You want to know what I think, ML Cavanaugh? Well... Remember YOU asked for it!
OODA Loop was NEVER About “Grand Strategy” Formulation
ML Cavanaugh is engaging in a transparent strawman argument unbecoming his impressive credentials. Cavanaugh entirely misrepresents the OODA Loop and the position of its advocates (at least the ones I’ve studied) as somehow believing that the OODA Loop, itself, constitutes a Grand Theory for formulating and executing Strategy.
Cavanaugh implies that Boyd and his acolytes believe that OODA explains the essence of ALL Strategy without ever citing a single example of Boyd or any of his devotees ever stating such a ludicrous proposition. Indeed, those he cites clearly state that OODA is limited to tactical circumstances. Whoever told Cavanaugh that OODA is a methodology for the Strategic-level of war likely knows less about Boyd than Cavanaugh demonstrates. This supposition is difficult to research, because Cavanaugh never provides a source behind his strawman assertion.
Cavanaugh says that, “context matters,” while he lifted OODA entirely out of its appropriate context. He distilled “everything Boyd” down to using OODA speed to induce chaos. But OODA is only a small (albeit important) piece of Boyd’s entire body of thought, and Boyd does not rely on OODA speed alone to fold the enemy inside himself.
Cavanaugh ignores Boyd’s important integration of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics on how we perceive and interact with both the external and internal environment and how we may induce chaos. He never digs into Analysis and Synthesis as it relates to the generation of options for adaptation. And these are only a few of the many points that Boyd covers in his body of work.
Cavanaugh attempts to squeeze the Genie back in the bottle by implying Boyd’s OODA was really just limited to aerial dogfighting (with a few grudging applications beyond that) -- a passe blood sport from a bygone era that will NEVER occur again (an assertion that sounds like a reprise of the Vietnam-era Pentagon Systems Analysts who decided Jet Fighters no longer needed Machine Guns). But Boyd expanded his study of warfare far beyond the skies and demonstrated that his theoretical constructs were actually rather timeless and widely applicable. Indeed, the United States Marine Corps’ insightful Capstone Doctrinal manuals are based largely upon the foundation laid by Genghis John. These manuals have remained essentially unchanged since they were published in the 1990s (Compared with U.S. Army Capstone Doctrine, which changes more frequently than an infant’s diapers). This point explains why more Marines attended Boyd’s funeral than Airmen.
He proclaims that Boyd left “nearly nothing written down,” which indicates why Cavanaugh may have such a limited and esoteric grasp of a deeper, richer body of thought. Boyd produced -- but never published -- a wide range of written products worthy of study (which I can only postulate Cavanaugh has never read). One supposes that Boyd’s cardinal sin (at least as far as Cavanaugh is concerned) was that he never published. Boyd never felt ready to publish because he was always refining his thoughts and understanding of an incredibly complex subject. Boyd never felt that he’d “arrived” at a perfect distillation of his message he felt ready to publish, but Boyd left PLENTY for us to read and study -- and one doesn’t need a basket of chicken bones to understand it.
He may not be aware that Dr. Grant T. Hammond compiled, edited, and published through Air University Press a 400-page work by Boyd, “A Discourse on Winning and Losing.” I can only assume he is not aware of this publication because the OODA Loop appears as a mere Appendix in this work. If he IS aware of it, then I doubt he’s studied it at any great length. And if the fact that someone else had to finish Boyd’s work is a reason to discount it, then we need to stop quoting Clausewitz, too.
If that is still insufficient for Cavanaugh, Dr. Hammond -- who had a personal relationship with Boyd, had read Boyd’s 327-page “Green Book, and sat in on lectures by Boyd -- published a well-sourced, extensive, and authoritative biography on Boyd AND his Works: “The Mind of War.” And if reading Boyd’s works seem like a confusing, “mystical” process of interpretation -- “…like soothsayers reading bones…,” then I invite Cavanaugh to listen to some of Boyd’s recorded lectures which remain available on YouTube, which I found most illuminating.
I will not lay claim to being an “expert” on Boyd… for as Boyd said: “An ‘Expert’ is someone who’s ‘learned’ everything there is to know about a subject and can’t [refuses to] learn anything new.” I first learned of Boyd as a new Lieutenant at Armor Officer Basic Course over 30 years ago while reading Bill Lind’s “Maneuver Warfare Handbook.” I have studied Boyd off and on ever since, and apparently have enough of a cogent understanding of John Boyd to comment with a degree of authority.
