Frans Osinga

by

Boyd in his own words

Boyd gave Patterns of Conflict several hundred times, and many of these were recorded on video. Unfortunately, I can’t find any of them on, for example, YouTube. If you know of one, please put a link in the comments. A complete version of Patterns would be around 8 hours.*

However, we do have a complete audio recording of Boyd presenting not only Patterns but also Organic Design for Command and Control and Strategic Game of ? and ? Boyd gave these at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia (just south of Washington DC) on three evenings from April 25 – May 3, 1989.

Ian Brown and Frans Osinga have just published a transcript of these briefings, along with their own analyses, in their new book, Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals. Everyone with even a passing interest in Boyd, including those who are thoroughly sick of him (perhaps especially those), must read this book. Even better when you can get it for free.

As fascinating as Boyd’s own words are, you should pay careful attention to Brown’s and Osinga’s own sections. Each has published major works on Boyd, and they provide deep insights into Boyd’s presentations and the mighty shoulders Boyd stood on.

Brown and Osinga have done a masterful job, and their book deserves a substantive review, which I will try to do at some point. For now, though, here’s a couple of short quotes from Dr. Osinga’s introduction to tide you over:

Thus, he introduced into strategic theory the concept of open complex adaptive systems struggling to survive in a contested, dynamic, nonlinear world pregnant with uncertainty, constantly attempting to improve and update its schemata and repertoire of actions and its position in the ecology of the organization. (32)

[I]t is basically only necessary to create an initial advantage and prevent the opponent from compensating for it. (34) [Editor’s note: As good a definition of “operating inside the OODA loop” as I’ve seen.]

*The three briefings together run around 281 slides. There is a complete video of Boyd giving Conceptual Spiral, 38 slides, at Air University in 1993. The book also includes a transcript of this presentation.