Author: Chet

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Destruction and Creation

The previous post featured Boyd’s last work on strategy; this one provides his first.  The entire Boyd opus can be found at http://dnipogo.org/john-r-boyd/

I had met Boyd while he was still in the Air Force and I was a civilian in the Program Analysis and Evaluation division of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  We’re talking 1972 or so.  But I didn’t start working with him until he retired and started this paper.  He needed someone to review the mathematics and who would work for free.  I fit the bill.

Destruction and Creation lays out the primary arguments that will guide Boyd’s strategic thought at least through Strategic Game in 1986.  It makes the statement that one cannot tell the character or nature of a system from within that system.  Fair enough — nothing radical there.  But then he makes a claim that as far as I know establishes his unique place in strategic thought:  Attempts to do so will “expose uncertainty and generate disorder.”

In other words, a good strategic principle is to force  opponents to turn inward and keep them focused internally until they destroy themselves or so weaken their abilities to resist that you can do it for them.

All the rest of Boyd’s primary strategic work illustrates this concept and suggests many mechanisms at the physical, mental, and moral levels for applying it.

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The Essence of Winning and Losing

Boyd’s last briefing, also called “the big crunch,” available through our “Articles” page link above.

In the 10 years after the last dated version of his major briefings, including Patterns of Conflict (available at http://dnipogo.org/john-r-boyd/), Boyd thought long and hard about the essential elements of his work.  About a year before he died, this is what he came up with.

It ties together all the major elements of his work, including orientation, implicit guidance and control, Fingerspitzengefühl, the OODA loop, and the notion of “operating inside the OODA loop.”  All in 3 pages.

It’s not an easy read, but it will repay many hours of deep pondering.

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Great time to start an airline

This post picks up on one of my favorite themes from my previous blog at chetrichards.com, namely that the US airline industry is working as hard as it can to put itself out of business, and this generates opportunities for someone else.

First, to recap, the “legacy” carriers, those who were here before deregulation in 1978, appear to have only one business strategy: wring maximum revenue out of their product, while reducing its cost wherever possible. Thus, distance between seats becomes smaller, planes are fuller (though there are fewer of them — available seat miles are down about 6% from 2000) — and hardly anything except the seat itself is included in the price.  Classic description of a commodity.

Is this the way it has to be?  Consider a few points:

  • In Europe, high speed rail is replacing air travel on city pairs where they compete.  Thousands of miles are complete for trains traveling over about 130 mph and some clip along at over 200 mph.  On city pairs where they compete, high speed trains have taken a big chunk of the airlines’ business, to the point that only people who can’t afford the train have to use airplanes.
  • In many businesses, people will pay more, sometimes considerably more, for what they see as either a better product or better service.  Will a Lexus get you downtown any faster than a Toyota?  And realistically, what does a Mac do that a PC won’t?
  • Of course, there’s always business class. Let’s compare some fares, ATL – LAX, 18 – 25 August (all on Delta) nonstops:  Coach $248; business$1,242.  International?  ATL – LHR coach $1,082; business $5,182.  This gap has always presented an attractive target, but nobody seems to have figured out how to hit it, aside from a few niche players like Virgin’s Premium Economy.

Now, I’m typing this on my MacBook, so you may be able to figure out where I’m headed.

Air Apple

Why not?  Speaking of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson leveraged his way from a record shop to an airline empire.  I’ve flown their Australian service, which is as good as it gets in the discount airline business.  But he’s still offering the same service as everybody else and is still competing on price for most of his product.  Commodity.

Key point: But Apple has already established that people will pay more for its brand.  Is there a way to transfer that willingness to pay more to the transportation business?    Here’s my guess as to what it would have to be:

  • Hassle free.  That’s how Apple conquered the music player business, recall.  In the early days, it wasn’t just the ridiculously expensive iPod, but the entire iPod / iTunes ecosystem.  Unlike their competition at the time [remember “Plays4Sure,” which didn’t?] it was easy and it worked.  Plus it was fun.  Hassle free, at least compared to the competition, and at a very premium price.  In today’s security environment, this is going to be a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity.  Southwest has taken the hassle-free concept a ways (unfortunately they haven’t been able to summon up the courage to fly to Atlanta), but I think there’s a lot more that could be done.  I just don’t know what it is.
  • Great customer service, again, though, at a price:  AppleCare for a 13″ MacBook Pro, roughly my computer today, is $249.
  • Cachet — This isn’t so true today, at least for computers, but when I first started buying Macs, they did attract attention (with about 2.5% market share).  Frankly, I think Apple is running a real risk here.  On the other hand, how many iPhone 4s have they sold?
  • Better than what’s out there today.  Fact is, for years, Macs have received the highest reliability ratings, and many reviewers continue to praise OS X as easier to use and more stable than even Windows 7 (which is quite nice, by the way).  Can this be transferred to the air travel experience?  Who would have thought it could be transferred to cell phones or retail stores?
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Update for Joe Queenan

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education recently named Ole Miss the “most appealing” college.

