Patterns of Conflict
| The works of |
| Works of John Boyd |
|---|
OODA WIKI Edition
Quantico Transcription
Clausewitz overemphasized the decisive battle and underemphasized strategic maneuver. And the reason why is he came up with strategic maneuver only through 18th century on. In other words, he was reacting against that kind of war and overplayed [unintelligible].
Also, he emphasized method and routine at the tactical level. Why did he do it? His own words, to reduce his own internal friction. Is there anything wrong with that? He wasn’t looking outward. He was always looking at things in an absolute sense.
Clausewitz is concerned with trying to overcome or reduce friction and uncertainty. He failed to address if you want to try to magnify adversary’s friction and uncertainty. The point is, if you have routine in your own services and become predictable, you’ve also lowered your adversary’s friction relative to you. You’ve got to think of it both ways.
Not only that, I had earlier on there, move with the utmost speed. Well, what good does that do you, the utmost speed? Why do you want to move with the utmost speed? I’m talking about [unintelligible]. Just to get there first? He should’ve said he wanted to move faster than the adversary. What’s utmost? The other guy’s moving with utmost, he might be faster than you. So he’s looking at things in an absolute sense. Remember, he looked at the absolute nature of war and then the reality. He didn’t look at it in terms of a relational thing. [25:00]He was concerned with trying to exhaust his adversary by causing him to increase his expenditure of effort.
Why not turn the argument around? Why not develop the idea of trying to paralyze your adversary by denying him even the opportunity to expend any effort? Not that the first is wrong, but he’s not looking at it broadly enough.
And he incorrectly stated, “a center of gravity,” quoting him, “is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely.” That’s not always true. In a donut, the center of gravity, well, there is no mass. In a hollow steel ball, it’s where the steel isn’t. In a dumbbell, it’s in the connection between the mass. You can come up with counterexample after counterexample. It’s not correct.
And then argued this is the place where the blow must be aimed, the decision should be reached. And then he talked about centers of gravity, the army, the capital, and public opinion. Followed up the army and capital, didn’t really follow up the public opinion. If you aim at the public opinion, here’s what happens then. You fail to develop the idea of generating many non-cooperative centers by striking at those tendons, connections that permit a larger— that says longer, but it should be larger center of gravity exists.
In other words, you want to generate many non-cooperative centers of gravity so the guy can’t function as an organic whole. What kind of people do that to us today? What about the guerrillas? Didn’t they do that to the US? We had many non-cooperative centers of gravity in this country. As a result, what happened? We had to come home.
And I might add that, everybody said, hell, we won all the battles. No, we didn’t win all the battles. I don’t care if they said so. I know one battle we didn’t win. What battle was that? They say we won all the battles, I said no. If you’re going to use battle as a measure of merit, you better be sure that it’s not a narrow lens. It’s got to be as broad as possible lens, if you use that as a measure of merit for success. We lost the battle in the home front. When I bring that up, they only think of the physical battle.
If you’re talking about battles, you’ve got to talk about the moral, the mental, and the physical. They were thinking body count, attrition. That’s what they were thinking. I know exactly what they were thinking.
In fact, Harry Summers said we won all the battles.[1] I said, “bullshit, Harry. We didn’t win all the battles.” He says, “well, I know we did. I did all the investigations.” Bullshit. You didn’t. I know you didn’t. And I didn’t do all your investigation. Did you win the battle on the home
front? Of course he’d never lie and he said no. I said okay. There was the most important battle. It cost us the war.
And what dimension was that played in? Physical? No. In the moral dimension, which bears to what Napoleon said. The moral is the physical as three is to one. If you get a chance to hear my strategy, I go into that deeper. [unintelligible]
Audience: [unintelligible] the same point in [unintelligible].
Boyd: Say again. [unintelligible]
Audience: You said what Napoleon said and what you just said—
Boyd: Yeah.
Audience: —moral is to the physical as three is to one. I’m just trying to relate—
Boyd: You see, I’m looking at that pyramid from another angle, is all I’m saying. That’s what I’m trying to bring out. We didn’t win. We didn’t win all the battles. We lost the moral battle. But see, the guys only want to define the physical sense. Nah, it’s too weak. That’s not true.
But see, attrition warfare is easy. Christ, you just go out there and just slug off artillery and machine gun rounds and all that bullshit. You don’t even have to think. Just pound away.
When you lead troops, your first concern, your first duty is to your troops. You don’t want to goddamn run up a goddamn hill and clean out your company and say well, shit, we tried, when you could’ve come in the back door.
That’s what I told you Patton said, hold them by the nose and kick them in the ass. That’s what he’s talking about. You get them to concentrate one way and you kick the shit out of them in a different direction. Then we ain’t [unintelligible].
In fact, you’ve got a good statement in your new warfighting manual.[2] That thing by Slim is beautiful. Your warfighting book that does— in your conduct of war. Remember that little quote by Slim at the end?[3] He said, bullshit on the principles of war. Here’s all you’ve got to remember. It’s a beautiful statement. He had it exactly right. He was a smart guy too. He’s in the wrong theater so he didn’t get much credit.
Okay. So what does all this mean? So to attack this, let’s go in reverse order. Let’s assume we can generate many non-cooperative center of gravity. If we can do that, what do we do? We deny the opportunity to generate— we impede vigorous activity. If we impede vigorous activity, what does that mean? We maximize friction and uncertainty. That’s exactly right.
So very often when you turn the argument around, you see what’s going to happen. Because it can’t function as an organic whole. And so there’s the message then.
Lightfoot Transcription
- ↑ 14 Boyd is likely referring to Harry G. Summers, who served in the United States Army during both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Summers wrote an analysis of American operations in Vietnam through a Clausewitzian framework, entitled ''On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War,'' 2nd ed.(New York, NY: Presidio Press, 1995).
- ↑ 15 FMFM-1 ''Warfighting'' (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1989).
- ↑ 16 Boyd is referring to the following quote by Sir William Slim from FMFM-1: “Many years ago, as a cadet hoping some day to be an officer, I was poring over the ‘Principles of War,’ listed in the old Field Service Regulations, when the Sergeant-Major came up to me. He surveyed me with kindly amusement. ‘Don’t bother your head about all them things, me lad,’ he said. ‘There’s only one principle of war and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, and as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’!” (see ''Warfighting,'' 55).