Bad Boyd!

You want your competitors to operate with this misunderstanding of Boyd.

Eliot Ackerman and Jim Stavridis recently published an article in The Wall Street Journal. The topic was the effect of drone swarms in a modern battle. It is a decent article about how warfare is evolving. Certainly a topic that John Boyd might have a lot to say about, were he still with us. In it they refer to Boyd and attempt to explain the OODA "loop." Their understanding and explanation of Boyd's thinking is off. Way off.

Like many in the defense establishment, academia and media, they mischaracterize Boyd's work. As is often the case, they do it in a way that completely misses the core point. The end result is yet another edition of "Bad Boyd" meant to be seen as "Good Boyd." They are not the first, and they will not be the last.

John Boyd, image flipped backwards, and discolored. A reduced, “Bad Boyd.”

Explaining Boyd The Wrong Way

They say Boyd made the OODA "loop" in the 1950s.¹ This is wrong. Boyd, an Air Force pilot and strategist, came up with OODA much later. While having spe…