WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd

11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 1

Coram’s Boyd
John Boyd was a fighter pilot. He was a fighter pilot's
fighter pilot, a knight of the sky, a high-G gun-slinger never
defeated in air-to-air combat. He was also a thinker, a theorist,
and a teacher of acolytes. Most of all he was driven. His thirst
for knowledge was never slaked. He searched for answers
across unrelated fields of study, looking for new ways to think
about things, to find new patterns. He codified the abstract, then
went on to investigate the act of thinking itself. In all this he
was relentless. Fame and fortune were of no matter, and those
that got in the way of his quest for knowledge were trampled.
His biographer, Robert Coram has said about Boyd:
"He's uniquely American in many respects. The opposition to
authority, the individuality about him, having a mission and
staying on it, no matter the odds. It's the story of a man of
great morality and principle against un-principled people.
Again, he's the kind of man that many of us in our heart of
hearts aspire to be. He did it and he prevailed. We all get a
vicarious kick out of reading about men like that."1
Coram's biography —BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who
Changed The Art Of War— is a highly accessible account of
John Boyd's life, from his birth in Eerie, Pennsylvania in 1927
to his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, 1997. Coram
brought the Air Force bar-room legend of John Boyd from out
of the military ranks to the popular press.
Although Boyd is cited in many works, only four trade pub-
lications to date have been released detailing his life or his
theories:
2001 - BOYD by Robert Coram
2001 - The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security
by Grant T. Hammond
2003 - A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John
Boyd Did a National Defense Review? by Chester W.
Richards
2004 - Certain To Win: The Strategy Of John Boyd, Applied
To Business by Chester W. Richards
This first round of historical analysis has been conducted
mostly by insiders of Boyd's world. Former Pentagon analyst
Chester (Chet) Richards associated with Boyd for over twenty
years. Dr Grant Hammond, Director of the Center for Strategy
and Technology at the US Air War College, also worked with
Boyd, and readily “admits a bias in favor of many of Col.
Boyd’s ideas, if not an endorsement of his methods.”2
Coram on the other hand is somewhat of an outsider.
Though Coram has spoken to Boyd on the phone, he never met
the man. Coram approached Boyd as an investigative journalist,
gathering research materials through interviews, personal writ-
ings and videotapes. Coram's flowing prose has a southern
drawl that reads easily. The other books are more technical, and
less accessible to the non-military public.
Yet even as an outsider, Coram retains a highly sympathetic
voice. BOYD is rollicking adventure with a good old boy that
can do no wrong. Examining the history of the authour himself
provides clues as to why Coram presented Body in this manner.
Portrait of a biographer
Robert Coram keeps his private life private, and his bio-
graphical details are largely unknown.3 Born in the late 1930's,
Robert Coram grew up in southern Georgia. His father was a
sergeant in the US Army for 33 years. Coram has mixed feel-
ings about his early past, about how he rejected his father's
strict lessons as a youngster. Later, as an adult writing military
biographers, Coram came to embrace what his father had taught
him "about the military, about the flag, about patriotism, and
about how man conducts himself." Coram's biographies on
John Boyd and Colonel Bud Day have served as a catalyst for
Coram's acceptance of the traditional, patriotic values that he
rejected for so long. History as a moral lesson is a theme that
colours Coram's biography of Boyd.
In the 1950's Coram enlisted in the US Air Force, where he
learned to fly. After a few short years he enrolled in Georgia
State University where in his second year he was hired by The
Atlanta Journal, one of Atlanta Georgia's two daily newspa-
pers. During the 1960's Coram covered the civil rights move-
ment in Atlanta, and even at this early stage in his career he
wrote articles for aviation publications. Later, he was fired for
trying to unionize the reporting staff at the Journal. From there
he moved to writing for different publications including Sports
Illustrated and the New York Times while holding down "day
jobs".
The late 1970's saw Coram traveling around the Caribbean
basin and Colombia writing about drug trafficking and the war
in El Salvador. This resulted in him being asked to return to
work as a reporter for The Atlanta Constitution, which was
owned by Cox Enterprises along with The Atlanta Journal. He
was fired from the Constitution after three years for his over-
aggressive interview technique. Coram has garnered two Pulit-
zer Prize nominations for his journalistic work.
In the 1980's Coram wrote two series of fiction novels about
drug smuggling and Atlanta cops respectively. In the early
1990's he returned to his investigative journalism roots with a
book on the United States government's distasteful actions in
Antigua. In his next book Coram co-authored a semi-
autobiographical account of Christina Noble, an Irish woman

