What does OODA mean?
Oh, gosh. I’d have studied if I knew it was going to be on the test!
Um ... Observe, Orient, Decide, Attack? It’s something to do with making decisions in combat.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA). COL John Boyd, USAF invented the OODA loop to describe the process by which a fighter pilot engages an enemy and to explain why a pilot with superior training in an inferior aircraft could reliably defeat a pilot with inferior training in a superior aircraft. The pilot with the tightest or shortest OODA loop wins because his superior decisions and faster actions place him and his aircraft at an increasing advantage over his opponent.
Since then, the OODA loop has proven itself in many facets of military operations and management.
More than a few veterans on Free Republic and elsewhere have observed that John McCain demonstrates a very tight OODA loop against Barrack Obama, who sometimes fails to close his OODA loop ("Call me if you need me.")