Book Review: John Boyd Biography

I recently finished reading a biography: John Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. My brother Aaron lent it to me after I gave it to him for Christmas. It took him about 6 hours to read it.

The book is about a fighter pilot who barely missed WWII, was in Korea for only a little bit, and missed Vietnam. He rode planes to their absolute limit (dangerous) and experimented with different maneuvers (also apparently dangerous). Because of this and an obsession with fighters and tactics he good enought to be an instructor at the Air Force’s Top Gun and champion of mock duels.

He developed a theory of fighters that says how quickly you can lose or gain energy (speed/altitude) determines how good of a fighter you have. Since this varies by wing design, speed and altitude a good pilot will stay in his zone where he has more “energy” than other planes.

Then (and I wasn’t expecting this from the blurb), he goes on to develop a theory of warfare based on reacting faster than your opponent to changing situations. (in fact it calls for deliberately doing what he doesn’t expect while confusing him so he reacts too late and incoherently) According to his theory the F-86 was a worse plane than the Mig-15 in Korea yet it had a kill rate of 10-1, he decided this was because the Saber had power controls and the Mig didn’t which allowed American pilots to transition from one maneuver to another much faster than their counterparts. This led him to create his theory on reacting faster "getting inside the decision cycle" of your opponent.

According to the book this was used to create new doctrines most notably for the Marines. This theory and Boyd were also crucial to the planning and lightning victory of the gulf war.

Some of the claims it makes are incredible, yet I find reasons to believe them.
First Norman Schwarzkopf called the battle plan in Gulf War I a “Hail Mary Plan” which is weird, unless it was a battle plan that he had forced on him and not one he came up himself – and he thought likely to fail, which is how this book describes it.
Secondly, I’ve heard some discussion on the second Iraq war criticizing the “lightning” nature of it and saying that it would have been better if they had just gone head to head with the Iraqis – lots of Iraqis would have died but they would have known that they lost fair and square and the insurgency would have not gotten a bunch of recruits from the disbanded military. This is a silly argument if you think about it, but it does seem to indicate a behind-the-scenes debate about maneuver warfare (My pre read thoughts on this subject).

Another thing I want to talk about is his creativity theory. He advocates linking facts from different fields to create a synthesis as a source of creativity. He also says that you should never expect to have arrived at the truth but must be constantly searching for improvement and embracing change.

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