1Interview with Tom Peters, 15 Feb 2006, available online at

http://www.tompeters.com/cool_friends/content.php?note=008572.php
2Grant T. Hammond, “The Essential Boyd.” Belasarius, online at
http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/hammond/essential_boyd.htm
3The profile constructed here is based Tom Peters’ interview of Coram, Brian Lamb’s Booknotes interview
(http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1712), the official bio on Coram’s website, available at
http://www.robertcoram.com/about_the_author.html

1
WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd
who worked with street children in Viet Nam. Finally, in the
late 1990's Coram profiled a famous bass fisherman for Na-
tional Geographic.
It was in 1999 that Coram decided to focus his biography
writing skills and investigative journalism experience on one of
America's influential if unknown airmen: John Boyd.
Coram creates an indepth portrayal of Boyd by weaving
together strands of his past, linking Boyd’s lessons of youth
with his actions as an adult. The same could be said of Coram
himself, and the writing of BOYD. As a pilot and ex-airman
himself , Coram identified with Boyd. Coram admired Boyd’s
revolutionary stance against the colossal bureaucracy of the
United States Defense Department. Coram himself had been a
revolutionary, fighting to unionize his fellow journalists and
getting fired for it. David Mets, one of the rare vocal critics of
BOYD, speculates that Boyd’s death from prostate cancer
“struck a chord with Coram” who also suffered with the
disease. 4
The writing of BOYD was a lesson for Coram. In a personal
sense BOYD forced Coram to come to terms with his own past.
He had rejected his father while Boyd had none. Coram re-
spected Boyd and Boyd embodied many of the values that his
father espoused. In a public sense Coram thought that America
should learn from the Fighter Mafia and other revolutionary
activities of Boyd. The behemoth Pentagon of the Sixties and
Seventies was re-incarnated in the Nineties under the auspices
of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Boyd’s Acolytes contin-
ued the fight against the Goliath of the Defense Department,
but needed a new James Fallows to popularize the debate. It is
against this background that BOYD is written, on one hand a
lesson for the American people to defend against the “military-
industrial-complex,” and on the other as a personal lesson in
patriotism and moral standing.
Snapshot of history
The personal context of the authour notwithstanding,
BOYD was written during an interesting time in the history of
American power and defense policy. The post-Cold War era
brought hope that the threat of war would be dramatically di-
minished as power was dispersed to a number of other centers
including Europe, Japan and China. It seemed the first multipo-
lar system was upon the world in a half century. Syndicated
columnist Charles Krauthammer argued differently, asserting
that the world was not becoming multipolar, but unipolar:
There is today no lack of second-rank powers. Germany and
Japan are economic dynamos. Britain and France can deploy
diplomatic and to some extent military assets. The Soviet Un-
ion possesses several elements of power – military, diplomatic
and political – but all are in rapid decline. There is but one
first-rate power and no prospect in the immediate future of any
power to rival it.5
With nearly one third of the world's GDP, the third largest
population and a military force that far outstrips any possible
competitor it was soon evident that the United States was the
world's sole superpower. Of course there still existed a number
of other great powers in the post-Cold War system. Regional
sub-systems contained their own poles. But if conflict were to
get out of hand, spreading and threatening the global interests
4 David R. Mets, “Boydmania” Air & Space Power Journal, Volume XVIII, No. 3 (Fall 2004). See footnote 3.
5 Charles Krauthammer. “The Unipolar Moment.” Foreign Affairs 70, 1 (1990/91).
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11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 2
of the United States, disagreements will be settled by interven-
tion on behalf of the superpower. Ultimately the system is uni-
polar.
Unipolar systems obviously lack great power war, but are
characterized by "small wars" such as interventions as well as
background conflicts of a mostly domestic nationalistic or eth-
nic nature. This shift of weight in the international system re-
sulted in a new kind of foreign policy tool for the America:
humanitarian intervention. The 1990's saw a number of these
interventions under the leadership of President Clinton.
It wasn't only political strength, but also technological inno-
vation that fueled this new moral foreign policy. The experience
of Operation Desert Storm inspired great confidence in US air
power. The US and coalition bombers pounded Iraq with over
1000 sorties a day for nearly one month. They followed with a
ground campaign, Operation Desert Sabre, that resulted in the
quick retreat of Iraqi forces in a matter of days. Coalition forces
