To Be . . . Or To Do?

“Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” (He raised his hand and pointed.) “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” (Then [he] raised his other hand and pointed in another direction.) “Or you can go that way and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?”

Many military theorists are well-known, at least within the military community.  Jomini and Clausewitz, Mitchell and Douhet, Mahan – these names are remembered, in some cases centuries after their deaths.

Yet others have been incredibly influential – and remain virtually unknown.  This article concerns one of those influential unknowns.  The lead quote above is his.

The individual’s accomplishments are varied – and are insanely impressive.  He is credited with:

• Being perhaps the single best air-to-air dogfighter in USAF history;
• Literally personally writing the “book” for jet air-to-air combat for the USAF;
• With one other person, developing a major theory of aircraft performance in air-to-air combat;
• Being partially responsible for the superior performance of one of the USAF’s primary air platforms;
• Being largely responsible for the very existence of a second, highly successful USAF primary air platform; a successful US Navy air platform; and indirectly responsible for a third successful USAF air platform;
• The development of an acclaimed major theory describing both individual and organizational behavior;
• Being the root cause for major changes in a sister-service’s current warfighting doctrine; and
• Being a major contributor to (some have gone so far as to call him one of the architects of) the winning strategy of one US war – and some would say, of two.

Yet his combat service was very brief.  He was not well-liked by many during his lifetime.  He was far more interested in doing something worthwhile than recognition.  He published precious little in open literature for posterity.  And because of these (and other) factors, as I noted above there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him.  Indeed, even today he’s yet to receive full recognition in own parent service.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a damned shame.  Because this individual – though not particularly well-known – may well be the most influential military theorist of the last half of the 20th Century.

His name was Col. John Richard Boyd, USAF.  Within his own service, he was somewhat of a pariah.

 

Early Career

Boyd was born in Erie, PA, in 1927.  During World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps.  He did not see combat; he served from 1945-1947, much of the time in occupied Japan.  Even then, he was willing to tilt at windmills.  Boyd ended up being court-martialed for “destruction of government property”.

In  a foreshadowing of things to come, Boyd “beat the rap”.

After his discharge, he attended college at the University of Iowa, receiving a degree in economics.  He was commissioned in the USAF in 1951, and became a fighter pilot.

He served in Korea 1953 – a short tour, flying only 22 of the standard 100 combat missions as wingman.  Most sources indicated he never fired his plane’s weapons or achieved an air-to-air kill.  (One source credits Boyd with damaging an enemy aircraft during a mission north of the Yalu River, but that is suspect and conflicts with many others.)

On return from Korea, Boyd was assigned to USAF Fighter Weapons School as a student.  After he graduated, the USAF opted to keep him there as an instructor.

Whether by accident or design, this choice was to have major impact on the US Department of Defense for the next four decades and beyond.

Forty-Second Boyd

Boyd quickly became one of preeminent fighter “jocks” of his time – and most would say the preeminent fighter “jock”.  He became so proficient that he had a standing bet with all comers:  starting with his opponent on his tail, he would “reverse the tables” within 40 seconds and be in a position to shoot them down.  The bet was for $40 – a considerable sum in the 1950s.  This led to the first of what would be one of many nicknames Boyd acquired over the years:  “Forty-Second Boyd”.

I’ve not been able to determine just how many people challenged Boyd over the years; that number may not be accurately recorded anywhere.  But I have been able to determine how many were successful.

All accounts agree that the number of successful “takers” of Boyd’s bet was zero while Boyd was at AWS.  Boyd never lost that bet.

However, being a “sh!t-hot” fighter pilot was only the beginning.  If that was all Boyd did, I’d not be writing this article.

Boyd distilled and documented his thoughts on fighter tactics for posterity while at AWS.  He literally personally wrote the first USAF fighter tactics manual, the Aerial Attack Study.  This work – apparently for the first time anywhere – enumerated, described, and documented the maneuvers and tactics used in jet air-to-air combat.  The document was not only groundbreaking; it was also comprehensive.  Reportedly no new maneuvers have been added to those contained in Boyd’s original work since it was first published by the USAF in the early 1960s.  It now forms the tactical basis for air combat worldwide.

This was at best probably Boyd’s fourth-most important contribution to military theory and US security.

Energy-Maneuverability Theory

Boyd’s experiences at AWS led him to believe he could further formalize his air-to-air combat insights and develop a quantitative theory of air-to-air combat.  However, he also knew that his education (economics) didn’t give him the proper background to discern and formalize such a theory.  So in his 30s he went back to school, and got a 2^nd degree – a BS in industrial engineering at Georgia Tech.