As the current chancellor of the university put it:

These respected authors spent years visiting colleges and universities. They cite 11 outstanding colleges and universities that are doing a good job, including MIT, Notre Dame, Arizona State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and others. But they note “we have found Ole Miss THE MOST appealing.”

The authors highlight a transformation at Ole Miss and appropriately attribute much of the progress to the leadership of Chancellor Robert Khayat. Early in his tenure as chancellor, he said that “The University of Mississippi should strive to be and be perceived as a great American public university.” In many ways, this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education fulfills that vision.

Just thought you might want to know.

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DNI Relaunches

Defense and the National Interest, the real one, not the faux site now at d-n-i.net, has relaunched courtesy of our friends at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

For the time being, it’s an archive — new content isn’t being added — and we’re still in the process of tracking down some of the original files.  Please let POGO know when you find broken links.

When DNI launched in 1999 it was unique:  The only site devoted to furthering the concepts originated by the late USAF Col John Boyd, and its original mission was to house Chuck Spinney’s commentary that applied Boyd’s strategy, and his own insightful analysis, to issues concerning national security.  Today, there are any number of sites that provide cutting edge commentary, including zenpundit, John Robb, Tom Barnett, and Fabius Maximus.  Please visit them and contribute.

POGO’s press release announcing the reposting of DNI follows after the fold.

Continue reading →

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Ben was a better man than thou

From Today’s New York Times, the wisdom of sage Joe Queenan:

Thus, I was thrilled when my son decided to attend Franklin & Marshall College, founded in 1787 with £200 ponied up by Franklin, even though the tuition nearly bankrupted me. I would not have footed the bill had he decided to attend, say, Ole Miss or Central Connecticut State or Oral Roberts. I just wouldn’t have.

So, what did your son get for this budget-busting tuition?  The ability to critique Ben Franklin as does his old man?  Joe, for example, hammers Ben Franklin for being an idiot:

Why would the wise man walk, not run, when escaping from fire, a woman or an enemy? I’d run.

Well, Joe, perhaps as this Ole Miss graduate can explain to you, you might walk, rather than run, for several reasons:

  • So you don’t trip or knock into people, particularly those who are trying to deal with the problem
  • So you don’t give aid and comfort to the enemy by running away
  • So you don’t panic everybody around you
  • So you maintain your options and agility — easier to make an abrupt shift in directions when you don’t have so much momentum
  • So you stay oriented — again easier to do if you keep your head up looking around

Yes, Joe.  Amazing what you can learn at a state land grant university, in this case one offering more than 40 accredited doctoral programs, with the active research programs that support them (compare to F&M’s … zero).  And you didn’t want to write a check to Ole Miss because …

[John Boyd, the person whose work inspired my short list, had degrees from  the University of Iowa and Georgia Tech, both state-supported schools that would not have “nearly bankrupted” Queenan.  Guess that he wouldn’t have written a check to them, either.]

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Are India’s Maoist rebels winning the war?

Title of an article in today’s BBC News online by Soutik Biswas.

The fact that the question can even be asked tells you the answer.

As the article notes, the Naxelite insurgency follows the classical pattern identified by Boyd:

They feel ignored and deprived by the Communist government [CR note:  “Communist government” !!!?] which has been ruling the state since 1977. Most live in abject poverty. The only visible signs of “development” I spotted during a trip to the area some years ago were cheap liquor shops.

Continue reading →

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People thoughts, etc., etc.

I don’t want to bore you all, but it’s hard to think of a more important topic in this day and time.  So far, I’ve mentioned the Naxelites in India and Jamaican drug gangs.  But the gold standard for swimming in the sea of the people nowadays is probably Hezbollah:

Ten years on since the withdrawal, the UN together with the Lebanese army patrol the border area. But flapping in the breeze along the fence are yellow and green flags of Hezbollah. Waving next to them is the flag of the group’s biggest foreign backer – Iran.

It is Hezbollah that has real control over what happens in southern Lebanon and many villagers say they like the arrangement.

“It’s the resistance, its weapons and [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah who make us feel safe here,” says Fawwaz Mohammed. “Without the resistance we could never be free.”

Update on Jamaica — reports that “thousands” of troops have assaulted Dudus’s stronghold.  The fact that, two days later, they’re still assaulting it tells you something.  Whether they eventually capture Christoper “Dudus” Cook, this cannot turn out well for Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding.  For one thing, Dudus’s gang, the “Shower Posse,” is (was?) closely affiliated with Golding’s ruling Labor Party.  And by launching the assault after initially resisting the US demand for Dudus’s extradition, Golding paints himself as more attuned to American interests than those of his constituents and countrymen.