I say all this because Cavanaugh’s fallacious screed demonstrates that he REALLY has “misunderstood” Boyd entirely…and it is not (as Cavanaugh intimates) ‘Boyd’s fault.’
Hi sir. I read Matt’s take slightly differently on this topic. I think, based on Matt’s prior comments, he is tired of seeing OTHER folks in our community try to make OODA into a tool with strategic implications. (Then he lost that thread and threw in some stuff on ‘Boyd, the man’) But, I can now confirm, the homeopathic dilution of OODA into a management consultant framework used at civilian corporate offsites during “strategy break-outs” is a real thing... and its obviously useless in that context.
Your Army capstone dig is hilarious, by the way. Wish I could defend them. Be well!
Thank you for the reply. If Matt is seeing others in the community misusing the Boyd Cycle, then he has to cite instances within the article -- preferably prominent examples that will have negative strategic implications in the real world. I've seen my share of morons (both Pro and Con) who cherry pick Boyd and implement his theories inappropriately and out of their necessary context, but I've never encountered anyone who saw it as a "Grand Theory" for Strategic Formulation and Execution. If he cannot provide thus, then Cavanaugh is engaged in th
Cavanaugh also doesn't appear to pull punches when he lumps Boyd's serious disciples in with the fan boy cherry pickers. And he deliberately relegates Boyd and the OODA Loop to the limited scope of First through Fourth Generation Aerial Combat, which indicates that he does not have a very high opinion of Boyd or the OODA Loops broader tactical applications -- which extend up through Division-level ground combat and other corresponding sea and air operations.
Cavanaugh's piece is also dismissive of Boyd and any pro-Boyd critics -- "soothsayers" reading "bones" and babbling incoherently -- who would challenge his position regarding Boyd, while brilliantly demonstrating an apparent lack of knowledge on the subject to even comment.
Could I be wrong about Cavanaugh and his knowledge of Boyd and his theories? Possibly, but his plain use of the English language in this particular piece does not indicate so.
Is he correct that OODA Loops are not a "Strategic" tool? Probably, but he doesn't make that case using facts and a logical set of arguments. Instead, he dresses up a Strawman and uses it to hang Boyd and Boyd's advocates in effigy.
Though reductive, I think it’s somewhat fair to say that OODA is generally set in a linear algebra mindset, an expression that can be portrayed as a regression – as you hint at in the first section about sums. Boolean algebra, I’d suggest, is a better mindset for strategic thinking. Think Ragin-esque fuzzy sets where you examine presence and absence of prime implicants. (truth in advertising, I’m a super fan of QCA)
OODA is not a linear mindset... It is circular/spiral by design -- and is by no means simplistic or reductive (See https://www.danford.net/boyd/ooda.htm). In this sketch, Boyd attempted to show that a scientist grappling with a problem goes through roughly the same mental processes as a fighter pilot locked in combat with an enemy aircraft. (Source: Ford, Daniel. A Vision So Noble: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and America's War on Terror . Warbird Books. Kindle Edition.)
Boyd replicated the OODA successfully at Nellis earning the nickname "Forty Second Boyd" by defeating pilot after pilot in mock dogfights. He completed an engineering degree at Georgia Tech and expanded OODA -- mathematically -- into his Energy Maneuverability Theory. EMT allowed for the uniform comparisons of the performance envelopes to graphically demonstrate how one aircraft can out-perform another.
He said: "You’re not going to nail things down.... Some things we can predict, other things we can’t.... The NON-LINEAR stuff totally overwhelms the LINEAR.... The rational is swimming in a sea of the irrational.” [MY EMPHASIS ADDED].
Moreover, Boyd's emphasis on the Non-Linear and the Irrational prove that there are limits to what Mathematics can produce for us at the Strategic level -- especially in a competitive environment governed by the human spirit -- mind, will, and emotions.
As Herbert Simon, Economist and Nobel Laureate put in in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "I started off thinking that maybe the social sciences ought to have the kinds of mathematics that the natural sciences had. That works a little bit in economics because they talk about costs, prices and quantities of goods. But it doesn't work a darn for the other social sciences; you lose most of the content when you translate them to numbers."
You want to know what I think, ML Cavanaugh? Well... Remember YOU asked for it!
