid for far too long, and it’s a disgrace.
The Political Leadership should be agile. I know, it’s nice to dream, huh? But surely, approaching the five year mark in Iraq, we must realize that the only hope these insurgents have or ever did have is to sow enough despair and hopelessness among the American people that we walk away.
Why is it that the fielded military can adopt Boyd’s concept of agility and maneuverability, but the political leadership remains absolutely blind to the fact that this battle may or may not be won on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah and Ramadi, but it absolutely can be lost on the CBS Evening News? One would think the insurgents would need a multi-billion dollar, worldwide high-tech satellite network to spread their propaganda. But, being the generous people that we are, we have gallantly lent them ours.
This is an example of Swordlessness: using the enemy’s weapon against him. Two can play at that game, as we will see in a moment. But let’s just take it as read that the Main Stream Media no longer even seriously pretends to report facts. They have made an editorial decision that this conflict is a mistake and we should have stopped looking to them for fairness or balance a long time ago.
This is the battleground. Why – why – is the administration unable or unwilling to commit resources to this theater of operations?
A friend of mine has two brothers serving both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Together, they have been deployed seven times to these war zones. Jake Rademacher is a documentary filmmaker of real talent who had the guts to go to Iraq and live with his brothers outside the Green Zone for several weeks. His film, Brothers at War, is an actual documentary: that is to say, he did not script it and he does not push a viewpoint. What he does do is show his two brothers living in a country that is by turns violent and gentle, with people good and bad, brave and cowardly, and through it all you get to see why his two brothers chose to go back there and risk their lives again and again.
If this film were shown to the American people, support for the war would go up thirty points; not because it has a point to make but simply because it doesn’t. You just see what goes on and you make your own decision.
Brothers at War, and the writings of Michael Yon, Michel Totten and precious few others, are worth entire divisions. They have allowed us a perspective of what is really going on over there. They have lived there for years, long enough to know the people and what makes good news or bad. They have earned my trust and deepest respect for unblinking and courageous reporting that has put the MSM to shame. I suspect Michael Yon has spent more time within the sound of gunfire than any other MSM reporter has total time in country. And he and Mike Totten and a few others have allowed that signal – that small, pure signal – to escape into the ether. Or rather, into the Ethernet.
We have held this line – barely – with the efforts of men like that and a few private citizens writing in their pajamas. The political leadership needs to get in this fight. Now.
And now, finally, to the Surge, and a new warrior-scholar.
SWORDLESSNESS
We’ve spent a lot of time with John Boyd, because I and others believe his theories not only won the war, but if properly applied they might do the nearly impossible and win the peace as well.
If I understand this enigmatic and complex man correctly, he came to the conclusion that there was something beyond the Perfect Sword; something beyond even the Perfect Swordsman. Because as Sun Tzu pointed out, there is a level of warrior satori beyond even that. Beyond them both lay Swordlessness.
Swordlessness is not peace and it is certainly not surrender. Swordlessness uses nothing but the enemy’s sword against him. Perfect Swordlessness is a sublime victory so complete that there is no fight at all. It is over before it begins.
General Petraeus – just perhaps – is in the process of winning such a victory in Iraq. By brilliant diplomacy, deep understanding of the culture and the judicious use of gunpowder and money, it appears he has severed most of the Sunni tribes from al Qaeda and used them as “Awakening” peacekeeping militias against their former allies. General Petraeus is not fighting the last war; he is fighting the next one. He did not arrive there and just hope for the best. He observed. He oriented. He decided. And he acted. And then he observed again to see what effect he had. And again. And again.
This is not firepower. This is not attrition. This is, rather, an intelligent, delicate, sophisticated, maneuver-based strategy. A light, but sometimes deadly touch. Fingertip control. Water flowing downhill, into the cracks which our enemy cannot fill.
And while you can criticize the President for not taking a relatively unknown, low-ranking general and giving him the whole ball of wax sooner, you might also note that Gen. Creighton Abrams' radical change of strategy in Vietnam was implemented only after it was well and truly too late.
If this continues, Gen. Petraeus will have walked into the camp of the enemy and used his own sword against him. That is a profound species of victory.
You can not put a value on the power an idea such as the one that drives Gen. Petraeus’ “Awakening” strategy. A man’s ultimate motivation is to provide for his family. A man, when all is said and done, is powered by nothing more or less then the desire to make his family safe and proud of him.
If Americans pay such a man to walk the streets of his own neighborhood, keeping the peace by cooperating with a foreign army, will he take a coin so offered? I suppose it depends on whether or not he can do so with honor. No one wants foreign troops in their towns or streets. But we have been there long enough for the essential American decency and sincerity to be revealed, and spare me please any mention of Abu Graib or Haditha which were atrocities that were investigated and punished by an army that had no force to compel it to do so short of its own decency. These people are not blind. They know what is in a few diseased hearts and what is policy. The United States Army did something they have not ever seen in that country. Power policed itself.
“Awakening” is working because most Iraqis now have come to the conclusion that we are not there to steal their oil or their land and that the average man may cooperate with us without compromising his honor or the respect of his family. As our side of the scale rises, they are confronted with an ever more desperate al Qaeda whose decision loop lags further behind us every day. Desperate, they become more cruel. For American infidels to sail halfway across the world and win the hearts and minds of Muslims when they themselves cannot, is a tremendous shock to them. Why, I suppose someone like Katie Couric might even call it a Grim Milestone.
We have lost some of our best people in Iraq, and they are irreplaceable. But morale is a two-edged sword. We have lost a very small percentage of the force we deployed. They have lost almost all of all they had to send. These are people too. They get tired of fighting just like we do. I suppose the only difference is that if one of them urges surrender on their own people they are taken out and beheaded, while if some of our own people do so to us, they are given an Academy Award and big sack of cash.
When Osama bin Laden launched the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, he explained in a video to his own followers that it was because America was a paper tiger too afraid to take casualties, and that defeating The Great Satan would be even easier than defeating the Soviets. "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse," he said.
I wonder if our illegal, immoral, unilateral cowboy adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq may have tempered this view somewhat. This Great Saladin is now reduced to living in a cave, calling for the end of Global Warming and begging for recruits to fight in Iraq. In doing so he is admitting that it is he, not us, who is the weak horse to a people with ears very, very finely tuned to such frequencies.
Look at this picture of the aftermath of an IED explosion. Who do you think this Iraqi child considers the ‘strong horse?’ Can you fake this kind of reaction, this instantaneous bolt to safety in the middle of fire and death?
