Showing all posts tagged #grand-strategy:
Posted on September 14th, 2023
By Maj Ian T. Brown
In his recent comment on the MCG’s "Call to Action" concerning Operations in the Information Environment, Brian Kerg was quite correct in noting that MCDP-1 applies in the information environment. He observed that maneuver warfare’s focus was always supposed to be on the mental and moral levels of conflict; that the OODA loop model for decision-making is inherently influenced by information, the control of which c...
Posted on May 11th, 2020
January 4, 1981
Among fighter pilots, "getting inside" of an opponent in a dogfight often means the difference between life and death. Getting inside means turning and maneuvering more quickly than the enemy so you can fix your guns on his plane before he gets a good look at you.
For 25 years, John Boyd, once a topnotch fighter pilot and now a retired Air Force colonel, has wrestled with ideas about how to make that simple-sounding...
Posted on May 10th, 2020
Col. John Boyd (he died in 1997) is considered one of America's best military thinkers. His thinking dramatically influenced the plan of attack in the first gulf war. Boyd's thinking also serves as a good basis for a deeper understanding 4GW (fourth generation warfare).
Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the e...
Posted on August 26th, 2019
As we approach Sonshi.com's 20th anniversary on August 12, 2019, there is no better way to celebrate than to highlight a brand new Art of War translation by a woman scholar of the highest order, Michael Nylan.
Dr. Nylan is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her PhD from Princeton University in East Asian Studies. The China Story Journal aptly describes her as one of the foremost historians tod...
Posted on June 27th, 2019
The Changing Face of War:
Into the Fourth GenerationWilliam S. Lind, Colonel
Keith Nightengale (USA),
Captain John F. Schmitt (USMC), Colonel Joseph W. Sutton (USA),
and Lieutenant Colonel Gary I. Wilson (USMCR)
Marine Corps
Gazette
October 1989, Pages 22-26The peacetime soldier's principal task is to prepare effectively
for the next war. In order to do so, he must anticipate what the next war will be
like. This is a difficult ...
Posted on June 26th, 2019
Editor's note: The following paper is an example of what John Boyd called a "snowmobile," a synthesis of ideas from across a variety of domains (interested readers can see see how Boyd
develops the notion of "building snowmobiles" in his briefing,
Strategic Game of ? and ?, available
here on DNI, then
scroll down.)Snowmobiles result from analyses combined with trials at a synthesis. Since it is virtually imp...
Posted on June 26th, 2019
Summary: What would a grand strategy for America look like? This critiques our current policies and Barnett’s proposals in terms our limited wisdom and power. It ends with recommendations for design of a modest but functional strategy for America.ContentsIntroductionWhat is grand strategy?Primal StrategiesGrand Strategies are a ChimeraBarnett’s Grand StrategyWhy do Grand Strategies Fail?America’s Need for a Humble Grand StrategyNatur...
Posted on March 24th, 2019
This is Tokyo, circa 1832. The print is "Nihonbashi no hakuu" by the Ukiyo-e master Andō Hiroshige. Many years ago, my wife found a copy in a consignment store in Atlanta. I don’t remember what she paid for it, but she assures me that framing it cost many times the purchase price. Since we’ve been here in South Carolina, we’ve had it reframed to show off the stamps and writing around the borders.
Intro to Chapter 6, Surprise and An...
Posted on December 21st, 2018
I tend to think of "agility" as adaptability with a time dimension, that is, the ability to adapt more rapidly to new situations than can competitors or opponents. That may not, however, be the only or even a very good way to think about these concepts. Here’s an alternative view:AQ is hot right now – but is it the Adaptability Quotient or the Agility Quotient?Kristopher Floyd
Founder and CEO, TeamMate AINovember 13, 2018
Originally...
Posted on May 21st, 2018
What was Boyd thinking and when did he think it?In his own words:For the interested, a careful examination will reveal that the increasingly abstract discussion surfaces a process of reaching across many perspectives; pulling each and every one apart (analysis), all the while intuitively looking for those parts of the disassembled perspectives which naturally interconnect with one another to form a higher-order, more general elaborat...
Posted on April 3rd, 2018
Mount Kailash, depicting the holy family: Shiva and Parvati, cradling Skanda with Ganesha by Shiva's side. This image represents the Axis Mundi, or the Cosmic axis, which represents the "connection between Heaven and Earth" or the "higher and lower realms".
Notes
The Story of Jacob
The story of Jacob, later Israel (he who struggles with God).
After serving his time with his uncle Laban, and being deceived by him in the most karmic o...
Posted on April 22nd, 2017
Why our greatest military theorist only made colonel.
John Boyd during the Korean War Off and on for about 20 years, I had the honor of working with the greatest military theorist America ever produced, Col. John Boyd, USAF. As a junior officer, Boyd developed the energy-management tactics now used by every fighter pilot in the world. Later, he influenced the designs of the F-15 and F-16, savin...