While at Georgia Tech, his academic study led to the insights that would later become his second most important contribution to military theory:  Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory of aircraft.  This theory held that an aircraft’s air-to-air combat performance is determined largely by energy management considerations.  Its basic equation is:

Where

Ps – specific energy
W – Weight
D – Drag
T – Thrust
V – Velocity

The theory’s thesis is that the aircraft that can retain more energy while maneuvering – and which can change energy states more quickly – will be superior.  (There were other aspects of the theory, most dealing with the implications of energy changes on aircraft structure – e.g., wing loading.  But this single equation is the basis for the theory.)

Like most successful theories, E-M Theory is both elegant and simple – and accurately describes known reality.

Boyd’s follow-on assignment after Georgia Tech was to Air Force Systems Command at Eglin AFB.  There, he continued work on E-M Theory with a USAF civilian mathematician, Thomas Christie.  (Christie was later to serve in a variety of senior Pentagon positions, culminating in Director, Defense Test and Evaluation, from 2001-2005).  Christie was convinced of the validity of Boyd’s theories, and assisted Boyd by clandestinely diverting computer time to provide computational assessments of various US and threat aircraft.  (Reputedly Boyd was being considered for court-martial for “theft” of around $1M in computer time at one point – until the value of his work was recognized.)

These results by Boyd and Christie formalized and validated E-M theory.  The theory answered the questions of how to predict overall aircraft effectiveness in air-to-air combat, and how to quantify that prediction.  In short, the theory gave designers a model of how to design aircraft with superior dogfight performance that actually worked.

Had Boyd done nothing else in his career, E-M theory alone would have ensured his place in military history.  However, Boyd was far from finished regarding his contributions to military theory and practice.

Godfather to an Eagle, Falcon, and Hornet – and Great Uncle to a Warthog

Boyd soon received orders for Okinawa.  He didn’t serve there.

Boyd and Christie’s work had pointed out a serious problem for the US.  According to E-M Theory, Soviet fighter aircraft of the early 1960s virtually across-the-board were better in a dogfight than US aircraft. Early air-to-air results from Vietnam seemed to confirm this.

US doctrine was based on beyond visual range engagement.  However, the ROE in Vietnam didn’t allow that.  And in any case, US air-to-air missiles of the era – which would allow engagement beyond visual range – were pretty lousy anyway.

And the next generation of US aircraft under design weren’t really much if any better.

Boyd’s orders for Vietnam were cancelled.  He was reassigned to the Pentagon to work on the USAF’s next-generation fighter program, the F-X – which would become today’s F-15.

The program was in serious trouble.

The initial design for the F-X was similar to the F-111:  large, heavy, “swing-wing”, and twin-engine.  Boyd’s work on E-M Theory showed it would be ineffective in a dogfight.  Boyd was instrumental in making extensive design changes to the F-X (though not as extensive as he would have liked – he still considered the resulting F-15 too big, heavy, and insufficiently agile in a dogfight).

So as he did while validating E-M theory, Boyd did another end-run around USAF bureaucracy.  He was instrumental in beginning what later became the lightweight fighter program – a program which spawned both the F-16 and F/A-18, both of which were designed more closely to his liking.  Additionally, an associate (some would call him an acolyte) of Boyd’s – Pierre Sprey – used Boyd’s principles to guide the design of the USAF A-10.

Boyd’s contributions to the designs of the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, and (indirectly) A-10 collectively form an incredibly important contribution to US security.  His efforts were instrumental in providing the US its front-line combat fighter and attack aircraft from the 1970s until today.  All are highly successful airframes.

But IMO, as important and long-lived as this contribution was – even this is neither Boyd’s most enduring nor his most important contribution.

The Boyd Cycle:  Observe/Orient/Decide/Act

Throughout his military career, Boyd was puzzled by something from his youth:  the USAF’s immense success in air-to-air combat in Korea.  This result (the USAF achieved slightly better than a 10:1 exchange rate in the skies over Korea) was indeed a paradox.  Based on objective data, it shouldn’t have happened.

Boyd’s own E-M Theory showed the MIG-15 to be superior in air-to-air combat at most altitudes and speeds.  Further, Soviet pilots (who were reputedly flying many of the hostile aircraft in Korea) generally had more training than the normal USAF pilot of the day.  Yet the F-86, flown by US pilots with less training, was far superior in practice.

Boyd felt that maneuverability and agility were important, but they obviously weren’t the full answer.  So he decided to try and figure out what caused this anomaly.

The result was, like most watershed theories, both blindingly simple and game-changing.  The result was the Boyd Cycle model of decision-making – AKA the “OODA Loop”.  If you’ve ever heard the term “decision cycle” or “decision loop”, you’ve heard a reference to Boyd’s work.

