From Chuck Spinney’s Blaster.

The “Blaster” is Chuck’s collection of commentaries on articles and events, which he began in the late-1990s. Numbers 155- 549 (July 1998 – January 2006) are archived on the DNIPOGOsite,

http://www.dnipogo.org/fcs/comments/spinney_archive.htm

He is posting later comments on his own blog at http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/

You can download Maj. Trembley’s thesis from our Articles page.  A link to Maj. Trembley’s after action report, referenced by Spinney at the end of his post, is here.

Note:  I have NO connection with any site claiming to be “Defense and the National Interest,” other than DNIPOGO. Please use appropriate caution when visiting any other site claiming to be “Defense and the National Interest.”

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09 JUNE 2015
Announcement

Long time readers of the Blaster are familiar with strategic theories of Colonel John Boyd (new readers will find a variety of references to them at this link).   I am pleased to announce that Marine Major PJ Tremblay’s thesis, Shaping and Adapting: Unblocking the Power of Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop, has won the  “The Colonel F. Brooke Nihart Writing Award for 2015. This award is endowed by Colonel and Mrs. F. Brooke Nihart, USMC (ret), and presented in honor of the late Colonel Nihart to the Marine infantry officer at Command and Staff College whose Master of Military Studies paper demonstrates the greatest depth of scholarship, clarity and originality.

In my opinion, Major Tremblay has made a significant contribution to the growing corpus of analyses and writings aimed at fleshing out and evolving Colonel Boyd’s ideas.  Tremblay’s thesis was written in partial completion of a masters degree, and I think it  provides an excellent and readable introduction to the use of Boyd’s OODA Loop as a frame of reference for examining the tactical level of combat.  Tremblay goes further, however: He introduces general frame of reference for incorporating Colonel Boyd’s ideas more effectively into the Marine Corps education system, from junior to senior ranks and from the tactical to the strategic level of combat.

Tremblay actually used Boyd’s ideas in both the planning and execution of a stunningly successful tactical assault by a reinforced infantry company in Afghanistan.