Boydmania

Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2004 by David R. Mets

I first heard John Boyd speak at Air University soon after he retired. I much admired his delivery, for it did not depend upon the lame humor so typical of presentations of the day. Rather, his presentation was clear, and his earnestness was obvious. It did seem to me, however, that he depended rather heavily on Russell Weigley's The American Way of War--I wondered why a retired colonel was just getting around to understanding the importance of time, surprise, maneuver, and the inadvisability of charging up the hill at Fredericksburg or against the center of the fortified Yankee line at Gettysburg. (32) All of the second lieutenants coming out of West Point in 1952 were fully cognizant of those things. Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, who graduated 42nd out of 480 four years later, certainly needed no instruction on the nature of the blitzkrieg or on the inadvisability of following Ambrose Buruside's example with a charge up the middle. (33)

But then it occurred to me that Clausewitz, Jomini, Mahan, Corbett, Douhet, and Mitchell had written their books at the end of their careen too---though Boyd never got around to putting his theories into book form. Rather, they took the form of briefings delivered from large numbers of slides. As he got further into retirement, he clearly was doing ever-more reading in a wide variety of sources. The briefings became longer and longer, and, as Coram notes, "his briefs were virtually impenetrable without an explanation." (34) Certainly, Clausewitz makes for tough wading; Mahan is easier reading but requires some effort. Douhet and Mitchell are easier still, although both have come in for heavy criticism. But I suppose one would not have to be a purist to argue that a theoretician must also be a teacher and that unless he delivers his ideas in usable form, as in a book, then the most brilliant concepts will go for naught.

Moreover, to be a "strategist," one must be in a strategy-making position--never the case with Boyd. All of his work at Nellis occurred at the tactical level, and ever after he found himself on the technical side of Air Force work. Coram makes much of the notion that Boyd affected the strategy for the Gulf War after Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney called upon him for ideas. Undoubtedly, such contact took place, but victory has a thousand fathers, and the vice president has not indicated that Boyd's ideas were any more important than many others. Allegedly, Boyd prevented the Goliaths (of the Army in this case) from going "high diddle diddle up the middle." (35) But Coram himself says that Cheney denied being the vital factor in changing the plan and that the decision makers favored a head-on assault. However, a wider sweep to the left--the well-known "Left Hook"--depended upon the deployment of a second corps. Coram (as well as Boyd and his acolytes) has considerable respect for the Marine Corps, as do all thinking Americans. He gives great credit to the amphibious threat, which he says fixed the Iraqi left flank so that it could not move to meet the Left Hook maneuver. (36) He also admires the rapid march of the marines on that end straight up the middle into Kuwait City--with great effectiveness and minimal losses. (37)