I don’t think you can. I don’t think you can fake this either:
Or this:
And as for the Surge, I am struck by one thought, and that is this: It seems clear now that we needed more troops in theater from Day One. But I think the spectacular success of the Surge is due less to the number of boots on the ground than it is to something far more important.
Looking back on the rise of the insurgency, it seems as if the average Iraqi did not know what to make of America. I suspect that many would have been far more supportive a long time ago, if it were not for the image of a helicopter atop a building in 1975 and a line of desperate people running for their lives. To work with Americans may have been what many wanted to do much, much sooner.
But…
When Michael Moore makes a hugely successful film praising Saddam’s paradise and calling these people who bomb women and children in marketplaces “freedom fighters,” and when an election turns and places into Congressional power a political party dedicated to reproducing that helicopter tableau as soon as possible... what would you do? Because if you guess wrong and the Americans leave, you will be taken out into the street in front of your family and have your head sawed off.
I think the Surge has had spectacular success not because of the additional troops so much as for the fact that when the media and the Democrats demanded we cut and run… we did not cut and run. We doubled down. When the calls for defeat and dishonor were at their loudest – sad to say a not unwarranted street rep we had made for ourselves – somehow, somehow we simply just hung on and gave them not a retreat but a charge.
Jesus Christ, but that must have gotten someone’s attention. Yes, the Surge is working. But I believe it is not a surge of boots that is doing the work so much as it is a surge of hope.
And hope… well, hope is a dangerous thing. For every day that Iraq returns not only to normal but to free normal is a day remembered. It is a day to which other, darker days may be compared.
Every day of success, every newly opened shop, every school and soccer game free of secret police and each and every night devoid of the terror of arbitrary arrest and execution is something to lose. It is something the murdering bastards of al Qaeda cannot give but can only take away. We have taken their sword from them. They wield it now only against themselves. They will do it, too: more pain and more death are coming, for that is all they know how to do. But hope walks the streets of Baghdad now, hope in the form of decent and brave young men and women who have held a line against all odds and perhaps bought with their courage and their blood the time we need for that hope to spread.
Hope can spread here, too. A few weeks ago, a remarkable story may have passed under your radar: in an extremely unusual move, General Petraeus was asked to briefly return to “the Building” (the five-sided one) from his command in Iraq to help select the next 40 or so Brigadier General candidates from a pool of about 1,000 colonels. These forty officers are the new Golden Boys: fast-tracked rising stars who will be determining how, if not when or where or why we will fight in the new century.
This is a very unusual move, and it appears to be universally recognized as a major shift on the part of the Pentagon to make sure that talent, rather than seniority, will be the benchmark for promotion. To call back from Iraq the General with the PhD in International Relations, the man whose light, agile, fingertip control of the situation on the ground has yielded such remarkable success, is a strong indication that the High Priests with the stars on their shoulders are determined to see us succeed with new tactics and new doctrine for the new challenges we face.
It’s a good sign. A hopeful sign.
And if hope catches hold and finds a way to grow in that arid and distant land, then I would like to live long enough to see David Petraeus, Michael Yon and Michael Totten standing on a podium in the Rose Garden under an administration I could then afford not to care too much about, and watch as they lower their heads and the President of the United States – whoever that may be – puts the Medal of Freedom around their necks.
For win or lose, they have earned it.
(Everything I learned about John Boyd I discovered through BOYD: THE FIGHTER PILOT WHO CHANGED THE ART OF WAR by Robert Coram, available here.
And if you missed it earlier and can spare seven minutes to improve your life, I think you will be as deeply impressed as I was when I saw the trailer for my friend Jake Rademacher's Brothers at War located here.
Finally, if you'd like to support these essays, you can purchase a copy of SILENT AMERICA: ESSAYS FROM A DEMOCRACY AT WAR by clicking here.)
Posted by Proteus at January 1, 2008 9:52 PM
Welcome to the Eject! Eject! Eject! commenter community. Please read and understand the following:
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Now let's see some distributed intelligence and basic human decency! Don't make me come down there every five minutes!
Comments
Incredible.
Posted by: pdwalker | January 2, 2008 1:17 AM
truly remarkable analysis. It is often, almost always that agile leadership changes the face of war. It has done so here. Very encouraging for one who has supported the war both in Afghanistan and at home training troops to go to war. Thank you Bill.
Posted by: redleg | January 2, 2008 4:22 AM
Mr. Whittle, another brilliant entry in your overwhelming resume. It has me thinking, exploring, and learning even more, "as we speak."
And a thought that occurs to me, which may get me labled as a "one note canary..." --
How similar, and seemingly closely related, are the approaches of:
1.) OODA, Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.
2.)The Scientific Method, Oserve, Form Hypostheses, Test the Hypotheses, Refine the Hyposthoses, and Observe, (repeat all).
3.)The practical application of the skills and dispositions common to honest-to-goodness Critical Thinking thoughout the development of our Western Civilization.
Anyone else see a relationship, here, or is it my prejudices on display?
An excellent read, Sir!
Posted by: Paul A. | January 2, 2008 5:08 AM
If I could add one thing or perhaps refine one thing, to the concept of SA, its not so much that your making descions faster, though certainly thats part of it, its that true situational awareness is like watching a chess master who know to within a few moves, when checkmate will occur. every choice your opponent in ACM makes LIMITS his further choices, a Fighter pilot can see the entire fight play out in his mind, knows the fight is over before its joined. At that points its simply a question of matching his actions to the path that brings victory.
Posted by: chris keith | January 2, 2008 6:27 AM
Good article. A messure of a man's greatness is also reflected in his personal life. We all suffer some shortfalls and Boyd was no exception.
Posted by: Dave "Redbone" Bentz | January 2, 2008 8:09 AM
Bill, thanks so much for lifting me out of my new year's funk with this brilliant effort. Even though I disabled my TV years ago, I am not immune to the daily drumbeat of the MSM designed to erode our confidence and destroy the foundational pillars of national greatness. My faith is restored knowing that America still produces the innovators, both intellectual and practical, who seem always to rise to the occaision when we need them. America does it better than anyone else. What a powerful combination is personal liberty and a can-do spirit. America is going to show the world a thing or two yet.
