A Discourse on Winning and Losing

A Discourse on Winning and Losing PDF Author: John Boyd
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Command of troops
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Boyd's initial focus was a 193 slide summation of military history in the "Patterns of Conflict" brief and his effort soon expanded dramatically. His insights led him to introduce the theory of maneuver warfare as critical to military success in general, as it had been for successful air-to-air tactics where his intellectual journey began. His study and thought led him to produce a series of other briefings. They included a 37 slide briefing entitled "An Organic Design for Command and Control," a 58-slide briefing entitled "The Strategic Game of ? and ?," a 27-slide briefing entitled "The Conceptual Spiral," and one of the few essays he ever wrote called "Destruction and Creation." The larger "Discourse" ends with his summation entitled "Revelation." To this is added a four slide brief on "The Essence of Winning and Losing" produced on 28 June 1995. It is an effort to compress all that he had learned into a simple, yet elegant and comprehensive, conclusion embedded in his concept of O-O-D-A Loops, what they mean and why they are important.--Provided by publisher.

A Discourse on Winning and Losing

A Discourse on Winning and Losing PDF Author: John Boyd
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Command of troops
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Boyd's initial focus was a 193 slide summation of military history in the "Patterns of Conflict" brief and his effort soon expanded dramatically. His insights led him to introduce the theory of maneuver warfare as critical to military success in general, as it had been for successful air-to-air tactics where his intellectual journey began. His study and thought led him to produce a series of other briefings. They included a 37 slide briefing entitled "An Organic Design for Command and Control," a 58-slide briefing entitled "The Strategic Game of ? and ?," a 27-slide briefing entitled "The Conceptual Spiral," and one of the few essays he ever wrote called "Destruction and Creation." The larger "Discourse" ends with his summation entitled "Revelation." To this is added a four slide brief on "The Essence of Winning and Losing" produced on 28 June 1995. It is an effort to compress all that he had learned into a simple, yet elegant and comprehensive, conclusion embedded in his concept of O-O-D-A Loops, what they mean and why they are important.--Provided by publisher.

Science, Strategy and War

Science, Strategy and War PDF Author: Frans P.B. Osinga
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134197098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
John Boyd is often known exclusively for the so-called ‘OODA’ loop model he developed. This model refers to a decision-making process and to the idea that military victory goes to the side that can complete the cycle from observation to action the fastest. This book aims to redress this state of affairs and re-examines John Boyd’s original contribution to strategic theory. By highlighting diverse sources that shaped Boyd’s thinking, and by offering a comprehensive overview of Boyd’s work, this volume demonstrates that the common interpretation of the meaning of Boyd’s OODA loop concept is incomplete. It also shows that Boyd’s work is much more comprehensive, richer and deeper than is generally thought. With his ideas featuring in the literature on Network Centric Warfare, a key element of the US and NATO’s so-called ‘military transformation’ programmes, as well as in the debate on Fourth Generation Warfare, Boyd continues to exert a strong influence on Western military thinking. Dr Osinga demonstrates how Boyd’s work can helps us to understand the new strategic threats in the post- 9/11 world, and establishes why John Boyd should be regarded as one of the most important (post)modern strategic theorists.

Security, Defense Discourse and Identity in NATO and Europe

Security, Defense Discourse and Identity in NATO and Europe PDF Author: Falk Ostermann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429999437
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
Analyzing changes in the role and place of NATO, European integration, and Franco-American relations in foreign policy discourse under Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, this book provides an original perspective on French foreign policy and its identity construction. The book employs a novel research design for the analysis of foreign policies, which can be used beyond the case of France, by combining the discourse theory of the Essex School with Interpretive Policy Analysis to examine political ideas and how they are organized into a foreign policy identity. On these grounds, the volume undertakes a comparative analysis of parliamentary and executive discourse of President Chirac’s failed attempt at NATO reintegration in the 1990s, Sarkozy’s successful attempt in the 2000s, and the Libyan War. Ostermann depicts French foreign policy and identity as turning away from the European Union, atlanticizing, and losing its American nemesis. As a result, France uses a much more pragmatic, de-unionized, and pro-American strategy to implement foreign policy objectives than before. Offering a new and innovative explanation for a major change in French foreign policy and grand strategy, this book will be of great interest to scholars of NATO, European defense cooperation, and foreign policy.

The Mind of War

The Mind of War PDF Author: Grant Hammond
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588343642
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
The ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd have transformed American military policy and practice. A first-rate fighter pilot and a self-taught scholar, he wrote the first manual on jet aerial combat; spearheaded the design of both of the Air Force's premier fighters, the F-15 and the F-16; and shaped the tactics that saved lives during the Vietnam War and the strategies that won the Gulf War. Many of America's best-known military and political leaders consulted Boyd on matters of technology, strategy, and theory. In The Mind of War, Grant T. Hammond offers the first complete portrait of John Boyd, his groundbreaking ideas, and his enduring legacy. Based on extensive interviews with Boyd and those who knew him as well as on a close analysis of Boyd's briefings, this intellectual biography brings the work of an extraordinary thinker to a broader public.

