| I fear the Wikipedia article offers only the slightest of overviews of a surprisingly deep subject. Don't get me wrong, it's a great place to start. But I would suggest also reading the related "Patterns of Conflict" Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Conflict
Which references this 1986 version of the presentation: https://www.ausairpower.net/JRB/poc.pdf
I met John Boyd at Eglin when I was a kid, and later in the 80s when I was a Marine. Dude was a complete nut. But I mean that as a compliment. Preaching a brand of war-fighting at odds with the dominant narrative, I would not have been surprised to see Apple feature his image in a "think different" commercial.The Air Force was slow to warm up to Boyd (and the OODA Loop) -- but the Marines were ready to hear something new. Here's a page with some decent info, including a link to a short video where John Schmitt, Van Riper and (my old boss) Al Gray discuss the "intellectual renaissance" in how they thought about war-fighting. If you're not a military history nut, the 5 minute video is good to give you an idea for how "novel" ideas permeated the US military in the 70s and 80s. You don't HAVE to be an Air Force pilot or Marine to make use of the intellectual underpinnings of Boyd's "Patterns of Conflict." But you MAY miss out on some critical detail if the only thing you read is about the more-generic, not-specific-to-the-military OODA loop. Which is to say... even if you're not inclined to study military history or operations, you may get some decent context on the formation of the OODA loop by investigating the environment in which it arose. "Maneuver Warfare" is much more than the OODA loop, but it was definitely influenced by Boyd's E-M Theory, Patterns of Conflict and the OODA loop. Here... the videos on this page total just over 10 minutes. Worth a watch. https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/pme/qpme/history-of-mcdp-maneuver-warfare/context-background
And... the link to the full video seems to be broken, so here's the direct YouTube link if you're hip: https://youtu.be/RL4__NVYByw
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