And Paul, yes, I see the relationship. You're not a one note canary. Quite the opposite, you're singing in the choir. What you need to recognize is that the human mind needs certain conditions before it can apprehend the truth through logical analysis. Again, it goes back to the culture war where "truth" is always handed down as a revelation from on high. This tendency by self-appointed elites must be fought with every bit the tenacity on display by our soldiers in Iraq. I suppose I have my own tendencies to preach to the choir. Well, so be it then.
Posted by: Mark William Paules | January 2, 2008 8:12 AM
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/02/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Posted by: David M | January 2, 2008 8:30 AM
For many, MANY links on Boyd, see http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm
There's even a PDF of his "Aerial Attack Study" from 1964, which I've never seen anywhere else.
Posted by: Ripper | January 2, 2008 8:31 AM
Bravo! Thank you for this delightful work,and for keeping it simple for us non-military types!
Blessings
Elle
Posted by: Elle | January 2, 2008 8:56 AM
Now, that is how you make history, philosophy, and political science readable.
Thank you, Bill.
Posted by: Russ | January 2, 2008 9:04 AM
This essay is far more interesting, informative, and accurate than anything in the mainstream media. Happy New Year!
Posted by: Recovering Liberal | January 2, 2008 9:47 AM
As usual, a brilliant piece. I shall forward the links to all of my friends - again. :) When are *you* going to run for Congress? Start making an even bigger difference?
Posted by: Michael | January 2, 2008 10:10 AM
Whittle again proves why all must be dropped and his posts read upon their earliest appearance.
Pure insight and profoundly moving.
God Bless our Fighting Men and Women.
Run, Whittle, RUN!
Posted by: Alex | January 2, 2008 10:51 AM
Outstanding, Bill, just outstanding. The service you do with these essays is beyond price.
Keep up the excellent work. We're lucky to have you in the fight.
Posted by: Jeff | January 2, 2008 10:55 AM
Exceptional essay, Mr. Whittle. I would make only one quibble. I don't think the Iraqis were remembering our cowardly exit from Vietnam in the years before the surge.
They were remembering the Frist Gulf War and the broken promises that led to near genocide. They were remembering how we betrayed the Kurds and those who wanted to rise up against Hussein.
And they saw how the man who led that retreat into "containment" was promoted to Secretary of State. They saw his undersecretary say that Iran was a perfectly good democracy. They saw how we seemed less than interested in killing Islamists than inviting everyone into their country to choose their government.
Now, things are different. We
Posted by: Jimmie | January 2, 2008 11:23 AM
This essay is a captivating read as all your essays always are.
However, I disagree with the analysis in a couple of spots. I think the success of the surge has more to do with desperation than hope - the desperation of the tribes potentially being under al Qaeda's thumb forever led the Sunnis to be more cooperative.
Which the leads to the 2nd point. Gen. Petraeus was in the right place at the right time. His ability to make the progress he has would have been hugely impeded had he been given command earlier since al Qaeda had not yet drove the tribes to desperation.
Posted by: Bret | January 2, 2008 11:23 AM
This has a lot in common with your piece on Gettysburg.
BTW the greys have a few tricks up their sleeves as well.
http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2007/12/bussard-fusion-update.html
Posted by: M. Simon | January 2, 2008 11:47 AM
Brings to mind what Rumsfeld was trying to do with our military, make our troops more agile, lighter, smaller footprint, working with locals in a different way.
Posted by: kelly | January 2, 2008 11:50 AM
Bill,
The slat armour anti-rpg defense goes back to Vietnam and the M113. It is an old trick but an effective one.
Posted by: Mike Puckett | January 2, 2008 11:51 AM
Thank you.
Simply, Thank you.
Posted by: rudytbone | January 2, 2008 11:52 AM
I read this article with great interest. My son-in-law is a fighter pilot. My back ground is manufacturing and quality improvement.It is very eerie how similar the OODP is to what is known as the Shewhart Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act). Also eerie is how CRM resmebles how we tried to nvolve the people actualyy doing the work in the decision making. This is a classic case of how quailty improvement principles are universal and can be applied to process improvements. One wise man (Phil Crosby) once said "all work is a process". This is a excellent example. Many good points and lessons in this piece.
Posted by: Robert Ashton | January 2, 2008 12:23 PM
A lot of Boyd's ideas (minus the OODA loop) can be found in a book by B.H.L. Hart "Strategy". It was written in the 1920s with additions clear into the 1960s.
It is a text used in all the military academys.
Posted by: M. Simon | January 2, 2008 12:31 PM
Great stuff, Bill! Many, many thanks.
And perhaps it's just my opinion, but I think your writing is improving. You're staying on message, avoiding digressions, resisting the temptation to be snarky merely for snark's sake... and your essay is much stronger as a result.
So I'm not going to join the chorus asking you to run for Congress. Do so if it's what you want; I wouldn't dream of discouraging you. But right now, I think the most valuable service you can provide us is to write. Keep those ideas coming, keep writing them up the way you do so well, and keep Getting The Word Out.
(The rest of us, in the meantime, can try to get copies of Silent America to our Congressmen.)
The work you're doing desperately needs to be done... and you're turning more heads than you know.
If the day ever comes when Michael Yon and Mike Totten are awarded the Medal of Freedom for their indispensable work -- and I agree completely that they deserve to be in the running -- perhaps there will be a medal available for you too.
with great respect,
Daniel in Brookline
Posted by: Daniel in Brookline | January 2, 2008 12:52 PM
A friend told me about Boyd a couple of months ago and I have been looking forward to reading more about him. Thanks. As to the Desert Storm tactical strategy, I have long recognized that it was pure Pattoneque in its planning and application. Patton strongly advocated pinning the enemy's front with superior firepower and then crashing fast armor through those lines into the vulnerable areas behind the enemy lines and letting them sow havoc and destruction against the non-combat oriented assets there. He called it "grabbing them by the nose and kicking them in the ass" and it worked beautifully in the Iraqi desert. Twice.
Posted by: Letalis Maximus, Esq. | January 2, 2008 12:58 PM
Mr Whittle, the effect you have on your readership reminds me of a scene from the classic The Golden Compass, where Iorek takes back his throne. Under the previous leader, who wanted nothing more than to be like a human, the bears were divided, uncertain...but when Iorek overthrows him all traces of human trickery and gaudiness are torn down and the bears know who they are again, and want nothing more than to be bears.
Though you do not defeat any armored bears in single combat, the effect you have is the same; no longer uncertain about my country or its actions, I want nothing more than to be an American. For that, I thank you.
Posted by: Math_Mage | January 2, 2008 1:07 PM
Great post, Bill. I really think that we have turned a corner in Iraq.
