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Daniel Ford

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Let the Americans Live in the Village: How would John Boyd have dealt with Osama bin Laden? ((Master's Thesis, submitted in partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree at King's College London)) Kindle Edition

by Daniel Ford (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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John Boyd was arguably the most important American military thinker since the sea power theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan. Best known for his formulation of the ‘OODA Loop’ as a model for competitive decision making, Boyd left his mark as well on air combat tactics, maneuver warfare, and what we now know as fourth-generation warfare. On no branch of the service was his influence greater than the US Marine Corps. ‘From John Boyd’, wrote the Marines’ commander in 1997, ‘we learned about competitive decision making on the battlefield – compressing time, using time as an ally.’

An aggressive man, Boyd naturally favoured the offence, as exemplified by the blitzkrieg or lightning operation advocated by the Chinese master Sun-tzu, the German tank commander Heinz Guderian, and the British partisan leader T. E. Lawrence. He was less interested in defensive tactics, though in his culminating, fifteen-hour brief, A Discourse on Winning and Losing, he did dwell at some length on the problem of what he called ‘counter-guerrilla’ operations.

Boyd died in 1997, after Osama bin Laden’s ‘declaration of war’ against the United States, but before America’s trauma of September 11, 2001, and its subsequent struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given another ten years of life, he certainly would have addressed the question Dan Ford attempst to answer here: How would John Boyd have fought the ‘war on terror’? How would he have orchestrated our response to the al-Qaeda attacks – or, in the parlance of our 21st century: how would John Boyd have fought a fourth-generation war?

In this 15,000-word monograph, Ford discusses Boyd's written and oral legacy, with particular attention to the relationship he sees between a blitzkrieg and a guerrilla operation, and also between the ways in each might be countered. Finally, Ford advances the concept of the US Marines’ Combined Action Platoon of the late 1960s as a solution that John Boyd might have embraced.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in War Studies at King's College London, December 2009. With extensive notes, comments on the 'Boyd Papers' at Quantico, Virginia, and a bibliography.

Note: this monograph will soon be replaced by a new and longer version under the title 'A Vision So Noble'.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Let the Americans Live in the Village is my dissertation at King's College London, for its online master's program in War in the Modern World. I have now expanded that paper, combining it with two earliers ones, and published it in print and digital editions as A Vision So Noble: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and America's War on Terror. Most people should opt for that version instead of this one. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002Z7ESZ4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Warbird Books; First digital edition (November 29, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 29, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 197 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 57 pages

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Daniel Ford

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Daniel Ford has spent a lifetime studying and writing about the wars of the past hundred years, from Ireland's war of liberation to America's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. A U.S. Army veteran and a reporter in Vietnam, he wrote the novel that was filmed as 'Go Tell the Spartans', starring Burt Lancaster. As a historian, he is best known for his prize-winning study of the American Volunteer Group--the gallant 'Flying Tigers' of the Second World War. Most recently, he has written a memoir of his life so far: "Looking Back From Ninety: The Depression, the War, and the Good Life that Followed." Visit www.DanFordBooks.com and sign up for a monthly newsletter about war, flying, and less important subjects.