Customer Reviews

The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A well-written, clear, and perfectly adequate introduction to the life and thought of John Boyd, arguably the most influential American military thinker of modern times.

Coram's BOYD is the "good read", this one's for the student and theorist.

Curiously, some of the anecdotes involving Boyd's life differ completely from Coram's volume, e.g., the events surrounding the birth of Energy Maneuverability at Georgia Tech. I'm inclined to give the nod to Hammond here on the grounds that his versions tend to make more sense.

Although unquestionably an admirer of Boyd, Hammond's assessment is reasonable and balanced-he's quite open about Boyd's manifest flaws, his willful eccentricity above all, and makes it clear that Boyd was far from alone in his efforts to better the U.S. military.

There's a solid discussion of the OODA cycle, probably Boyd's greatest insight and most effective contribution to tactical thought (as the Republican Guard recently discovered). Hammond carries out preliminary work in placing Boyd's concept among those of other military thinkers, in particular Clausewitz, which is valuable if not as detailed as it might have been. He shows little familiarity with Asian strategists, many of whom were direct influences on Boyd's thought. (e.g., Miyamoto Mushashi: "In strategy there are various timing considerations. From the outset you must know the applicable timing and the inapplicable timing, and from among the large and small things and the fast and slow timings find the relevant timing... It is especially important to know the background timing, otherwise your strategy will become uncertain." -["A Book of Five Rings", Harris translation, P. 48.] How's that for your Boyd Cycle! )

In Hammond's eyes, Boyd was a synthesist, applying previously isolated bits and pieces of knowledge to construct an overarching theory. A serious analysis of Boyd's work would require familiarity not only with strategy, but with quantum physics, modern clinical psychology, management theory, and half a dozen other equally arcane disciplines. To fully understand Boyd, one might be required to become Boyd!

One annoying note is Hammond's dismissal of Ronald Reagan's attempts to rebuild the military (something also found in Coram), implying that Boyd shared this loathing. If any actual evidence of this exists, I'd like to see it.

Finally, though he fails to make note of it, Hammond makes it quite apparent that Boyd was, above all else, a phenomenon better known in the East than our hemisphere. He was a sensei, a master, one who teaches arcane and difficult knowledge to a select group of followers, who then move on to teach others. This explains so much about Boyd-the almost medieval loyalty he inspired (even among people who never met him, as Gerald Martin points out about Coram in his insightful review of BOYD), his penchant for using the briefing as a teaching tool, the unwillingness to fit into any organization, the wandering from post to post, even the cheap and ragged clothes!

The sensei approach has its flaws (among them the master's unfitness for family life) sensei rarely do well at writing, which explains why Boyd never progressed with his magnum opus, "Creation and Destruction". This tends to throw the teachings into the hands of interpreters, some of whom may be less than capable. There's a danger that Boyd's thought might become Californized, in much the same way that the perfectly legitimate scientific field of quantum mechanics was rendered unrecognizable by various New Agers in the 70s and 80s.

But Hammond is not one of these. We need more--a carefully edited and annotated edition of the Green Book, to start with. (not to mention the tantalizing question: is there a videotape?) But we'll be discussing Boyd for a long time to come. Hammond's book is a fine introduction. It'll be awhile before we see better.

While I find it hard to disagree with some of the comments in the previous reviews, I would suggest that describing this as hagiographical is to criticize Hammond's performance of a job that he never undertook. The Mind of War, strictly speaking, is not a biography of John Boyd. It is better described as a presentation and discussion of Boyd's ideas. A person who is interested in learning about both Boyd's life and his ideas should read Robert Coram's book Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War along with The Mind of War. Grant Hammond has written a very important book. John Boyd's preferred form of communication was the military brief and, as a result, his ideas are virtually undocumented. Hammond had the opportunity to know and work with Boyd for six years and, to a significant degree, has written the book that Boyd never did.