Posted by: Daniel Ruwe | January 2, 2008 1:12 PM
under Johnson and Nixon such a bold move was never tried at all.
This does an unwarranted and unjustified disservice to Creighton Abrams. Note that it was the Democrats in Congress who cut and ran out on the South Vietnamese who guaranteed their defeat not the U. S. military.
Posted by: Not a vet | January 2, 2008 1:17 PM
Good to have you back, Bill. We missed you.
Posted by: geekWithA.45 | January 2, 2008 1:24 PM
Dear Not a vet,
I thought very long and hard about discussing Abrams. On balance I believe you are right: it is a disservice. I will make a change immediately.
Thanks.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | January 2, 2008 1:30 PM
Another excellent piece. I do wonder though how agile the DoD could really be, given that so much of their spending is so heavily affected by pork ("we need X bases in this county, we need Y jobs building super-mega-fighter in my state"). One does dream though.
And with the WGA strike, any chance of more? :)
Posted by: Otis Wildflower | January 2, 2008 1:58 PM
While I'm not at all opposed to seeing military pay raises, I would point out that under the Bush administration, consistently healthy pay raises have reduced the military-civilian pay gap from over 13% in 1999 to just under 4% today.
I would also claim that part of the reason for clinging to the initial unsuccessful strategy was due to the hammering the administration was taking from the left, forcing the administration to minimize exposure to our troops and to rush the handover process.
Posted by: geoff | January 2, 2008 2:06 PM
While I'm not at all opposed to seeing military pay raises
should read, "to seeing additional military pay raises."
Posted by: geoff | January 2, 2008 2:07 PM
In addition to discussing Abrams, you might want to examine the Democratic Congress's decision to cut off aid to the RVN. As our school's now teach, America's history is full of shameful, self-serving, and callous acts. I think this decision ranks in the top three, exceeded only by the Dred Scott decision and the Trail of Tears. It might actually top these, if sheer body count is the criteria.
Posted by: chicken pilot | January 2, 2008 2:20 PM
Thanks Bill.
The contradictions and evil in this life can be overcome only by countering it with it's opposite, which is what eject is all about. I pity those who wont know that Hope Swells.
To all my fellow ejectians...well done. And those who are not yet, but come here anyway. Stop and listen and contrast. Some one inside is trying to tell you something
Hope Swells
Breath wades the shallows
Emotions swarm about
Like vultures waiting...uncertain
Swathed in fog dimmed sunlight
On a black frosted tree limb
above the flooding currents of life
...Hope swells
Stroked by happy, successful dreams
Held close to our cheeks purring
in rhythm with the swaying trees
A surround of chains and armor keep
Impervious to the dark unknown,
and fear will never know
...Hope swells
The scarlet sky may never bless our eyes
Tinting us and the green hills orange
Nattering avian may never bless our ears
With silence masking song
The touch of a mothers lips, warm to our skin
May never soothe our hearts
...but Hope swells
The flesh may hang on
Like roadside memorials
Striking squarely our mortality
Realizing that soon, too soon, we’ll be gone
Calling to question our beliefs
Of what lies beyond the fog
Where hope swells
Posted by: Leftfoot Leeds | January 2, 2008 2:23 PM
I think that the quote “quantity has a quality all its own.” is more usually attributed to Stalin (regarding Soviet tanks which were not as good as the German panzers.) Of course Stalin was not worried about the tankers who rode them.
But on the gripping hand, Petraeus (and Boyd) show that "quality has a quantity all its own".
Keep it up.
Geoff
Posted by: R. G. Newbury | January 2, 2008 2:35 PM
Bill,
Great to have you posting another essay. I'll hold most of my fire until I can re-read it. Coram's book is a good one. So is this website.
However. I have two nits to pick.
1. Submarine warfare is not deer hunting, especially when the 'deer' is another submarine. I once met this fighter pilot at RAND who said submariners and fighter pilots are cut from similar cloth (link is to order page for a free reprint from RAND, as I haven't seen it on line recently). Imagine a dogfight that lasts a week solid, or longer, with fog and no radar, and E-M coming into play when the weapons launch and even then differently than for a Sidewinder. Go ye and learn something about us bubbleheads and you'll see why sub COs by nature are as confident as fighter jocks but somewhat differently. You might also want to look at the World War Two issues with the Mark 14 torpedo, which will both raise your opinion of Swede Momsen and make you apoplectic about the Bureau of Ordnance.
2. Be careful not to take the wrong lessons from Boyd and the acolytes, just like we should also be careful not to hew too close later on to the attentions of the acolytes around Petraeus over at SWJ who actually did the hard skull sweat to enable the surge. Even considering the fact that the guys who wrote the book also get credit for the surge strategy, the greater point is still germane. If air-to-air is the only goal for purchasing an airplane, you get some different results than if national security is your goal. Neptunus Lex did some studying about this after the fact and came to an unsettling conclusion: don't forget everything else. (Although he still sees the need for air-to-air specific platforms). Also, OODA is more than a loop; it's a big ol' briefing; one possible way to beat an opponent is by having your OODA loop so slow that the other guy fibrillates strategically. Jeane Kirkpatrick shows how the PLO won this way over decades, by slowly changing the game to fit their desires. The guys making splodetdope children's shows know this; that's why they're teaching the kids to grow up takfiri.
Posted by: Chap | January 2, 2008 2:42 PM
Excellent article. It would be great if other blogs carried references to this incredible article on our military.
Posted by: Doug Wright | January 2, 2008 2:43 PM
Crap, Geoff, it was Stalin.
Looks like I misoverestimated my memory abilities.
Fixed. Thanks.
Posted by: Bill Whittle | January 2, 2008 2:52 PM
My only real concern with this piece is your out-of-hand dismissal of the "light footprint" strategy as Bush taking three years to execute OODA. It was during this time, when America was largely withdrawn from the streets, that the Iraqis got a taste of how AQ and the insurgents would run things. That seems to have played a key factor in the surge of the past few months.
IMHO it's quite possible that the surge would not have worked earlier; thus Bush's plan may not have been "go in, wait three years, execute OODA." Instead, in this line of thought, it was him executing OOD constantly to determine whether it was time to implement a surge-like strategy or not.
Then again, even if it's true that the light footprint helped by acquainting common Iraq with the horrors of AQ, that doesn't mean it was deliberately planned. I just wanted to point out that it's not quite as one-shade-black as you make it out to be in your essay.
