- Examining the Decision-Making Process
- Boyd and the Decision Process
- The OODA Loop
- The Ingredients of Decision Making
- The Pathway to Improved Decision Making
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Boyd and the Decision Process
Like many of us, John Boyd began his search for what factors increased the likelihood for success by looking at the tools (in this case weapons) of the victor. Boyd was an American fighter pilot who had served in the Korean War, where he flew the highly regarded F-86 fighter jet that dominated the skies against Soviet-designed MiG-15s. He knew firsthand there were differences in each aircraft model’s capabilities. He theorized that there must be a way to quantitatively calculate an aircraft’s performance so that it could be used to compare the relative performance of different types. If this were possible, one could then determine both the optimal design and the combat maneuvers that would be the most advantageous against the enemy.
His work led to the discovery of Energy-Maneuverability (EM) theory. It modeled an aircraft’s specific energy to determine its relative performance against an enemy. The formula was revolutionary and is still used today in the design of military aircraft.
From there, Boyd looked to combine his theory with the optimal processes to fully exploit an aircraft’s capabilities. He used his time at the Fighter Weapons School in Nevada to develop Aerial Attack Study, a book of aerial combat maneuvers first released inside the US military in 1961. It is considered so comprehensive that it is still used by combat pilots as the definitive source today.
Having both a means to create the best tools and processes to use them, most of us would figure that Boyd now possessed the formula for success in warfare. Despite all of this, Boyd was still troubled.
When he ran his own formula against some of the most successful weapons of World War II and the Korean War, he found many instances where the “successful” ones were far less capable than those of the enemy. Particularly disturbing to him, this included the highly regarded F-86.
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Figure 2.2 Searching for the ingredients to air superiority was difficult.
As Boyd went back to earlier wars, he found that this was hardly unique. In fact, throughout history, having superior weaponry seemed to rarely be a relevant factor in determining the victor. As Boyd continued to research, he repeatedly found instances where numerically and technically superior forces lost spectacularly to their poorly equipped opponents. That meant that despite his revolutionary work on EM theory, combat success couldn’t be determined by any one formula or set of maneuvers.
Boyd studied great military tacticians from Sun Tzu and Alexander the Great to the Mongols, Clausewitz, and Helmut von Moltke. He also interviewed surviving officers of the most successful German Army units during World War II to understand what made them different. He soon realized that battlefield success hinged on which side could make the right decisions more quickly and accurately to reach a given objective. This was true even in cases where the victor possessed inferior weapons, fewer soldiers, poorer training, and battlefield terrain disadvantages. Not only that, but he noticed that this decision-making advantage could be gained just as well by either optimizing your own decision-making abilities or by thwarting those of your opponent.
This realization led Boyd to examine more deeply how the decision-making process works and what can make it more or less effective. In the process, he invented what is now known as the OODA loop.