“Boyd” is a biography about fighter pilot John Boyd. Although he is hardly a household name, and indeed, never achieved the rank of general, John Boyd had a tremendous impact on the US military. His accomplishments include:
- A new understanding of fighter tactics based on the ability of aircraft to change their “energy state,” namely velocity and altitude, and out-maneuver enemy planes
- Created Aerial Attack Study, the tactics manual for fighter pilots
- New aircraft designs (F-16, and F/A-18 Hornet) that are well-suited to the realities of aerial combat, rather than the then-Air-Force-doctrine of “bigger-higher-faster-further” which posited that air-to-air missiles would eliminate the need for maneuverability (this theory turned out not to be true), and generally tried to appease too many different parties by continually adding more features rather than by embracing elegant design. The contribution here was not so much designing the aircraft as getting them through the bureaucratic process intact. Some of these planes are still in service today.
- One of his proteges exposed a radically corrupt and inefficient relationship between the pentagon and the defense companies.
- And his crowning achievement, the OODA loop which was embraced by the Marine Corps. Essentially, this system calls for trusting subordinates to make decisions on the ground, allowing for faster reaction times, greater maneuverability, ability to bypass enemy strengths, sowing confusion among enemy forces, and putting strength against weakness. The author suggests that John may have been the next in a long line of brilliant military minds dating back to Sun Tsu, Alexander the Great, Miyamoto Musashi, and Napoleon. Indeed, his philosophy favors the speed and flexibility that many of these military geniuses espoused.
- Guided strategy in the Gulf War that led to a swift US victory
More details here:
It would be one thing for someone with complete authority over each of these decisions to make a series of shrewd calls such as Boyd did. Boyd, however, accomplished each of these things from below, while fighting an entrenched bureaucracy and constantly risking an abrupt, inglorious end to his career. Boyd was almost certainly a genius, albeit one with very little patience for people who could not appreciate his view. He seemingly delighted in humiliating his superiors, particularly generals, and had an almost-arrogant level of conviction. Of course, he was almost inevitably right, so his hubris is arguably justified. There are some pretty entertaining anecdotes of his interactions with people he saw as his opponents.
I liked thinking about Boyd’s question, “would you rather BE somebody, or DO something,” which he demanded of each of his acolytes. In some situations, the two seem synonymous, since many people BECOME someONE of significance, by DOING someTHING significant. But within the institutions Boyd operated in, this was not necessarily the case. In such circumstances, petty tyrants jealously guard their domain, egos must be placated, and pressure to maintain the status quo frequently prevails over the best course of action.
In such cases, there is a trade off. In any institution, there is a temptation for decisions to be made by committee. Rather than ensuring the best outcome, such a process ensures that each of the interested parties get some concession from the group. Thus, hundreds of pounds could be added to a fighter jet for the sake of including a built-in ladder for maintenance workers. Or thousands of pounds of bulky radar equipment would be installed so that generals on the ground could keep closer tabs on fighters in the sky. In defying such special interests, Boyd sacrificed his own reputation, but ensured a better end result that would better serve the taxpayers and citizens of America. I think most of us would like to think of ourselves as do-ers, even if the pressures around us encourage us to “be” somebody instead.
This was a really good book, and I found myself thinking about it for a few weeks after reading it. If you’re at all interested in military history, tactics, fighter pilots, and how the military functions from within, I’d recommend giving it a read. There are some really fun stories of his tactical genius, as well as that of the forces he taught it to (like how a highly maneuverable group of Marines wreaked havoc in Grenada against a numerically superior force).