Posted by: Math_Mage | January 2, 2008 3:28 PM
Bill, every time I read one of your analyses/essays, I'm convinced that all who do so should be paying for the privilege.
Tell me where we can make a donation on your recommendation.
Posted by: ...Alex | January 2, 2008 4:14 PM
Another fine essay sir!
As in most conflicts, the tactics are readily observable; the strategies often take years to decipher. When our “small footprint” occupation was implemented, I thought it might be based on lessons learned from Viet Nam – to minimize native dependency on our forces, and get the Iraqis “stood up” as soon as possible. As time went on, I began to wonder if we wanted Al Queda to mass in Iraq so we could both learn their tactics/networks and kill them en masse (flypaper strategy). Later, I wondered if part of the strategy was to dangle the threat of regional Persian/Shia ascendancy before the Sunnis to gain regional political leverage, or perhaps even to throw the region into internecine warfare ala Richelieu. Finally, I began to wonder if we wanted Al Queda to fill the power vacuum all along and let them demonstrate their predictable brutality. In this way the Iraqis would be forced to choose sides and unify politically, rather than remain a cobbled group of disparate sects and tribes that has historically fostered either brutal tyranny or Islamofascism.
Or perhaps we simply misjudged the initial number of troops needed, and finally made the right adjustments…
It may be years until we know for certain.
Posted by: Idly Awed | January 2, 2008 4:53 PM
Thanks for this wonderful analysis.
The video with our combat troops and the Iraqi children brought tears to my eyes, especially as it dawned on me that many of them were born after March, 2003.
Jamie Irons
Posted by: Jamie Irons | January 2, 2008 4:57 PM
Outstanding essay Bill, just outstanding.
May 2008 be a wonderful year for you.
Posted by: lowandslow | January 2, 2008 5:08 PM
Not taking anything away from Gen. Patraeus who has has a phenomenal success, but he basically adopted the Marine strategy of living in the area that was being controlled rather than returning to base. Getting the Army to adopt Marine doctrine was no mean feat.
On the neeed for more troops after the fall of Baghdad, we would have fallen into same trap as in Vietnam, had we done so. More troops using failed tactics don't win wars. There, we never held territory, we didn't protect the village chiefs who cooperated with us. Where we controlled areas by day, the VC would slit their throats or string them up at night. As much as many supported the government, life is always more important then freedom.
The real story on winning the war is what has happened in the USA. In the Vietnam conflict the major media controlled all reporting. They were successful in creating a defeat. Now they can't. The new media, be they the internet, talk radio, FNC or a handful of conservative newspapers has provided a powerful counterweight to those who preach defeat.
Posted by: Corky Boyd | January 2, 2008 5:08 PM
"When are *you* going to run for Congress?"
I respectfully disagree. I don't want Bill in Congress. I want him teaching history at the university that my son attends.
Hell, I would enroll as a Non-Degree student and sit next to my son in the lecture hall.
Posted by: Pat | January 2, 2008 5:14 PM
Incredibly fascinating analysis and article, every single bit of it, not one word out of place.
Posted by: reine.de.tout | January 2, 2008 5:58 PM
Gosh, I hate to be the one to flip on the lights while all this heavy petting is going on, especially since I really enjoyed the first part of this essay. Yet it is hardly a view of "The Big Picture," which mentions nothing about our failure still to get the Iraqis to move even an inch towards any sort of national reconciliation. This is, after all, the chief aim of the surge, and the metric by which it will ultimately be judged.
But, no--for Bill, the big picture is the same old, same old: the perfidious MSM & the ignoble Democrats. All that eloquence wasted in part 2, because he offers no analysis, really, regarding the diplomatic agility required to bring intractable sides together, and to raise our battered reputation in the world. Just ignore the media--except a select few whose biases are well-known--and vote for Republicans; then all will be well.
This despite the fact that while Yon & Totten do fine and important work, for the most part, their perspectives are no more clear, pure or valid than any number of other media outlets. Right now, most all of the media are straight-reporting the changes going on in Iraq, just as back when the insurgency began they were reporting that as well (and incidentally, people like Totten, Bill & the Administration were disparaging them for that, too). The same goes for the media reports last year of an incipient civil war, denied again by the Administration and others, which along with a new Democratic Congress finally forced the Administration’s hand, and more than anything else led to the surge being implemented in the first place.
It’s jarringly incongruous for Bill to advocate stripping the veneer from airline captains and butt-covering generals, and yet to see nothing wrong with demanding that the media and the political opposition—many of whom were correct about the folly of this war--put a sock in it. As if George W. Bush, of all people, were possessed of some sort of unique infallibility.
If Fingerspitzengefuhl is an appropriate theme for Part 1 of his essay, Dolchstosslegende is even more so for Part 2.
Posted by: Dolf Fenster | January 2, 2008 6:02 PM
Very good. I have studied Boyd and your association to IRAQ is spot on.
It is all about information warfare. The light footprint we used until the Surge may have been a stategy or bueracratic stagnation; either way the EFFECT seems to have been that the IRAQI people got fed up with the insurgents and wanted something different. At best the news media in this country is so shallow and incompetant to cover sucess in IRAQ but would rather headline Britny and OJ; at worst they are actively trying to hide the facts from the American Public. Preception is reality. Always remember that the TV network with largest WORLD WIDE viewership is...MTV; any questions why America is preceived as the great SATAN. Only the American soldier has been able to change that in IRAQ; one day and one person at a time.
Posted by: Bill Butler | January 2, 2008 6:38 PM
Actually, that trick with the wire mesh around the armored vehicle dates back even further than Vietnam. I've seen pictures of tanks with wire mesh (sometimes even bed-springs) taken during the Battle of Berlin.
Posted by: L | January 2, 2008 6:50 PM
"except a select few whose biases are well-known--and vote for Republicans; then all will be well."
Nice strawman, asshole.
WHere does Bill advocate voting for Republicans?
Granted he points out the ineptitude, cowardice, and hucksterism of the Dems, which any thinking human would be remiss in failing to observe, but he is critical of the administration as well.
Typical so-called "liberal"
Let me guess- your an "activist"? Obama or Edwards?
Posted by: TMF | January 2, 2008 6:58 PM
Dolf,
You must get a different MSM than me.
Posted by: BignJames | January 2, 2008 7:01 PM
Happy New Year to me.
Thanks Bill. A nice way to kick off 2008.
Posted by: physics geek | January 2, 2008 7:03 PM
Dolf, really...it's okay.