OODA Loop was NEVER About “Grand Strategy” Formulation
ML Cavanaugh is engaging in a transparent strawman argument unbecoming his impressive credentials. Cavanaugh entirely misrepresents the OODA Loop and the position of its advocates (at least the ones I’ve studied) as somehow believing that the OODA Loop, itself, constitutes a Grand Theory for formulating and executing Strategy.
Cavanaugh implies that Boyd and his acolytes believe that OODA explains the essence of ALL Strategy without ever citing a single example of Boyd or any of his devotees ever stating such a ludicrous proposition. Indeed, those he cites clearly state that OODA is limited to tactical circumstances. Whoever told Cavanaugh that OODA is a methodology for the Strategic-level of war likely knows less about Boyd than Cavanaugh demonstrates. This supposition is difficult to research, because Cavanaugh never provides a source behind his strawman assertion.
Cavanaugh says that, “context matters,” while he lifted OODA entirely out of its appropriate context. He distilled “everything Boyd” down to using OODA speed to induce chaos. But OODA is only a small (albeit important) piece of Boyd’s entire body of thought, and Boyd does not rely on OODA speed alone to fold the enemy inside himself.
Cavanaugh ignores Boyd’s important integration of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics on how we perceive and interact with both the external and internal environment and how we may induce chaos. He never digs into Analysis and Synthesis as it relates to the generation of options for adaptation. And these are only a few of the many points that Boyd covers in his body of work.
Cavanaugh attempts to squeeze the Genie back in the bottle by implying Boyd’s OODA was really just limited to aerial dogfighting (with a few grudging applications beyond that) -- a passe blood sport from a bygone era that will NEVER occur again (an assertion that sounds like a reprise of the Vietnam-era Pentagon Systems Analysts who decided Jet Fighters no longer needed Machine Guns). But Boyd expanded his study of warfare far beyond the skies and demonstrated that his theoretical constructs were actually rather timeless and widely applicable. Indeed, the United States Marine Corps’ insightful Capstone Doctrinal manuals are based largely upon the foundation laid by Genghis John. These manuals have remained essentially unchanged since they were published in the 1990s (Compared with U.S. Army Capstone Doctrine, which changes more frequently than an infant’s diapers). This point explains why more Marines attended Boyd’s funeral than Airmen.
He proclaims that Boyd left “nearly nothing written down,” which indicates why Cavanaugh may have such a limited and esoteric grasp of a deeper, richer body of thought. Boyd produced -- but never published -- a wide range of written products worthy of study (which I can only postulate Cavanaugh has never read). One supposes that Boyd’s cardinal sin (at least as far as Cavanaugh is concerned) was that he never published. Boyd never felt ready to publish because he was always refining his thoughts and understanding of an incredibly complex subject. Boyd never felt that he’d “arrived” at a perfect distillation of his message he felt ready to publish, but Boyd left PLENTY for us to read and study -- and one doesn’t need a basket of chicken bones to understand it.
He may not be aware that Dr. Grant T. Hammond compiled, edited, and published through Air University Press a 400-page work by Boyd, “A Discourse on Winning and Losing.” I can only assume he is not aware of this publication because the OODA Loop appears as a mere Appendix in this work. If he IS aware of it, then I doubt he’s studied it at any great length. And if the fact that someone else had to finish Boyd’s work is a reason to discount it, then we need to stop quoting Clausewitz, too.
If that is still insufficient for Cavanaugh, Dr. Hammond -- who had a personal relationship with Boyd, had read Boyd’s 327-page “Green Book, and sat in on lectures by Boyd -- published a well-sourced, extensive, and authoritative biography on Boyd AND his Works: “The Mind of War.” And if reading Boyd’s works seem like a confusing, “mystical” process of interpretation -- “…like soothsayers reading bones…,” then I invite Cavanaugh to listen to some of Boyd’s recorded lectures which remain available on YouTube, which I found most illuminating.
I will not lay claim to being an “expert” on Boyd… for as Boyd said: “An ‘Expert’ is someone who’s ‘learned’ everything there is to know about a subject and can’t [refuses to] learn anything new.” I first learned of Boyd as a new Lieutenant at Armor Officer Basic Course over 30 years ago while reading Bill Lind’s “Maneuver Warfare Handbook.” I have studied Boyd off and on ever since, and apparently have enough of a cogent understanding of John Boyd to comment with a degree of authority.