suffered exceedingly small casualties. The resounding success
of Desert Storm was attributed to the US military's advanced
technology, particularly precision-guided munitions and the
absolute dominance of US air power. A massive study commis-
sioned by the US Air Force in 1993 entitled "Gulf War Air
Power Survey" reinforced this opinion. Pundits and policy
makers began to think they could conduct foreign policy at
arm's length with little to no casualties by use of high technol-
ogy air power. President Clinton exercised this theory in August
of 1998 with Operation Infinite Reach where cruise missiles
were used in strikes against terrorist outposts in Afghanistan
and Sudan.
The most visible of these air power-centric interventions
was the 88-day Kosovo air campaign in 1999. From March 24
to June 10 NATO forces flew over 38,000 combat missions.
But Slobodan Milosevic was unwilling to back down as Sad-
dam Hussein did in 1991. Air power wasn't proving to be suffi-
cient to stop the conflict, especially as the war degraded into
ethic conflict and genocide. To deal with the existing ground
threats NATO had to put troops on the ground.
It was against this historical backdrop that Robert Coram
began to investigate John Boyd. Long-time associate Chuck
Spinney had been after Coram to write a biography of Boyd, so
Coram went to Washington to see if there was a story. After
speaking with Spinney and some of the other Acolytes, Coram
started research for BOYD in 1999.
But there was another factor that must be considered, an-
other theme that spurred Coram to write the book and the Aco-
lytes to support him. It had to do with weapon systems acquisi-
tion. The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review had come up short
in the eyes of the Acolytes. The QDR was released May 19th,
just two months after Boyd's death, and Chuck Spinney was
quick to publish his critical analysis in September 1997 in Stra-
tegic Review. The 1997 QDR was considered a disaster, and the
next QDR was scheduled for the spring of 2001. Coram's
BOYD was to not only educate the American people about an
unsung American hero, but to warn them of Dwight Eisen-
hower's military-industrial complex.
Revolutionary debate
The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has its origins in
the early 1990's. Reductions in budgets and the size of military
WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd
forces after the Cold War resulted in a need to do more with
less. The post-Cold War era was considered unpredictable, with
numerous potential threats putting even more demand on
downsized forces. Recent advances in internet and communica-
tions technologies (ICT), sensors and guidance systems seemed
to hold the answer.
RMA has been defined in a Canadian context as:
... a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the
innovative application of new technologies which, combined
with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and
organizational concepts fundamentally alters the character and
conduct of military operations.6
New technologies include "precision-guided munitions for
precision force, stealth for greater power projection, advanced
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems for en-
hanced battle-space awareness, and advanced command, con-
trol, communications and computing systems for increased
battle-space control."7
Technology was considered the solution for dealing with an
unpredictable post-Cold War world. Theorists envisioned inter-
net and communications technology linking all warfighters and
decision-makers —from infantryman to naval vessels to air-
craft— to provide seamless access to timely information. Tech-
nology would help to improve situational awareness and reduce
"friction" in the battle space. This resulted in the acronym
C4ISR, or Command, Control, Communications, Computers,
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. This not only
applied to command and control but also to the connectivity of
weapons as well. The lowliest infantryman could see his posi-
tion and the position of his enemies on an electronic map which
rendered data in real-time from surveillance planes above. The
same soldier could also contribute his own data to the system,
entering reconnaissance information into the system to direct
artillery or air strikes. 8
The other side of the debate is where Boyd's Acolytes found
themselves. The RMA critics argued that such a deluge of in-
formation would be too overwhelming, effectively paralyzing
command. In the past Boyd argued that one way to defeat the
enemy was to overwhelm him with information:
Each level from simple to complex (platoon to theater) has
their own observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle
that increases as we try to control more levels and details of
command at the higher levels. Put simply, as the number of
6Department of National Defence, "Shaping the Future of the Canadian Forces: A Strategy for 2020," (Ottawa: Department of
National Defence (DND), 1999). p. 2.
7 Elinor Sloan, "DCI: Responding to the US-Led Revolution in Military Affairs." NATO Review 48, no. 1 (2000). pp. 4-7.