I know any sign of success for America is something that must be very, very hard on you. And surely those children interacting with those soldiers in the second video would have been much better off shot in the back of the head and buried with their teddy bears along with the thousands we found when we arrived there in 2003, because after all, the important thing is that Dolf Fenster knows folly when he sees it.
I will certainly stop the same old same old about the perfidious MSM & the ignoble Democrats the very instant they cease behaving in a perfidious and ignoble fashion. Saying I mention this quite a lot is not, I notice, not the same as you proving why they do not deserve every grain of it.
Until that time, let's just be men about this, shall we Dolf? You believe the action in Iraq is folly and you want it to fail. I believe it is noble and want it to succeed. Fair enough, I guess.
As Jamie Irons pointed out a few posts above, (and which I certainly did not realize until he did so) those kids in the video are the first generation of free Iraqi children...well...ever.
It's obvious that you think that's not worth more than having to endure some snark from French cinema critics, obviously, so let's just concude we have a different set of values and leave it at that.
History will judge us both, and I am prepared to stand my case based on the expressions of those free children. You, of course, who have known nothing but freedom will still call it folly whenever it needs to be fought for, because that's who you are.
I do feel sorry for you. I can't fully imagine what it must be like to feel as you do, but it doesn't look like a fun or happy place to be.
Certainly your last comment will stand. But I'm not going to let you hijack this thread the way I have seen it done since I started this venture. If you feel this is unfair, then by all means be sure to check out BLOGGER. It's free. You can write all the defeatist posts you'd like. You just can't do it here.
(BTW - bonus points for the 'heavy petting' reference. It's rare to find liberals who can resist 14 year old sexualizations, and as usual you do not disappoint. It confirms a theory I have, which may bear more thinking about in the future.)
Posted by: Bill Whittle | January 2, 2008 7:05 PM
The logic of Dolf:
For political gain, the Dems call for full retreat in Iraq at a time when doing so would result in mass blood shed (oh those humanists!!!).....
Bush/Petraeus do the precise OPPOSITE of what the Dem clowns are promoting, increasing troop levels with enormous, epic,, brilliant success
And in the mind of mental midgets like Dolf- the credit goes to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid! The true "priest warriors" of our time!!!! See? Liberal (ill)logic at work!
Posted by: TMF | January 2, 2008 7:05 PM
It makes even better sense if you read Imperial Grunts and The Pentagon's New Map
Posted by: Mark | January 2, 2008 7:09 PM
"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," So said Senate majority leader April 20, 2007. The man has had considerable difficulty speaking the last few months, what with his mouth filled with his own shoe leather.
Posted by: brinster | January 2, 2008 7:10 PM
Right now, most all of the media are straight-reporting the changes going on in Iraq, just as back when the insurgency began they were reporting that as well.
Lileks is right: we have two incongruent, non-intersecting data streams running through this country. That is SO not how so many of us remember it.
But there you are.
Bill, you've hit another one out of the park. Any idea on how we can use OODA to get out ahead of the MSM and cause them to impale themselves on their own swords?
Posted by: dicentra | January 2, 2008 7:15 PM
Bill, thank you for yet another informative an inspiring essay. Do NOT waste your time running for office. Keep writing.
Posted by: USBeast | January 2, 2008 7:15 PM
"It’s jarringly incongruous for Bill to advocate stripping the veneer from airline captains and butt-covering generals, and yet to see nothing wrong with demanding that the media and the political opposition—many of whom were correct about the folly of this war--put a sock in it. As if George W. Bush, of all people, were possessed of some sort of unique infallibility."
I didn't see that anywhere. And the folly of this war is a laughable phrase for anyone with an ounce of historical perspective, for it is hard to imagine accomplishing so much as it seems we might for so few causualties sustained and inflicted collaterally by our soldiers.
Nevermind that though, no one says you can't criticize what has happened, though whether you should is of course up for debate. Rather, you--or rather that oh so loyal oppositiion that is so very oppressed you can hardly hear anything else--should stop trying to lose now that we are undeniably winning by a wide and remarkable margin.
That is all. You can go to your "Bush is stoopid" club and criticize the illegal (ha) and immoral (ha!!) war all you want, but please stop trying to turn liberty into wide-scale massacre.
Posted by: Randy Mill | January 2, 2008 7:17 PM
(cut my name short there, sorry)
Posted by: Randy Miller | January 2, 2008 7:17 PM
Gosh, I didn't even have to exercise restraint. Fun.
It's spectacular how few words are needed to reveal the vast chasm between the left and this Republic.
Posted by: Otto Gass | January 2, 2008 7:27 PM
Sheer, raw, brilliance.
May I add: I have for five years now compared Bush's decision to go to Bahgdad to Chamberlain's decision to fix bayonets and charge down Little Round Top in July of 1863.
Namely, in both cases the decision was rather easy for the commander. He could not retreat, and he could not stay put. Ergo, forward it was. In 2003, evacuation from Saudi would have been an immense victory for Saddam and Osama simultaneously. Out of the question. And staying put is what gave us 9-11.
So forward it was. No other option out there.
Of course, detractors look at me like I have two heads at this point, but I stand by it.
So it is interesting to see you say "When the calls for defeat and dishonor were at their loudest.... we simply just hung on and gave them not a retreat but a charge."
Perhaps our Commander in Chief was just so "dumb" and "un-nuanced", that he, like J.L. Chamberlain, simply saw no other option but forward with fixed bayonets.
And with similar results, it would seem.
History is indeed made by such men.
Posted by: Andrew X | January 2, 2008 7:38 PM
Dicentra:
Don't you see? You and I are communicating directly. I have no idea who you are or where you live, but like the others who take time to leave a comment here, you are being heard. If I didn't know you people were out there I would never write I word. After all, I get to hear this stuff in my head all day. (It sounds exactly like Charlie Brown's teacher on the old holiday cartoon specials.)
This two-way communication is doing precisely what you hope for: getting inside the MSM loop. I made an improvement to the essay based on Not a Vet's comments within a few minutes of getting the feedback. Agility!
The fact that you can see that Army captain kidding those Iraqi kids is because, finally, we have a chance to determine for ourselves what to decide on information that is circumventing the editorial policies of our intellectual and moral betters at CBS News and the New York Times.
It's just a flat-out miracle. I'm proud and honored to be a small part of it, and you should be too.
=)
Freedom rules!
Posted by: Bill Whittle | January 2, 2008 7:45 PM
Dolf!
