I just finished a wonderful Biography, " Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War." The key thing this book shows is how the Pentagon really works. Boyd was the Founder of the "Fighter Mafia" that caused the building of the F-16, stopped the B-1 until Reagan got in, (It set out the Gulf War) forced the construction of the A-10, and forced actual combat testing of the Bradley Combat Vehicle. (A movie was made about this struggle.) His greatest contribution was new warfighting Strategy. Cheney brought him in when he was Sec Def to revise the Gulf War Attack. It confirms my fears about the "Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon." I recommend it highly for anyone interested in the subject.
Here is a summary:>>>>John Boyd (1927-1997) was a brilliant and blazingly eccentric person. He was a crackerjack jet fighter pilot, a visionary scholar and an innovative military strategist. Among other things, Boyd wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat, was primarily responsible for designing the F-15 and the F-16 jet fighters, was a leading voice in the post-Vietnam War military reform movement and shaped the smashingly successful U.S. military strategy in the Persian Gulf War. His writings and theories on military strategy remain influential today, particularly his concept of the "OODA (Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action) Loop," which all the military services-and many business strategists-use to this day. Boyd also was a brash, combative, iconoclastic man, not above insulting his superiors at the Pentagon (both military and civilian); he made enemies (and fiercely loyal acolytes) everywhere he went. His strange, mercurial personality did not mesh with a military career, making his 24 years in the Air Force (1951-1975) difficult professionally and causing serious emotional problems for Boyd's wife and children. Coram's worthy biography is deeply researched and detailed, down to describing the fine technical points of some of Boyd's theories. A Boyd advocate (he "contributed as much to fighter aviation as any man in the history of the Air Force," Coram notes), Coram does not shy away from Boyd's often self-defeating abrasiveness and the neglect and mistreatment of his long-suffering wife and children, and keeps the story of a unique life moving smoothly and engagingly.<<< |