8 Elinore Sloan, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada and Nato. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal
(2002). pp. 16.
9 John Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, (1986) Slide #72. Available for download at http://d-n-i.net/boyd/pdf/poc.pdf
3
11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 3
events we must consider increase, the longer it takes to
observe-orient-decide-act.9
Some anti-RMA proponents embraced the new technology
as a way to free the military from a hierarchical command
structure. A networked military could become more dispersed
and decentralized. Improved telecommunications would allow
soldiers to maintain cohesion within a more distributed
network-type organization. Such an organization would pro-
mote better maneuver warfare and swarm tactics. The revolu-
tion wasn't technology, it was social organization. Anti-RMA
proponents argued for "the cheap and the many." More mass-
produced weapons platforms, more UAVs, and more boots on
the ground that could self-organize and swarm the enemy at the
moment he revealed a weak point.
Boyd had argued vehemently against "gold-plating"
throughout the development of the F-15 in the early 1970s.
Boyd was famous for saying: "People, ideas, and hardware in
that order!" His Acolytes were fighting the same battle in the
1990's against the RMA crowd and their "multi-role" weapons
platforms. The F-22 Raptor, which formally entered into serv-
ice in 2005 and is slated to replace the F-15, had begun its de-
velopment in the early 1990s. The F-35, also began develop-
ment under the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program, and
is scheduled to replace the A-10, F-16, F-18 (champions of
Boyd and Pierre Sprey) and AV-8B Harrier II around 2012.
Surely recent advances in technology will have a profound
effect on the way we conduct war in the future. But only time
will tell how society adapts to technology, a more far-reaching
change that affects the conduct of war on a much deeper level.
Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that the effects of techno-
logical innovations are typically overrated in the short run but
underestimated in the long run.
Future war
An additional aspect of the RMA debate was the conception
of how war would be fought in the future. Boydian theorists
were at work here as well.
During the 1990's Pentagon planners were unsure of where
the interventionist missions were taking the US and still
searched the horizon for something familiar. They settled their
eyes on the next potential “near peer” competitor: China. Here
was a large, industrial state with a conventional military and
booming economy. After 1996 the Taiwan Straits was the bat-
tleground of the future. Planners started focussing on a high-
WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd
tech battle with China round the year 2025. Boydian theorists
had been against the high-tech since the beginning, and one
theorist in particular didn't think war with China was going to
be the challenge of the future. William S. Lind predicted that
"moral conflict" was what the US should be arming itself
against. Lind is not necessarily a Boyd Acolyte, but more of a
contemporary highly influenced by Boyd.
William S. Lind was an aide and military advisor to Colo-
rado Senator Gary Hart (Democrat), who spear-headed the
military reform movement from the Senate between 1977 and
1986. Bill Lind is a military theorist in his own right. He
authored a manual in the mid 1980’s for the United States Ma-
rine Corps. entitled the Maneuver Warfare Handbook.10
Throughout the tract Lind references Boyd. The first two pages
outline the genesis of the OODA loop, or as Lind calls it the
“Boyd Cycle.” In fact, Lind wrote that “The Boyd Theory is the
theory of maneuver warfare.” Colonel Mike Wyly, Boyd’s Aco-
lyte from the Marine Corp wrote the appendices for the book
detailing fundamental tactics.
Lind is mostly known for his concept of “Fourth Generation
Warfare” detailed in an article from 1989.11 The four genera-
tions of war are generally considered to begin at the dawn of
the modern state. The first generation was that of line and col-
umn, fought by massing infantry at a focal point, or schwer-
punkt in Clausewitz’s terms. This was war during Napoleon’s
time. The second generation developed as improvements were
made in weapons and massed firepower including the rifled
musket, breechloaders, the machine gun and indirect fire.
World War I is an example of 2nd generation warfare. The third
generation, as evinced in the blitzkrieg tactics of World War II,
is that of maneuver warfare. 12 Fourth generation warfare, com-
monly referred to as 4GW, is a departure from the first three
generations in that it is not reliant on technology. In fact, it is in
a way a regression, to a style of warfare from before the age of
the modern state.
... what changes in the Fourth Generation is who fights and
what they fight for. ... Fourth Generation war focuses on the
moral level, where it works to convince all parties, neutrals as
well as belligerents, that the cause for which a Fourth Genera-
tion entity is fighting is morally superior. It turns its state ene-