If there has been a more generally applicable model of decision making developed in the last 50 years I couldn’t tell you what that is.  Boyd’s OODA Loop is IMO perhaps the most fundamental contribution to the study of conflict since the development of combined arms operations.  It also seems to be universally applicable; in explaining decision-making, only von Neumann’s work on Game Theory seems more fundamental and applicable.

Boyd continued to work for DoD as an nearly-unpaid consultant (his former colleague Christie was now highly placed in the Pentagon, and offered him a position on his staff).  Boyd accepted – and insisted on working for no pay.  He was forced to accept 1/10 normal salary – 1 day’s pay every 2 weeks – due to Federal personnel rules.  (Presumably Boyd insisted on working for no pay in order to maintain his “independence”, as he was anything but stupid.)

He developed his ideas regarding OODA and conflict, incorporating the results into a briefing he called Patterns of Conflict. He began giving the briefing to anyone who would listen in 1976, revising it nearly continually.  (The linked version earlier in this paragraph is from 1986.)

Boyd found willing listeners.  But those listeners weren’t in his parent service.

Warfighting

In the early 1980s, Boyd was a consultant to the USMC.  He gave his Patterns of Conflict briefing to the USMC Amphibious Warfare School.

The school’s leadership felt the ideas had merit.  And they were looking to revise USMC warfighting doctrine at the time.

The result was a major change in USMC doctrine.  The USMC called it maneuver warfare.  This doctrine incorporated the ideas presented by Boyd in Patterns of Conflict.

The result was formalized in MCDP 1, Warfighting.  As far as I know it remains in effect as USMC doctrine today.

Desert Storm and OIF

By 1990, Boyd’s health was failing.  He had moved to Florida to live out the remainder of his life.

Fate intervened.  He was to have one last mission.

Boyd had given his Patterns of Conflict brief to an obscure Congressman in 1981 – a Congressman named Cheney.

In 1990, Cheney was no longer in Congress.  He was the US SECDEF.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait and the US began preparations for the Gulf War, SECDEF Cheney asked Boyd to work on strategy for DS/DS.  Boyd and his ideas were instrumental in the final theater strategy for Desert Storm – specifically, the famed “left hook”.

The results speak for themselves.  In the words of former CMC Gen Krulak:

“Bludgeoned from the air nearly around the clock for six weeks, paralyzed by the speed and ferocity of the attack, the Iraqi army collapsed morally and intellectually under the onslaught of American and Coalition forces.  John Boyd was an architect of that victory as surely as if he’d commanded a fighter wing or a maneuver division in the desert.”

We’d almost certainly have won using a different strategy.  But we’d have sent a lot more body bags home.

Boyd’s strategic theories are also generally regarded as having been behind the successful campaign to topple the Hussein Regime in Iraq in 2003.  The conduct of the Operation Iraqi Freedom invasion has been called by some the most complete, full-scale implementation of Boyd’s theories to date.

Decidedly Not Perfect

As a human being, Boyd was far from perfect.  He was famously profane; arrogant as hell; abrasive as sandpaper; and as volatile as nitroglycerine.  He could be insubordinate, was not a spit-and-polish individual, and apparently had little respect for bureaucracy.  He was an “in your face” kind of guy – literally, from a few inches away, spittle flying during an argument.  This is reflected in a couple of nicknames Boyd acquired during his career:  “Ghengis John” and “The Mad Major”.

And he reputedly smoked truly foul thin cigars.  (smile)

In short, he was in many ways the embodiment of the stereotypical fighter pilot:  brash, arrogant, profane, and overly aggressive.  Except Boyd had one other characteristic as well:  he was often smarter than anyone else in the room.  He may have been arrogant, but he usually had justification.

Yet even regarding his personality – which was no great secret to anyone – Boyd was difficult to “pigeonhole”.  In spite of his legendary profanity, he once reportedly left a fellow pilot’s bachelor party because he was embarrassed by the “exotic” nature of the entertainment.

Boyd appeared to affect others in a binary manner – they either detested or loved him; few were ambivalent.  Over his career, he made many enemies.  That likely was a factor leading to his retirement from the USAF after far less than 30 years.  And his refusal to “go along to get along” doubtless cost him any chance at stars.

Boyd was also reputedly neglectful of his family.  He lived well below his status, and forced his family to do the same, leading to another nickname:  the “Ghetto Colonel”.  His family suffered as a result.  It was reputedly feared that at least one of his children would refuse to attend his funeral.  This is likely due to his wanting to maintain his independence.  Boyd is reputed to have said:  “The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways to insure that freedom — you can be rich or you can you reduce your needs to zero.”  Boyd apparently opted for the latter.

