(2007-01-18) Richards Reviews Osinga On Boyd

Chet Richards reviews Frans Osinga's Science, Strategy, and War ISBN:0415371031 book about John Boyd. Where Carl von Clausewitz and practically every strategist since considered war as a clash of wills, Boyd sees it as “the non-linear clash of two Complex Adaptive Systems” (124). In Boyd’s scheme, this is equivalent to a non-linear clash between two learning, or equivalently, novelty-generating systems, although it should be noted that Boyd rarely uses the term "system."

(See) the linkage between the “struggle for survival” and epistemology on page 131. This is key to understanding Boyd and I have never seen it explained better, although readers may want to compare Chuck Spinney’s 2019 presentation, “Evolutionary Epistemology”.

The biggest misconception is that the "OODA loop" is a sequential step-model: first observe, then orient, then decide, then act. Boyd truly has himself to blame for this since he briefed it just this way many times. The problem, as Boyd came to realize, is that it cannot work. Organisms don't stop observing while they make decisions, or at least those that survive don't. It's not a good formula for winning against an intelligent and resourceful opponent. As Osinga explains, Boyd solved this problem by making Orientation the "Schwerpunkt" or most important part of the loop and conceived of the other elements as radiating out from it (only observation feeds in). Boyd's concept of orientation is quite rich and complex, and Osinga does a wonderful job of explaining its roots in the works of scientists such as Karl Popper, Michael Polyani, Thomas Kuhn, and Ilya Prigogine. Richards appreciates Osinga's observation that "One may react very fast to unfolding events, but if one is constantly surprised nevertheless, apparently one has not been able to turn the findings of repeated observations and actions into a better appreciation of the opponent, i.e. one has not learned but instead has continued to operate on existing orientation patterns," which is as good a summary as I know of why "speed is not the way" (to quote Musashi) and why Boyd's strategic theory is much, much more than just high speed OODA looping (in fact, it isn't that at all).

See also William Lind, "John Boyd's Book". Colonel John Boyd, America's greatest military theorist, never wrote a book. But as a Marine friend of mine said, Col. Frans Osinga's new book, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, is the book Boyd would have written if he had written a book. (As someone who worked with Boyd for about 15 years, I think the reason he did not write a book is that he loved giving his briefings, and he feared that if people could find his work in a book they would not ask him to brief.)

The central point Osinga makes is that, contrary to what is widely believed, Boyd's work cannot be summarized in the concept of the OODA Loop. The OODA Loop concept says that in any conflict, all parties go through repeated cycles of Observing, Orienting, Deciding and Acting, and whoever can go through the cycle consistently faster will win. At the tactical level, this is often true.

But as Osinga points out, as soon as one moves up into the operational, strategic and grand strategic (grand strategy) levels, Boyd's theory grows far more complex. There, accuracy of observation and especially of orientation become at least as important as tempo. Attaining accuracy requires far more than "information." In Boyd's own less-than-simple words:

• Orientation is an interactive process of many-sided implicit cross-referencing projections, empathies, correlations, and rejections that is shaped by and shapes the interplay of genetic heritage, cultural tradition, previous experiences and unfolding circumstances.
  Orientation is the Schwerpunkt. It shapes the way we interact with the environment—hence orientation shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.