Disciples of Strategy and Disciples of a Strategist

I am not an expert on John Boyd, but as a JCL on the subject, I intend to catch up. There is a small group of thinkers whom, since I began blogging, I visit daily to learn from. I call these bloggers mentors, and although I can find myself in disagreement as I browse daily, I also always find myself thinking on the subject matter. Can't beat that!

Four of these mentors (Thomas Wade, Daniel Abbott, Mark Safranski, and Dr. Thomas Barnett who wrote the foreword) recently published a book with Nimble Books called The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating Science, Strategy, and War. A book about a roundtable? Yep, and after I purchased the book from Amazon.com this evening I decided to go ahead and blog on the subject.

I find John Boyd interesting, and I've read enough of the general information to know that I should do research, but it wasn't until I sat down and read all the way through this conversation over at the Small Wars Journal that I decided to give in and buy the book. In particular, this comment from a less than enthusiastic commenter is what sucked me in.

Indeed, the most irritating thing about Boyd's work is that he left us next to nothing. Those briefs are hollow shells without his verbiage ("speaker notes") behind it. Or even the man behind it, as he could handle questions quite well. There's no body of work that he's written. So we rely on "the disciples" to interpret him and expand upon what he said. Christ wrote not a single book of the Bible and we know of him through his disciples and the interpreters ever since. Yup, the religious aspects really do appear to apply here.

People's frustration ("What's the big deal?") is certainly relevant and germane because--to those well-read in the art of war--we read Boyd's interpreters and shrug our shoulders. So what? Don't we all know that? Didn't we all know that? Like I said, if you don't have the kind of itch that Boyd's ideas were meant to scratch, he doesn't do much for you.

A military strategist who has published briefs I can read? Am I really supposed to believe the Air Force has had a modern strategist? Oh, you mean they ignored him? Now you have my attention... j/k.

To be honest, the OODA Loop and the F-16 was never enough to attract my attention to John Boyd. Decision science might be important, but it isn't exactly mainstream. What I'm finally learning about John Boyd that has my interest is that he is an interpretted strategist, lending ideas to the necessity of interpretation by those who study those ideas. I find this appealing, because as should be evident on the blog by those who read consistently, I believe there is value in strategy that can scale beyond the execution to the domain inacted. In plain English, a strategy developed in Iraq has a lesson on the sea. A strategy developed for the air force has a lesson for the Navy. Good strategy always scales.

In December I intend to do a book review of all the books I've read this year, and I have a really good list I think. It will be about 20 books, the first 20 days of December as a "just in case" for someone who is looking for an idea on what to tell that nagging family member what they can get you for Christmas.

If you are a Boyd "disciple" please leave a comment, and tell me how you think Boyd applies to the strategic discussion on this blog. I'll be unconvinced by your comment until I do my homework, but nonetheless I was talking to a very smart guy in the Pentagon last month, and we were discussing naval strategy for small wars and small ships. During the conversation I got unnerved when he brought up John Boyd in his arguments. He didn't introduce anything I had not previously heard about Boyd, but when talking strategy I intend to always be the guy well rooted in history and study.

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JCL= Johnny Come Lately