So glad you showed up. Another perspective is always appreciated. So let's look at your critique point-by-point.
(A) National reconciliation. In a society as tribal and complex as Iraq, what makes you (or anyone) think they can affect a program to force Iraqis to the table? The plan, as in Afghanistan, is to provide the necessary security to allow the locals to work it out for themselves. And if you believe that people (despite monumental stupidity) will recognize self-interest, well then the plan might actually work.
(B) I did not see the words "perfidious MSM" or "ignoble Democrat" anywhere in the post. So where did that come from?
(C) Yon's perspective is not clear. Umm? I'll trust the insight of someone who knows the smell of real carnage any day. Ideology fades real fast in the face of death . . . and rotting corpses.
Posted by: Mark William Paules | January 2, 2008 7:54 PM
Dolf,
Just a small point.
"...our failure still to get the Iraqis to move even an inch towards any sort of national reconciliation..."
Government cannot evolve from the top down. It just doesn't work that way. The soldiers in the Revolutionary War weren't fighting for America, they were fighting for their state, their county, their hometown. Government grows from the house, to the block, to the neighborhood, to the city, to the state, to the country. That's the way it's always been. We were foolish to believe that we could change that in Iraq.
That's the brilliance of the Petraeus strategy.
In any true sense, we were not a "Union" until after the Civil War. Four Score and Seven years after we became a "nation"
Posted by: daddyquatro | January 2, 2008 8:09 PM
Dolf seems to get around the blogs on a regular basis. Google his name and see for yourself. The same un-earned superior, smug attitude that most liberals have. I notice that he has disappeared since he made his comment, but then, cockroaches always run when the lights are turned on.
Bill, once again, an outstanding article. It will be forwarded to many, many people. Please consider running for office.
Happy New Year to you and yours.
Posted by: William Blythe | January 2, 2008 8:15 PM
I always enjoy the reaction when someone new gets exposed to Boyd and the OODA loop. Thanks!
BTW, of all the services the OODA loop is probably most widely embraced now by the Marines.
Posted by: SMSgt Mac | January 2, 2008 8:29 PM
Speaking of Marines, I just read Hard Corps, by a marine winner of the Navy Cross, Martinez. Not that I needed new respect for the bad-assery of our Marines, but that'll do it. :)
Posted by: Randy Miller | January 2, 2008 8:35 PM
Great work (again.) I just finished reading Dick Couch's Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior. It's a great read and shows that in SF training the principle of constant adaptation is alive and well.
Americans have always innovated; I remember seeing a statement from a former Soviet officer to the effect that Americans were hard to wargame since "you don't even follow your own doctrine."
But there's sure a lot of tension between a big institution and big multiyear procurement contracts and the kind of flexibility you're writing about.
Posted by: Peter Borregard | January 2, 2008 8:43 PM
Thank you for this awesome article. I have never visited your site before (I linked from LGF), but I will definitely be back.
Your analysis is right on the money. It is not only brilliantly descriptive, but prescriptive for a whole host of real life applications, particularly where leadership is needed.
Posted by: defogger | January 2, 2008 9:32 PM
As someone who seriously studies texts on medieval swordsmanship, I'll mention the odd fact that throwing down your sword to attack was a well established tactic in which you move in for a lock, throw, neck snap, or other such move, equivalent to switching from missiles to guns because a long weapon can be a hinderance when you go in close.
My other comment is that in some of the medieval and early Renaissance texts I see a practical knowledge of the effects of the OODA loop and time gained and lost move by move. One manual says to start out with your most unexpected attack - but to only carry it out for three or so moves. If you're not winning by then you should fly back out (break the engagement and reset the OODA clock) because if you're not winning then you are probably losing.
A much later English rapier manual (circa 1620) refers to delivering attacks that "discombobulate" your opponent and leave him in confusion and disorder.
Given the emphasis the period masters put on tactical innovation, the use of techniques unknown to your opponents, and the inevitability of those techniques eventually failing as new counters are developed, my assumption is that period swordsmanship made explicit principles of time, distance, perception, misdirection (always rated highly), and execution speed (action) - what to do if you're inside your opponent's reaction speed and what to do if your not, that many of the great generals Boyd studied may have been analogizing the complexities of their large battles to their more intimate and "gut" knowledge of hand-to-hand combat.
Along with the knowledge of actual swordsmanship, some of this ability may have been lost when we changed over to firepower battles in the gunpowder age.
Posted by: George Turner | January 2, 2008 9:33 PM
Seeing Bill had posted a new essay made me abandon my night's appointment of watching the Fiesta Bowl. Thanks, Bill; this Sooner fan didn't need to watch that mess.
The TV is still on, though, and ironically enough, an "Army Strong" commercial came on, and it begs the question: with the talent that is clearly behind the wonderful commercials produced for the U.S. Armed Forces, why haven't we seen the montaged images of our troops and Iraqi children in commercials?
If multimedia communications aimed at the American people is a major piece of the modern battleground (which, as Bill points out, it clearly is), then why don't the Armed Forces fight there as well?? People handwring over the winning of the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi (and let's not forget Afghani) people in particular, and Middle East Muslims in general, but merely take for granted the "hearts and minds" of the folks here. Yes, that should be a given, but as the disheartening slideshows over at zombietime and the slants of the MSM illustrate, such isn't the case. And because there are large enough collections of citizens who "think" like this, correspondingly large enough groups of elected officials feel empowered to behave likewise . . . only their actions bring serious consequences.
Rather than simply advertising to buttress recruitment, the Military should be producing . . . propaganda. Gasp! There once was a time when the artists in Hollywood took care of showing the people just how great and courageous the American GI's were, but those days are long gone. So what's wrong with a little self-promotion? Why doesn't the Military run ads in the homes of the constituents of the Reids, Pelosis, Murthas, et al? Forget talking about how effective and strong the U.S. Soldier is; show the American public how flippin' good the American Soldier is, and be not ashamed in doing so.
Oh, and Bill: thanks for so richly educating your readers on these wonderful little niches of history and aerospace experience from which larger life lessons can be found. Beyond the big ideas, this reader loves learning about topics like Forty-Second Boyd -- topics I never knew existed.
Posted by: Lance Salyers | January 2, 2008 9:39 PM
Brilliant as always, Bill. You provide much food for thought. It's great to see your posts here again.
Posted by: Julie c | January 2, 2008 9:49 PM
Well, Lance, this Gator fan had a bad day yesterday so I can relate.