mies inward against themselves on the moral level, making the
political calculations of the mental level irrelevant.13
The roots of Lind’s framework for generational warfare can
be found in Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict brief.14 Slide 111 de-
tails Boyd’s “Categories of Conflict”:
Attrition warfare—as practiced by the Emperor Napoleon, by
all sides during the 19th century and during World War I, by
10 William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, Westview Press (1985).
11William S. Lind et al, “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation” Marine Corps Gazette (October 1989) pp. 22-26.
Available online at http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/4th_gen_war_gazette.htm
12This overview of the first three generations of war is from Col. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, Zenith Press, St.
Paul, MN (2004) pp. 12-13
13 See Lind’s review of The Sling and the Stone online at http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_11_05_04.htm
14 The December 1986 version of the presentation is available as a PDF at http://www.d-n-i.net/boyd/pdf/poc.pdf
4
11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 4
the Allies during World War II, and by present-day nuclear
planners.
Maneuver conflict—as practiced by the Mongols, General
Bonaparte, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Union
General Ulysses S. Grant, Hitler’s Generals (in particular
Manstein, Guderian, Balck, Rommel) and the Americans under
Generals Patton and MacArthur.
Moral conflict—as practiced by the Mongols, most guerrilla
leaders, a very few counter-guerrillas (such as Magsaysay) and
certain others from Sun Tzu to the present.
Boyd’s categories are much broader in their examples but
basically delineate along the same lines as Lind’s generations of
warfare. “Attrition Warfare” is the first and second generations;
“Maneuver Conflict” the third; and “Moral Conflict” is 4GW.
The difference is Lind’s view that each generation is a reaction
to its predecessor, an evolution to counter advances in technol-
ogy deployed by the enemy. Boyd’s categories are just that:
simply labels to be applied, immutable through time. The gen-
erations of war framework is not entirely based on time, but
hinges upon the power of a state. Fourth Generation Warfare
harkens back to a time before the Westphalian state. Thus 4GW
proponents commonly prescribe to the writings of Martin van
Creveld. In fact van Creveld’s opus, The Transformation of
War, features praise on its back cover from Colonel Michael
Wyly.
Doubtless criticism
It was on the canvas of Coram's proclivity to reject author-
ity, the directionless post-Cold War, and a clash between vi-
sions of future war and how it should be fought, that the portrait
of Boyd was created. Coram spent nearly three years poring
over Air Force performance reports and repeatedly interviewing
Boyd's family and his Acolytes.
It could be considered hagiographic to have so much of the
source material come from Boyd's coterie. In fact, the only
negative things Boyd can find about Boyd are the treatment of
his family, personal hygiene, and quirks like chewing his hand,
"hoovering" his meals, and spraying spit on his conversation
partners. Numerous senior officers who had an intense dislike
of Boyd appear in the pages of the book, yet neither their names
nor their story are revealed. It seems as if Coram did not try to
probe into the other side of the story. Thus BOYD moves away
from "investigative" journalism, or an academic work, and
more into the realm of semi-legend. Coram's romanticism is
highly detectable in the prose. And the lack of footnotes or
endnotes is a regrettable omission. Coram defends his choice to
not to include citations:
WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd
CORAM: I did that deliberately. I want the book to be accessi-
ble because so many biographies are just deadly dull and you
got to read them but you also need a lot of caffeine when you
do it. ...
LAMB: ... Did anybody challenge you on this, whether this is
accurate or not?
CORAM: One person since the book came out has said that
what I portrayed as black and white is really a gray area where
principled people are different. But I wrote it from the stand-
point of Boyd and his friends and they were in a bunker mode.
They were at war with the Pentagon and they felt this way
toward those people.15
The academic rigour of BOYD may be suspect, but the
overwhelmingly positive acclaim for the book proves its worth
as a good read. Praise is heaped on Coram's work, and it is dif-
ficult to find any dissenting opinions — with one notable ex-
ception.
Dr. David R. Mets is professor emeritus at the School of
Advanced Airpower Studies at the United State Air Force Uni-
versity. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, he has taught
airpower history at both the Air Force Academy and West
Point. Mets has written extensively on military history and air
power, and served in the US Navy and US Air Force for 30
years.
Mets wrote a scathing review of Coram's BOYD in the Air
