Stephen Robinson - The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War

Stephen Robinson does a superb job of analyzing the momentous debate about the virtues of maneuver warfare that took place in the United States during the latter years of the Cold War. He shows in great detail that the proponents of maneuver including their guiding light, John Boyd based their claims on a deeply flawed understanding of history. The Blind Strategist is a must-read for all serious students of modern warfare.

John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

Stephen Robinson makes a bold, but utterly convincing, assault on the foundations of nearly fifty years of military thinking. As the United States military and its allies across the globe reorient themselves for the challenges of great state competition, Robinsons fascinating book is certain to be at the center of the debate.

Dr. James Lacey, Horner Chair of Military Theory, Marine Corps University

An important book, one Boyds advocates will not want to read, but should.

Antulio J. Echevarria II, US Army War College

Robinsons well-researched book questions the tenets of Boyds OODA loop, maneuver warfare, infiltration tactics, blitzkrieg, World War II historiography, Desert Storm success, and much more. This will be controversial. Let the debates begin!

Mark F. Cancian (Colonel, USMCR, ret.), Center for Strategic and International Studies

In this important, engaging and meticulously researched study, Stephen Robinson presents a compelling corrective to the maneuverist myth and Boyd worship affecting large parts of the US defense establishment and other Western militaries. For all the undoubted influence of Boyds purportedly revolutionary ideas, their uncritical embrace has fostered forms of doctrinal dogmatism, and the resulting operational tunnel vision helps explain recent failures in American strategy. In exposing the flawed foundations of maneuver warfare, this book will hopefully go some way to releasing Boyds followers from their blind devotion to the blind strategist.

Thomas Waldman, Senior Lecturer in International Security Studies, Macquarie University

Dedicated to William E. DePuy, an American soldier

William E. DePuy in Vietnam
(Authors Collection)

INTRODUCTION

A PHILOSOPHICAL FIGHTER PILOT

The legend of Colonel John Boyd is well known inside Western militaries but his ideas on competitive advantage have also inspired politicians, business leaders and many others driven by a desire to win. It is the story of a maverick fighter pilot who rebelled against the bomber barons running the United States Air Force during the Cold War and later challenged the entire Pentagon system, fighting corruption and nepotism as leader of the Defense Reform Movement. However, Boyd is best remembered as a warrior philosopher and his theories on conflict and the human mind revolutionized the art of war.

Boyd, according to his biographer Robert Coram, may be the most influential military thinker since Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War 2,400 years ago.

John Richard Boyd, born on 23 January 1927 in Erie, Pennsylvania, enlisted in the United States Army in 1944 and participated in the occupation of postwar Japan. As a wingman, Boyd protected the lead plane which engaged the Chinese MiG-15s and never had the opportunity to open fire in combat.

John Boyd serving as a United States Air Force fighter pilot
(Contributor: Military Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)

MiG Alley the focus of the air war in Korea

After returning to America, Boyd taught tactics at the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas in 1954. He challenged other pilots that he could outmaneuver any of them from a disadvantageous Aerial Attack Study was integrated into the official Air Force manual on air-to-air tactics and became the international fighter pilot bible. By the end of the 1950s, many in the Air Force considered Boyd to be their finest fighter pilot.

In 1960, Boyd studied industrial engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta before being posted to Systems Command at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida two years later. At Eglin, with the help of the mathematician Thomas Christie, he formulated energy maneuverability theory. Boyd wanted to quantify fighter plane performance by comparing the ability of different airframes to alter altitude, speed and direction. Energy maneuverability could quantify how well aircraft can maneuver by analyzing how they change energy states in different conditions.

Boyds covert research proved that Soviet MiG-17, MiG-19 and MiG-21 fighters all possessed greater maneuverability compared to American jets, a shocking revelation which shattered the myth of American Cold War air superiority. The Air Force initially wanted to court martial Boyd for the stolen computer time but, after the realization of his achievement sunk in, it instead presented him with the Air Force Systems Command Scientific Achievement Award and the Air Force Research and Development Award for Aeronautical Engineering.

As energy maneuverability could improve aircraft design, the Air Force posted Boyd to the Pentagon to help the struggling F-X project, which aimed to develop the next generation air superiority fighter. In 1966, he arrived at the Pentagon and clashed with the senior bomber barons who downgraded the importance of fighters. The F-86 Sabre was the last dedicated air superiority fighter as a trend toward more complex platforms designed for multi-role missions, such as dogfights and ground attack, had resulted in heavier, less maneuverable planes. During the Korean War, Sabres achieved a 10:1 kill ratio against MiG-15s, but in air combat over Vietnam, F-4 Phantoms experienced a ratio closer to a 1:1 against communist pilots. As Boyd knew, the existing American planes did not possess an edge over the latest Soviet designed air superiority fighters.

A Soviet MiG-15 fighter
(Contributor: Malcolm Haines/Alamy Stock Photo)

American F-86 Sabre fighters during the Korean War
(Contributor: Alpha Stock/Alamy Stock Photo)

The destruction of a MiG-15 fighter taken from the gun camera of an F-86 Sabre during the Korean War
(Contributor: RBM Vintage Images/Alamy Stock Photo)

Boyd believed the fighter envisaged by the F-X project was too heavy at 80,000 pounds with overly complex swing-wings. Ive never designed an airplane before, he declared, but I could fuck up and do better than this.and industry and his Fighter Mafia advocated a lightweight fighter based on energy maneuverability. He enhanced the design by eliminating the cumbersome swing-wing, resulting in a vastly improved prototype which was approved in 1968.