Grant Hammond has written a superb profile of John Boyd and his ideas. In so doing, he has publicized one of the most influential but least known American military thinkers of the Twentieth Century. Boyd was that rarity of a thinking man inside an ahistorical and anti-intellectual institution. This is not a book about the military reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s per se, but rather about a powerful mind that greatly indluenced the movement. Boyd, to be sure, was abrasive, but most mavericks are; their lot in life is to irritate the self-satisfied. Boyd was certainly more honorable than many of his detractors inside the Air Force. At last, someone has done justice to Boyd and his intellectual legacy

Grant Hammond has written a long-overdue book on Col. John P. Boyd, USAF, the man who was the American genius behind maneuver war. Unfortunatley for Boyd, being a amverick thinker, he was shunned by his service. Fortunately for America, others, especially the US Marine Corps, listened to Boyd and incorpoated his theory into their doctrine of manuever warfare. America is safer because of this man's vision, and Hammond brings the man and his accoplishments to the light of the public-- atlong last.

An interesting point about the life of John Boyd, like many visionaries who came before and dramatically changed the way wars are fought is that they tend to not get promoted to very high rank. In a full career John Boyd was not promoted above Colonel. This sounds an awful lot like Billy Mitchell who proved that battleships could be sunk by air power when the battleship people knew, absolutely knew, that they couldn't.

Probably the most interesting part of this book is the story of the development of the F-16 "Lightweight" fighter. This fighter which has proven to be among the very best in the world, went through a torturous birth in two phases.

First, while James Schlesinger was Secretary of Defense, the F-16 was a non-nuclear capable lightweight fighter. The second part is one week after his departure, the requirement was modified to require the ability to carry nuclear weapons. Other changes in Part II added over two tons of electronics to the basic airplane.

The resulting plane, the author contends is a very good airplane, but "it is so much less than it might have been."

Hammond presents a quasi-biography of John Boyd, who was the intellectual driver of the OODA loop and the author of "Patterns of Conflict." Although the book reviews Boyd's life, it is done with the intent of focusing on Boyd's intellectual contributions to US military thought and doctrine from the 1970s to 1990s. The author, despite knowing Boyd and being one of his fans, presents a balanced version of Boyd and his contribution, unlike Robert Coram's fun-to-read but biased biography. (Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War)

I have read both of the more well known books about John Boyd, Grant Hammonds book, the "Mind of War" and Robert Coram's book, "Boyd, the Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War."

Both are excellent works and I would suggest that if you are serious about studying John Boyd and his theories, first read Robert Coram's book which goes into more detail about John Boyd's life then if you are still interested, and you should be after reading Mr. Coram's book, I would move on to Grant Hammonds book which goes into more detail about John Boyd's theories of warfare.

All of the theories can be applied to almost any aspect of life, be it business, politics or just dealing with the general public and difficult people.

Mr. Hammond's The Mind of War has made a major contribution into the philosophy and life of Colonel John R. Boyd. This work centers more around Boyd's work in aircraft design and his post-retirement contributions to maneuver warfare---which were too numerous to list in these pages. All Americans would benefit from reading Mr. Hammond's book and the book written by Mr. Robert Coram, BOYD, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (this book is on my top five biographies ever). Learning Boyd's philosophy and his multi-disciplinary approach has application from the battle-field to the boardroom. Highly recommended.

No doubt about it, John Boyd's contributions to American military thought and technology deserve to be heralded. What's interesting is that a creative thinker is seen as so remarkable in the military that he deserves such heraldry. Creative, flexible, intuitive thinkers are prevalent throughout society; even if they don't know it. That John Boyd is so singular and unique over a 40-year period points to some very serious problems in the military. The synthesis of ideas from multiple disciplines, organic responses to management and decision making, and analogical reasoning are not sudden innovations. That John Boyd was so unique deserves recognition; however, that he was so unique is really disappointing too.

As for the book itself: it could be shorter. It is redundant. It is hagiographic of Boyd. In a way the presentation is in such stark terms of goodguy/badguy in the recounting of bureaucratic wars that the central points of Boyd's multi-dimensional analysis seem violated. The author is more of a technical expert than a sociological historian, so his recounting of the Military Reform Movement was severely lacking. He does not adequately present the position of Boyd's oppositiong, only to make them appear as greedy bufoons. The final chapters outlining Boyd's presentations are the most useful. However, he keeps returning to the same points continuously, perhaps with some alterations in terminology, that makes the reading get laborious.

Great summary of John Boyd's thoughts on modern warfare. It is hard to find the wide-range of theories all in one place as is book attempts to condense. Col. Boyd's mind was a far-reaching net pulling diverse subjects together by common threads. It is difficult for any single book to do the same in so few pages but it this one comes close to the mark.