& Space Power Journal.16 Though somewhat tongue-in-cheek,
Mets highlights a number of flaws in Coram's book. Early in
the article he admits that his criticisms have "less to do with
Boyd himself, than with his biographers and acolytes."
Mets takes issue with the lionizing of Boyd's humble begin-
nings, pointing out that any family who owned a house and a
car during the Depression was well off. Mets speculates that
this was simply a literary device to gain the sympathy of the
reader. Coram's depiction of Boyd's difficult progression
through the ranks is also problematic according to Mets. Of the
527 graduates of West Point in 1952, only 7 percent made gen-
eral officer, something Boyd accomplished without a graduate
degree or professional military education. Mets also takes issue
with Boyd's role in designing the F-16, which Met's doesn't
consider much of a jet. As for Boyd's railing against the F-111,
Mets shifts the blame for this problematic aircraft away from
the Air Force and squarely at the feet of McNamara, whose
goal it was to build commonality into service acquisition. Fi-
nally, Mets is cautious of Coram's assertion that Boyd changed
the art of war, and was the greatest military theorist since Sun
Tzu. Mets goes through a list of "greats" —including Clause-
witz, Jomini, Mahan, Corbett and Douhet— and argues that
Boyd's work was too vague and never presented in a digestible
manner to merit the claim of "greatest theoretician." In the end
he recommends Hammond’s book over Coram’s, but not with-
out first labeling it a hagiography as well.
Portions of the review devolve into personal attacks on Co-
ram himself. Mets slights Coram's professional credentials,
saying that he doesn't see "anything at all in the way of experi-
ence, education, or research and writing that would yield exper-
15 See Booknotes interview with Brian Lamb.
16 Dr. David R. Mets, "Boydmania" Air & Space Power Journal (Fall 2004)
5
11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 5
tise on either war or airpower." Mets accuses Coram using
"wild superlatives" and "undocumented assertions," and of try-
ing to increase sales by "setting up a David (Boyd and his aco-
lytes) to slay the Goliath (the Air Force establishment and nu-
merous unnamed careerist generals)." Regardless of its flip-
pancy, Mets' article has sparked debate about Boyd and might
be considered the beginnings of a revisionist analysis of Boyd's
life and work. Coram on the other hand, seems content to have
communicated the emotion of Boyd's life.
Legacy
A complex web of personal and historical factors brought
Robert Coram, an investigative journalist from the Deep South,
into the embattled world of John Boyd and his Acolytes. An
understanding of these circumstances may deepen a reader’s
comprehension of the enormity of Boyd’s task: to reform the
greatest military institution in the world, and alter the way they
see war.
Robert Coram's exploration of John Boyd's life, though not
particularly academic and possibly even excessively romantic,
has captured the imagination of a public yearning to read about
American heroes. Coram brought an obscure Pentagon analyst
and his lifelong struggle into the public eye, guaranteeing him a
legacy in print, something Boyd himself was unable to do. Thus
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War repre-
sents the first pillar of a growing literature to be mulled and
revised by academics and romantics alike in the coming years.
Coram is not alone in preserving this legacy. One man that
should be considered one of Boyd’s Acolytes is Chet Richards,
keeper of the Boydian flame.
Chester W. Richards started his career in the Pentagon in
1971. A trained mathematician, Boyd consulted Richards on the
formula in his article "Destruction and Creation." Later, Chet
left the Pentagon and went into private business. There Rich-
ards was able to take Boyd's theories to the next level. Boyd
had originally developed the OODA loop to describe air-to-air
combat. Soon though, he realized the OODA loop could capture
much more than military tactics. Whole war-fighting strategies
could be explained within the context of the OODA loop. Chet
Richards pushed the envelope even further and took Boydian
theory to the business world. He found that Boyd's theories
could explain more than the phenomenon of warfighting, but
any type of conflict or competition.
Taking this knowledge to a public relations firm in 1999,
Richards uses what he learned from Boyd to consult on busi-
ness strategy, marketing, and communications. Richards also
started up two websites to act as loci for writing on Boyd.
Richards’ websites, Defense and the National Interest
(d-n-i.net) and Belisarius (belisarius.com), feature writings
from himself, Chuck Spinney, Bill Lind and Martin van Crev-
eld. Guest written articles also appear by Grant Hammond,
Robert Coram and Major Donald E. Vandergriff.
Defense and the National Interest also offers some of
Boyd's written works and presentations:
• New Conception for Air-to-Air Combat
• Destruction and Creation
• Patterns of Conflict
• Organic Design for Command and Control
WS 500 - Coramʼs Boyd
11 April 06 - Chad KOHALYK 6

