John Boyd Compendium (2007)

If you liked the book about Boyd and specifically the parts about getting things done at the Pentagon, I highly recommend Charlie Beckwith's book about the founding of Delta Force.

Nowadays, it seems obvious to have an incredibly elite counter terrorist team in the military but it's surprising how much push back Beckwith encountered.

The book is also filled with tons of funny stories.

e.g.

General: "Charlie, Tom over there is going to present your plan"

Beckwith: "But sir, Tom doesn't know anything about special forces."

General: "I understand Charlie. However, Tom is the BEST presenter we have and I want this to succeed and a great presentation is the first step to make that happen."

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

Armies want to plan for wars, not police actions. SF forces now number over 75K so they just suck resources and get all the cool stuff. They don’t follow the same process. Even with that size, when Rumsfeld went to the Army staff and asked for an Afghanistan invasion plan, they threw him a book for an occupation force of 500K. Which was the correct doctrine, and one that had a remotely possible successful outcome. Rummy was outraged.

So the CIA chief told W “I can do it A-teams and some SF units” and thus started a 20 year lost cause and the regular Army generals had no doubt it would be.

The existance of any SF units causes a bias towards simple solutions and silver bullets. Solutions that multiple Presidents and DoD secretaries believe. Real generals just roll their eyes.

A Green Beret I met in the 80’s referred to Delta as “glorified door kickers.”

hammock• 3 years ago

If anyone wants to borrow my copy I will send it to you

spitfire• 3 years ago

You can find all of John Boyd's work on Chet Richards' website. Chet was one of the Boyd acolytes.

https://slightlyeastofnew.com/439-2/

Also very much worth looking at is Frans Osinga's thesis/book "Science, strategy, and war."

http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/ScienceStrategyWar_Osi...

John Boyd Compendium (2007)

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