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Sunday, January 19, 2003 INVISIBLE WARRIOR ACE PILOT, INNOVATIVE STRATEGIST, BORN TOUGH GUY, JOHN BOYD WAS AN AMERICAN MILITARY GENIUS. WHY HASN'T ANYBODY HEARD OF HIM? By JOSEPH NEFF, John Boyd had a standing bet with his fellow fighter pilots. Meet me at 30,000 feet over Nevada, Boyd dared. I'll let you start on my tail with gunsights locked. Within 40 seconds I'll be on your tail, my gunsights set on you or I'll pay you $40. "Forty-second Boyd" never, ever lost—an astounding feat, considering he challenged America's hottest shots. If Boyd were only a Top Gun, he'd be legend. But as Robert Coram details in his necessary new biography, Boyd was much, much more: He was arguably the most influential military man of the 20th century. He applied his tremendous curiosity and willpower to revolutionize air combat, and he created a new way to design fighter jets. He expanded these theories from dogfights to warfare, forging a radical theory of combat unparalleled since Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" in 500 B.C. He directed the military reform movement in the 1980s, declaring war on Pentagon bureaucrats and expensive weapons that wouldn't work. And, as Coram argues, Boyd came out of retirement to design the military's strategy in the 1991 war against Iraq. He was a warrior, a brilliant strategist, a truly creative thinker, a man of honor and duty. He was also a profane, intensely combative pain in the neck; a dreadful father; a workaholic whose pathological integrity impoverished his family. As the United States prepares for another war, "Boyd" is essential reading. Coram has found the single man whose life best exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of the American military: an extraordinary warrior who has proven his bravery less in battle than in challenging his superiors' hidebound thinking. Boyd loved picking a fight. Afterward, he'd turn to a comrade in arms and declare, "I hosed him!" Fights weren't limited to the cockpit. Boyd battled with defense contractors and career-climbing officers (Boyd's rule of thumb: the more stars, the less intelligence and integrity). He humiliated his superiors and chewed out deceitful officers in public. In a cafeteria donnybrook with an obstructionist civilian analyst, Boyd thumped the man's chest until his lit cigar burned a hole in the man's tie. As the terrified civilian fled, Boyd bellowed after him "You're a loser!" No wonder Boyd had many enemies, most prominently in the Air Force he served for 24 years. His confrontational truth-telling prevented him from making general, but his brilliance also attracted supporters and protectors. Boyd's biggest achievements came in the decades outside the cockpit. Boyd's great contribution was the "OODA Loop"—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Some call it the Boyd loop. This is a complicated process, difficult to grasp, harder to distill and often bastardized by people who dimly understand it. Coram describes it well: "Boyd, borrowing from Sun Tzu, said the best commander is one who wins while avoiding battle. The intent is to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis and bring about the collapse of the adversary by generating confusion, disorder, panic and chaos. Boyd said war is organic and compared his technique to clipping the nerves, muscles and tendons of an enemy, reducing him to jelly." The key is to get inside the mind and decision cycle of the enemy, to act quickly and unpredictably. Boyd called it "unraveling the competition." Where Carl Von Clausewitz, the influential 19th century war strategist, instructed commanders to minimize their own uncertainty created by the fog of war, Boyd urged them to create more fog for the enemy. Coram convincingly argues that Boyd, and then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, designed America's spectacular 100-hour ground war against Iraq in 1991. Boyd's theory didn't sit well with military minds that had marinated in managerial approaches to war. They were even less enamored of his democratic ethos: Trust subordinates. Let them think. "People fight wars, not machines. And they use their minds." Boyd's simple aphorism should be applied whenever the Pentagon makes a purchasing decision, whether it be a pair of boots or an F-22. Is the military manning equipment, or is it equipping men? "Civilians unacquainted with the ways of the building have only vague ideas about what it is the Pentagon does," Coram writes. "They think the real business of the Pentagon has to do with defending America. But it does not. The real business of the Pentagon is buying weapons." The chapter titled "Water Walker" is a case study on this question, and is alone worth the price of the book. It describes how one of Boyd's acolytes (as Coram calls Boyd's closest followers)—an Air Force colonel named Jim Burton—took on the entire Pentagon and its purchasing machine. The battleground was the Bradley fighting vehicle. Backed by Boyd, Burton wanted to protect the soldiers who would drive the vehicle into battle; the Army wanted to protect a multibillion program. Burton insisted on rigorous, live-fire testing: Take real Soviet weapons, shoot at a Bradley filled with fuel and ammunition and study the results. The Bradley couldn't pass the test, and the Army knew it. Their response was shameful: they filled the fuel tanks with water. Or they filled the ammunition bins with water or duds. They knew the Bradley was a deathtrap. They tried to transfer Burton to Alaska, they bullied him, they made him a pariah. Still, Burton, Boyd and the other acolytes helped launch the testing movement in the military. The theory is simple: Test the tank or plane to make sure it is effective, efficient and safe. Identify the bugs and problems in peacetime, not in combat. But rigorous testing procedures threaten expensive weapons systems, which never live up to their billing. And careerist military officers hate it. This book has its disappointing aspects. For instance, a pilot himself, Coram is prone to jargon inside the cockpit. And unlike its subject, the book shies away from some fights. Anecdote after anecdote describe the cowardly or dishonest deeds of careerist officers, but seldom does Coram name names. This may be the meddling from the publisher's lawyers, who don't want lawsuits. But I, for one, want to know the names of the Air Force generals—18 stars' worth—who demanded that Burton have no involvement in testing weapons. But these are quibbles. Overall, Coram has done a great service by introducing Boyd to the American public. Perhaps he'll encourage people to go deeper into Boyd's ideas. Ideally, others will follow the example of the Marines, the most creative and intellectually adventurous of the services, who adopted Boyd as one of their own. Boyd's ideas are more relevant than ever today, as the United States faces an enemy like al-Qaeda. What use is Clausewitz, with his emphasis on bringing the enemy to a big, decisive battle, when the enemy hides and refuses to fight fair? Joseph Neff is a staff writer for The News & Observer who has written about the military. |