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There is a growing number of his followers in gov mil circles - most may be found in the Marines... B

December 31, 2002
http://sftt.org/dwa/2003/1/1/2.html
Col. John Boyd: The Most Influential Unknown Hero
By Ed Offley

Look up the official U.S. Air Force fact sheet on the F-16 Falcon, and you will read in clear but understated terms this description of what aviation experts agree is the most successful fighter aircraft ever built:

"The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a compact, multi-role fighter aircraft. It is highly maneuverable and has proven itself in air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attack. It provides a relatively low-cost, high-performance weapon system for the United States and allied nations."

First conceived in the mid-1960s, the F-16 is flown today by military pilots in 23 countries from Bahrain to Venezuela. Over 2,200 of the single-engine Falcons have been built, and the U.S. Air Force operates more than 1,380 of them. It has performed with distinction in Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo and the long-running twilight air war enforcing the Iraqi "no-fly" zones.

But nowhere in the official Air Force archives will you find the fascinating and gripping story of how this military aircraft came to be - how the F-16 was conceived and designed by a maverick Air Force pilot leading a tiny cabal of military officers and DoD civilians without the Air Force's knowledge or approval. Nor will you find how once the lightweight fighter plane left the drawing boards, the collective leadership of the Air Force waged a fierce - and ultimately unsuccessful - bureaucratic guerrilla war to have the project killed and its supporters destroyed.

Thanks to author Robert Coram, the full story of this astonishing rebellion within the corridors of the Pentagon comes to life in the informative and entertaining biography of its ringleader, Air Force Col. John Boyd.

When you read Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2002), you will be amazed to learn that Boyd's involvement in the struggle to field an effective new fighter aircraft constitutes only one chapter of his distinguished, controversial and often contentious life.

The most amazing aspect of John Boyd's record of achievement is not that it is so profound, but rather that the pilot and his record remain unheard of to most Americans. "Boyd was one of the most important unknown men of his time," Coram writes. "He did what so few men are privileged to do: He changed the world. But much of what he did, or the impact of what he did, was either highly classified or of primary concern to the military."

Born and raised in the working-class city of Erie, Pa., Boyd was determined at an early age to succeed, and discovered the U.S. military as the vehicle for his growth. After a brief period serving as an enlisted man at the tail end of World War II, he won an officer's commission and became a fighter pilot who flew combat missions in Korea. Later, while serving as an instructor at the Fighter Weapons School in Nevada, he became known as "Forty-second Boyd" who could defeat any other pilot in mock aerial combat in that amount of time.

As a young captain, Boyd became the first military aviator to codify and formally break down the mysteries of air-to-air combat in a hand-typed memorandum, the "Aerial Attack Study," that soon became official Air Force doctrine. As a 33-year-old graduate engineering student at Georgia Tech, he pioneered a new theory of aircraft performance - the "Energy-Maneuverability Theory" - that would revolutionize the design of all future combat aircraft.

Brash, insightful and profane, Boyd outflanked the generals, cursed the defense industrialists and nurtured a small band of disciples who would grow to form the Military Reform Movement, an unofficial but influential group dedicated to fielding weapons and equipment that would enable America's military to survive and win on the battlefield - not merely line the pockets of the defense industry and its toadies in Congress and the Pentagon.

Coram's book is crammed with hilarious, outrageous and jaw-dropping anecdotes of Boyd's encounters with the brass and his own people. A chain-smoker, Boyd once set a general on fire with his cigar. Another time, Boyd so flummoxed a colonel with his masteries of the facts that the officer foamed at the mouth and fell out of his chair in a fit, prompting them to announce the invention of the Air Force "air to rug maneuver." He gleefully stole more than $1 million in computer time from an Air Force unit so that he could refine a theory on aircraft design - and bragged about it to a senior general. He tormented his supporters with late-night telephone calls that would drag on for hours. One junior aide who lived 25 miles from the Pentagon would tear himself away from Boyd's late-evening office disquisitions and drive home, only to have the phone start ringing the instant he turned the key in his door - Boyd had timed his subordinate's commute to the second.

After retiring from the Air Force as a colonel, Boyd turned down many offers from industry in order to serve as an unpaid Pentagon consultant, continuing his revolutionary work as a civilian. His focus shifted from aircraft design to the wider issue of analyzing the reasons for success in conflict. This led to Boyd's seminal work, "Patterns of Conflict," an unpublished, two-day briefing that he gave for almost two decades throughout the military. This lecture first revealed Boyd's breakthrough, the "OODA Loop" (for Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action) a theory of how military commanders can win by getting inside the mind and outpace the decision cycle of the enemy commander.

Boyd's breakthrough theory would play a pivotal, but hidden role in the shaping of the U.S. victory in Operation Desert Storm, Coram writes. Then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney consulted extensively with Boyd and credits the retired fighter pilot with helping him resist an initial Army plan that would have employed the coalition ground forces in a pitched battle with the Iraqi army. Instead, the Army used the now-famous "Left Hook" flanking movement to encircle and destroy the foe.

The U.S. Marine Corps also embraced Boyd's theories of "Fourth Generational Warfare" and today honor him as one of their own.

As impressive as Boyd's intellect and his drive for self-improvement stands out, one comes away from Coram's biography with an even greater respect for the fighter pilot's ironclad integrity. He set generals on fire and outflanked the bureaucrats because he saw that they were enemies of his solitary mission: To give America's fighting men and women the best tools to attain victory.

His friends and former subordinates all recall a standard Boyd speech that distilled the moral dilemma that sooner or later confronts every person working in the Pentagon: "Tiger (he called all of his favorites that), one day you will come to a fork in the road. And you are going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments. Or you can go that way and you can do something - something for your country and for your Air Force and yourself."

There is no doubt in which direction John Boyd headed.

Boyd died of cancer in 1997 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But his rich legacy is preserved in two ways: Several of his longtime supporters, including Thomas P. Christie and Franklin "Chuck" Spinney, still work in the Pentagon on procurement issues. Several Boyd colleagues have also compiled a collection of his essays and briefings at their website, Defense and the National Interest, for anyone interested to read about this dedicated officer and his revolutionary theories.

Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.