How to Lose the Information War

How to Lose the Information War PDF Author: Nina Jankowicz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838607692
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.

Language Lost and Found

Language Lost and Found PDF Author: Niklas Forsberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1623569737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Language Lost and Found takes as its starting-point Iris Murdoch's claim that "we have suffered a general loss of concepts." By means of a thorough reading of Iris Murdoch's philosophy in the light of this difficulty, it offers a detailed examination of the problem of linguistic community and the roots of the thought that some philosophical problems arise due to our having lost the sense of our own language. But it is also a call for a radical reconsideration of how philosophy and literature relate to each other on a general level and in Murdoch's authorship in particular.

Certain to Win

Certain to Win PDF Author: Chet Richards
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1450046320
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The book is both an excellent primer for those new to Boyd and a catalyst to those with business experience trying to internalize the relevance of Boyd ́s thinking." Chuck Leader, LtCol USMC (Ret.) and information technology company CEO; "A Winning Combination," Marine Corps Gazette, March 2005. Certain to Win [Sun Tzu ́s prognosis for generals who follow his advice] develops the strategy of the late US Air Force Colonel John R. Boyd for the world of business. The success of Robert Coram’s monumental biography, Boyd, the Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, rekindled interest in this obscure pilot and documented his influence on military matters ranging from his early work on fighter tactics to the USMC ́s maneuver warfare doctrine to the planning for Operation Desert Storm. Unfortunately Boyd’s written legacy, consisting of a single paper and a four-set cycle of briefings, addresses strategy only in war. [All of Boyd ́s briefings are available on Slightly East of New.] Boyd and Business Boyd did study business. He read everything he could find on the Toyota Production System and came to consider it as an implementation of ideas similar to his own. He took business into account when he formulated the final version of his “OODA loop” and in his last major briefing, Conceptual Spiral, on science and technology. He read and commented on early drafts of this manuscript, but he never wrote on how business could operate more profitably by using his ideas. Other writers and business strategists have taken up the challenge, introducing Boyd’s concepts and suggesting applications to business. Keith Hammonds, in the magazine Fast Company, George Stalk and Tom Hout in Competing Against Time, and Tom Peters most recently in Re-imagine! have described the OODA loop and its effects on competitors. They made significant contributions. Successful businesses, though, don’t concentrate on affecting competitors but on enticing customers. You could apply Boyd all you wanted to competitors, but unless this somehow caused customers to buy your products and services, you’ve wasted time and money. If this were all there were to Boyd, he would rate at most a sidebar in business strategy. Business is not War Part of the problem has been Boyd’s focus on war, where “affecting competitors” is the whole idea. Armed conflict was his life for nearly 50 years, first as a fighter pilot, then as a tactician and an instructor of fighter pilots, and after his retirement, as a military philosopher. Coram describes (and I know from personal experience) how his quest consumed Boyd virtually every waking hour. It was not a monastic existence, though, since John was above everything else a competitor and loved to argue over beer and cigars far into the night. During most of the 1970s and 80s he worked at the Pentagon, where he could share ideas and debate with other strategists and practitioners of the art of war. The result was the remarkable synthesis we know as Patterns of Conflict. Website

Future War

Future War PDF Author: Christopher Coker
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509502351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
Will tomorrow's wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts? Will war be fought with greater or lesser humanity? Will it be played out in cyberspace and further afield in Low Earth Orbit? Or will it be fought more intensely still in the sprawling cities of the developing world, the grim black holes of social exclusion on our increasingly unequal planet? Will the Great Powers reinvent conflict between themselves or is war destined to become much 'smaller' both in terms of its actors and the beliefs for which they will be willing to kill? In this illuminating new book Christopher Coker takes us on an incredible journey into the future of warfare. Focusing on contemporary trends that are changing the nature and dynamics of armed conflict, he shows how conflict will continue to evolve in ways that are unlikely to render our century any less bloody than the last. With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death PDF Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated PDF Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982130849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592

Get Book Here

Book Description
Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in today’s fractured America. Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.” Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. In the revised edition of his classic work, Putnam shows how our shrinking access to the “social capital” that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing still poses a serious threat to our civic and personal health, and how these consequences have a new resonance for our divided country today. He includes critical new material on the pervasive influence of social media and the internet, which has introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation. At the time of its publication, Putnam’s then-groundbreaking work showed how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction, and how the loss of social capital is felt in critical ways, acting as a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, and affecting our health in other ways. While the ways in which we connect, or become disconnected, have changed over the decades, his central argument remains as powerful and urgent as ever: mending our frayed social capital is key to preserving the very fabric of our society.