A complex man?  You betcha.

In the final analysis, Boyd appears to have seen himself as a man of integrity.  Another of his quotes sums that up succinctly:  “Ask for my loyalty, I’ll  give you my honesty. Ask for my honesty, you’ll have my loyalty.”  He indeed stayed loyal to himself.

I wish I’d had the chance to meet the man.

Legacy

John Richard Boyd died of cancer on March 9, 1997.  He lived just a few weeks longer than the Biblical threescore and ten.

Boyd published very little for posterity.  Other than his early 1960s Aerial Attack Study, his mid-1960s Energy Maneuverability Theory (both classified military publications at the time) and one brief unclassified 1976 essay – Destruction and Creation – he never considered his major life works (his Patterns of Conflict briefing and the longer, more complete Discourse on Winning & Losing briefing) finished.  He thus never published them.  He wrote no books.

Yet consider his career accomplishments and impact:

1. Literally “wrote the first book” on USAF jet air-to-air combat.
2. With Thomas Christie, developed Energy Maneuverability Theory.
3. Was instrumental to the successful development of four front-line combat aircraft.
4. Provided the theoretical basis for a US military service’s warfighting doctrine.
5. Provided the basis for a winning war strategy (some would say, for two winning war strategies).
6. And, finally:  developed a new, major theory of individual and organizational decision making – one that seems to be universally applicable.

Any one of those would be a worthwhile legacy.  To have done all of them in the course of one lifetime is . . . amazing.  Simply amazing.

I suspect we’ll be talking about Boyd’s ideas – and using them – for a long, long time.

Rest in peace, Colonel.  You’ve left us plenty to consider.

 

For More Info

Posthumously, John R. Boyd is finally getting some of the recognition he is IMO due.  There are a number of Internet sites that have collections of his ideas, copies of his works, adaptations of his theories, and articles about him.  His bio at Arlington National Cemetery gives a reasonable overview of his career and work.  Many others give further details.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jrboyd.htm

An excellent, relatively short article summarizing Boyd and his impact can be found at http://www.usafa.edu/df/dfh/docs/Harmon54.pdf ; a somewhat hagiographic but excellent article by one of his acolytes, Franklin C. “Chuck” Spinney, can be found at http://www.dnipogo.org/fcs/comments/c199.htm .

Another decent article comes from Forbes:  http://www.forbes.com/2003/04/23/cz_df_0423ooda.html

There are also now, thankfully, many others.  If interested, do a Google search and spend a few hours reading.

Boyd’s critical role in changing the F-15’s initial design is documented in http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120516-036.pdf

Air Power Australia seems to have the best collection of Boyd’s surviving materials:

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Boyd-Papers.html

I’ve not been able to find a copy of Boyd and Christie’s Energy-Maneuverability Theory report that’s readily available.  It is cited by NASA in this document as follows:  Boyd, John R.; and Christie, Thomas P.: Energy-Maneuverability Theory, Rept. APGC-TDR-62-64-35 (Secret). A. F. Systems Command Air Proving Ground Ctr., Eglin AFB, Fla., May 1964  I’m reasonably sure this study has been declassified since it was written, but perhaps I’m wrong.  If anyone can find a softcopy of this document, please advise and I’ll link it here.

The Boyd quotes in this article are from this source:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/98862.John_Boyd

A number of books have been written about Boyd and/or which are directly devoted to his theories.  Many adapt his theories to new fields and/or current conflicts.  Three such that are well-reputed (disclaimer – I’ve not read them, but they are on my Christmas list and I hope to do so soon) are:

Boyd:  The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, by Robert Coram (ISBN-10:  0316796883)

The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security, by Grant T. Hammond (ISBN-10: 158834178X)

Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, by Frans P. P. Osinga (ISBN-10:  0415459524)

Coram’s work reportedly is mostly biographical, Hammond’s biography has a historical/security perspective, and Osinga’s reportedly delves most deeply into exploring Boyd’s theories.

Note:  the original version of this article indicated that Boyd had received orders for Vietnam prior to his work on the F-15.  Further reading has indicated that Boyd’s orders were instead for Okinawa.  However, Boyd did receive the VSM.  Further reading also indicated that Boyd served at Nakhon-Phanom RTAFB in the early 1970s in support of the Vietnam War – specifically, supporting Operation IGLOO WHITE.  He was not assigned duties as a pilot during this tour, and never flew combat missions over Vietnam.  He did fly some missions as aircrew over Laos until his superiors discovered that he was doing so.  He was then ordered to quit doing so due to his intimate knowledge of Operation IGLOO WHITE.

Category: Air Force, Historical, Military issues