• The Strategic Game of ? and ?
• A Discourse on Winning and Losing
• The Abstract and Conceptual Spiral
• The Essence of Winning and Losing
Chet Richards is the only person who has presented Boyd’s
Patterns of Conflict brief since Boyd’s death. All of these ac-
tivities make Richards the universally acclaimed keeper Boyd's
legacy.
Between Coram's emotional biography, Richards' preserva-
tion and extension of Boydian Theory, and the works and influ-
ence of a constellation of Acolytes, the foundation of Boyd's
legacy has been built. The strengthening of that foundation is
for a new generation of students and theoreticians to develop
through the re-examination and application of Boyd's theories.
It has yet to be seen whether John Boyd's contribution to strate-
gic thought merits the title of "greatest theoretician since Sun
Tzu," but he does deserve a place of honour amongst the mod-
ern strategic thinkers of the twentieth century.

_________
Sources
John Boyd, Patterns of Conflict, (1986) Slide #72. Available for download at http://d-n-i.net/boyd/pdf/poc.pdf

Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, Back Bay Books (2004)

Maj Jeffrey L. Cowan, “From Air Force Fighter Pilot to Marine Corps Warfighting: Colonel John Boyd, His Theories on War, and
their Unexpected Legacy”, Master’s Thesis, Marine Corps University (2000)

Col. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone, Zenith Press, St. Paul, MN (2004)

Grant T. Hammond, “The Essential Boyd.” Belasarius, online at

http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/hammond/essential_boyd.htm

Charles Krauthammer. “The Unipolar Moment.” Foreign Affairs 70, 1 (1990/91)

William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, Westview Press (1985)

William S. Lind et al, “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation” Marine Corps Gazette (October 1989) pp. 22-26.

David R. Mets, “Boydmania” Air & Space Power Journal, Volume XVIII, No. 3 (Fall 2004)

Elinor Sloan, "DCI: Responding to the US-Led Revolution in Military Affairs." NATO Review 48, no. 1 (2000)

Elinore Sloan, The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada and Nato. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal
(2002)

Department of National Defence, "Shaping the Future of the Canadian Forces: A Strategy for 2020," (Ottawa: Department of Na-
tional Defence (DND), 1999)

Much of Boyd's work is available online at http://www.d-n-i.net and http://www.belisarius.com