Patterns of Conflict
| The works of |
| Works of John Boyd |
|---|
OODA WIKI Edition
Quantico Transcription
Now, let’s look at them all together. And if we look at all these—question?
Audience: Are you saying this is one of the main objects of terrorists?
Boyd: Oh, goddamn right.
Audience: I mean, that—
Boyd: A lot of this that I’ve got— a lot of this stuff that I’ve showed you— well, this is a summation, but all I’m doing is to say let’s take it all together. Tactics, the grand tactics, the strategy, and the strategic aim— am I answering your question? The tactics feed the grand tactics, that feed the strategy, that feed the strategic aim. And there’s overlap. The whole thing’s coherent, too. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s all coherent.
Now, answering your question, where did I get a lot of this? I looked at the guerrillas, I say, “Hey, these guys are really gifted at this stuff.” I mean, it’s in the blitzkrieg too, but you really see it in the guerrilla operations and that kind of stuff. They’re really gifted. I mean, they cause us enormous problems. And look what the Afghanis did to the Russians. The Russians, when they went to Afghanistan, the idea wasn’t to leave. They wanted to stay. They left with their tail between their legs. To this day, they still can’t believe it. In fact, they’re calling it their Vietnam now. You see it on TV where they say, “Well, we’re having our Vietnam.”
And they still— they’re all screwed up. Their veterans all are pissed off, they’re all arguing with one another, they still can’t figure out what happened. Have you looked at it? They’re talking just like our guys. They had the same problem. They didn’t realize they had to be in the village and not attack the village. I mean, in a different sense. It’s not like Vietnam, I’m just trying to say there are connections.
Audience: Colonel Boyd, the difference between it is, I think they had handled it worse than we did. They once—
Boyd: They figured by just being hard-nosed they’re going to make a take. Well, they had to leave. They had to depart the scene. I mean, they’re looking at themselves, they still can’t figure out why they had to depart the scene. Because here, they were the champion revolutionaries. But we were revolutionaries before those— when we fought the British. We did those kind of things. And now, meantime, everybody’s doing it to us, and also the Russians.
Forgot something along the way. We forgot something along the way. So did they. They thought they were invulnerable. They’re not. But you see what’s going on here. It all plays together. It’s all very coherent. Okay? I’m just pulling it all together.