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

Chet Richards reviews Frans Osinga's Science, Strategy, and War ISBN:0415371031 book about John Boyd. 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).