I say all this because Cavanaugh’s fallacious screed demonstrates that he REALLY has “misunderstood” Boyd entirely…and it is not (as Cavanaugh intimates) ‘Boyd’s fault.’
Hi sir. I read Matt’s take slightly differently on this topic. I think, based on Matt’s prior comments, he is tired of seeing OTHER folks in our community try to make OODA into a tool with strategic implications. (Then he lost that thread and threw in some stuff on ‘Boyd, the man’) But, I can now confirm, the homeopathic dilution of OODA into a management consultant framework used at civilian corporate offsites during “strategy break-outs” is a real thing... and its obviously useless in that context.
Your Army capstone dig is hilarious, by the way. Wish I could defend them. Be well!
Thank you for the reply. If Matt is seeing others in the community misusing the Boyd Cycle, then he has to cite instances within the article -- preferably prominent examples that will have negative strategic implications in the real world. I've seen my share of morons (both Pro and Con) who cherry pick Boyd and implement his theories inappropriately and out of their necessary context, but I've never encountered anyone who saw it as a "Grand Theory" for Strategic Formulation and Execution. If he cannot provide thus, then Cavanaugh is engaged in th
Cavanaugh also doesn't appear to pull punches when he lumps Boyd's serious disciples in with the fan boy cherry pickers. And he deliberately relegates Boyd and the OODA Loop to the limited scope of First through Fourth Generation Aerial Combat, which indicates that he does not have a very high opinion of Boyd or the OODA Loops broader tactical applications -- which extend up through Division-level ground combat and other corresponding sea and air operations.
Cavanaugh's piece is also dismissive of Boyd and any pro-Boyd critics -- "soothsayers" reading "bones" and babbling incoherently -- who would challenge his position regarding Boyd, while brilliantly demonstrating an apparent lack of knowledge on the subject to even comment.
Could I be wrong about Cavanaugh and his knowledge of Boyd and his theories? Possibly, but his plain use of the English language in this particular piece does not indicate so.
Is he correct that OODA Loops are not a "Strategic" tool? Probably, but he doesn't make that case using facts and a logical set of arguments. Instead, he dresses up a Strawman and uses it to hang Boyd and Boyd's advocates in effigy.
Though reductive, I think it’s somewhat fair to say that OODA is generally set in a linear algebra mindset, an expression that can be portrayed as a regression – as you hint at in the first section about sums. Boolean algebra, I’d suggest, is a better mindset for strategic thinking. Think Ragin-esque fuzzy sets where you examine presence and absence of prime implicants. (truth in advertising, I’m a super fan of QCA)
OODA is not a linear mindset... It is circular/spiral by design -- and is by no means simplistic or reductive (See https://www.danford.net/boyd/ooda.htm). In this sketch, Boyd attempted to show that a scientist grappling with a problem goes through roughly the same mental processes as a fighter pilot locked in combat with an enemy aircraft. (Source: Ford, Daniel. A Vision So Noble: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and America's War on Terror . Warbird Books. Kindle Edition.)
Boyd replicated the OODA successfully at Nellis earning the nickname "Forty Second Boyd" by defeating pilot after pilot in mock dogfights. He completed an engineering degree at Georgia Tech and expanded OODA -- mathematically -- into his Energy Maneuverability Theory. EMT allowed for the uniform comparisons of the performance envelopes to graphically demonstrate how one aircraft can out-perform another.
Boyd expressly despised the linear thought processes (Listen to his presentation on the Conceptual Spiral found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhETF8Pfsuw&list=PL10569CDF59FE54A3).
He said: "You’re not going to nail things down.... Some things we can predict, other things we can’t.... The NON-LINEAR stuff totally overwhelms the LINEAR.... The rational is swimming in a sea of the irrational.” [MY EMPHASIS ADDED].
Moreover, Boyd's emphasis on the Non-Linear and the Irrational prove that there are limits to what Mathematics can produce for us at the Strategic level -- especially in a competitive environment governed by the human spirit -- mind, will, and emotions.
As Herbert Simon, Economist and Nobel Laureate put in in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "I started off thinking that maybe the social sciences ought to have the kinds of mathematics that the natural sciences had. That works a little bit in economics because they talk about costs, prices and quantities of goods. But it doesn't work a darn for the other social sciences; you lose most of the content when you translate them to numbers."