Here's what I propose: Meyer stays as Florida Head Coach. Spurrier comes back from South Carolina as Offensive Coordinator and Stoops returns from Oklahoma as Defensive Coordinator.
I think these Fightin' Gamesoonators would kick ass!
Posted by: William Whittle | January 2, 2008 9:55 PM
Mr. Whittle,
This is riveting stuff, and Paul A. adds another level (one that I am working on myself). I have a question though. It is manifest that OODA is brilliance itself as tactical doctrine but there must be a hierarchical level that implements it as part of a strategy.
Take the mid nineteenth century cavalry for example. I have read some about the Civil War History and my observation has been that often set-piece battles were transformed by relatively new innovations like artillery and the more rapidly reloaded percussion cap rifle into hideous slaughters full of command blunders, fouled communication and miscalculations. Many of those battles were won not by the best original strategy but by the side whose general made the second-to-last mistake and had men who could stand up to the hell of battle at the right time. Some of the best examples of OODA in that era came from the cavalry where the likes of G.A. Custer, Nathan B. Forrest and Jeb Magruder were very good at getting “inside the opposition’s loop”. On notable occasions, though, all of them eventually got badly out of position and were responsible for various disasters. Magruder at Gettysburg ran into a beehive but that was nothing compared to Little Big Horn where Custer, who was so good at harassing warriors encumbered by the primitive nature of their culture and the burden of moving (and provisioning!) their entire civilization with them on the march.
Chap hits close to my question too- It goes like this: How do you integrate the instantaneous advantage of the small OODA victories into a bigger victory for civilization? How do we turn the feel-good pictures in your videos into a swing of momentum away from Saudi funded, Iranian patronized Jihad for the World-wide Caliphate? Do we have to invade all of them?
Best,
YBM
Posted by: Yaacov Ben Moshe | January 2, 2008 9:58 PM
For us old flight deck guys, it is keep your head on a swivel and anticipate the worst that can happen.
Seat of dungaree trousers, skivvies and skin chewed up one fine spring day in 1974. Head was not on a swivel and the jet blast from an A-7 sent me down the deck on my hind quarters. Cleaned up by the "Docs" and new duds and back on the "Roof". It was my job. (Apologies to Mike Rowe) or maybe not. Send Mike to sea on a Nimitz Class Carrier.
Posted by: Glenn M. Cassel, AMH1(AW), USN, RETIRED | January 2, 2008 10:36 PM
Dolf - your point about Yon & Totten not having any better perspective than the drive-bys is patently absurd. ONLY these two can claim the combat perspective they have. Nobody outside the military has the hands-on, eyewitness, experience on the ground. Not one soul.
They are also extremely careful to not extrapolate their experience into broader applications. I would be interested to learn if there are more than five facts they got wrong between them in all the hot zones they were in.
BW - could you please say if you exempt Rumsfeld (even a little)from your chastening of the behavior of the political class? Was it not the very sclerotic Pentagon and congressional staffs that sought to obfuscate? I'd genuinely appreciate a further thought or two from you on this.
Finally, the reason as to why the political class, as a whole, behave as ostriches, is that the vast middle who decides elections are intentionally ignorant. They are first denied a proper public education, and they then choose to avoid the pain of learning hard truths.
Pogo was correct. The enemy really is us. Your piece may be a glimmer of hope, but it seems to me we are an empire in irrevocable decline.
God bless you.
Posted by: Ed | January 2, 2008 10:45 PM
Brilliant essay. Again. All I can say is....
Amen!
Posted by: Robohobo | January 2, 2008 11:01 PM
Bill:
I'd love to respond to you and some of the other commenters, but am reticent to make the effort only to have you remove the comment. I'll be nicer, I promise, though I believe my initial critique was mostly substantive.
I'll check back tomorrow.
Posted by: Dolf Fenster | January 2, 2008 11:16 PM
Is the blogosphere a zero-sum game? Once again, I find myself without remotely adequate words, because Bill has taken them all. ;-) Bravo, and thank you!
Posted by: an unrepentant kulak | January 2, 2008 11:29 PM
You might want to consider how you come across here to people who don't already agree with you on everything. Through my eyes it looks like this:
Mr. Fenster mentions that he thinks there are some major problems with our nation's Iraq strategy that remain unaddressed. In response, he is called an asshole and a cockroach. Several other commenters have merely assumed that he has some kind of irrational worship of Democrats and hatred of Republicans, instead of addressing his concerns, and Mr. Whittle himself assumes that Mr. Fenster must somehow want our country to fail in Iraq.
I have a hard time seeing how this response will help anyone get closer to the truth, and can't help but think that as gifted a communicator as Mr. Whittle has the ability to do better.
The simple fact is that there are many people in this country -- myself included -- who are skeptical of our nation's ability to achieve lasting success in Iraq. I would very much like to believe that the surge is buying time for a workable political reconciliation, but I simply haven't heard of many facts that suggest our success so far is anything other than a direct effect of our presence, which would dissolve into civil war as soon as we left.
I'm not skeptical because I want those children to die, nor am I skeptical because I'm afraid of being unfashionable. I'm skeptical because I think the facts warrant skepticism.
I doubt you'd respond well if I told you that you're only a war supporter because you like killing foreigners and don't want to seem unpatriotic -- and you'd be right to be angry if I meant those things. They would, after all, be slanderous. Moreover, they are comfortable labels that substitute for a real response to your arguments. It should worry you when you feel comfortable leveling the equivalent charges against the "other side" as your first response.
The price of the smiles of those free children was the deaths of many others -- Iraqi children and adults, and American soldiers. People maimed and burnt half to death. I'm not criticizing our soldiers here; they do their job, and this has been a comparatively clean war, as far as wars go. Rather, we -- as a nation -- are responsible for having made those people pay that price for our war in Iraq. If we end up providing lasting liberty and peace for Iraq, then it will have been worth it. But I'd like to see more signs that we're doing something to bring that about. Is that unpatriotic?
I thought the enemy was the terrorists, not an entire half of our own USA.
Posted by: Benquo | January 2, 2008 11:39 PM
Great stuff and much needed in deciding where we should go from here. In the beginning though I would like to add that in the f-86 our pilots were given the top secret "flying tail" that made the plane able to handle the high speeds those jets flew at. The Mig had a traditional tail that became unstable when it went too fast. I know it's not the point of the article but by the end of the war the 86 was a much better jet than the Mig. We Americans should never quit reinventing the wheel. God speed the A-10.