A NEW CONCEPTION OF WAR

A New Conception of

WAR

JOHN BOYD, THE U.S. MARINES, 

AND MANEUVER WARFARE

Ian T. Brown

Quantico, VA

2018
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Brown, Ian T., author. | Marine Corps University (U.S.). Press, 

 issuing body.

Title: A new conception of war : John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and maneuver 

 warfare / Ian T. Brown.

Other titles: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and maneuver warfare | John Boyd, 

 the United States Marines, and maneuver warfare

Description: Quantico, VA : Marine Corps University Press, 2018. | Includes 

 bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018026967| ISBN 9780997317497 (paperback) | ISBN 

 0997317493 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Maneuver warfare—History. | Military art and science—

 United States—History—20th century. | United States. Marine Corps—

 History. | 

 Boyd, John, 1927–1997.

Classification: LCC U250 .B76 2018 | DDC 355.42—dc23 | SUDOC D 

214.513:W 19

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026967

© Ian T. Brown, 2018

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author. They do not 

necessarily reflect the opinions of Marine Corps University, the U.S. Marine Corps, 

the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. government. The information contained in this 

book was accurate at the time of printing. Every effort has been made to secure copyright permission on excerpts and artworks reproduced in this volume. Please contact the 

editors to rectify any inadvertent errors or omissions.

Published by

Marine Corps University Press

2044 Broadway Drive

Quantico, VA 22134

www.usmcu.edu/mcupress

First edition, 2018
To Aaron, Molly, and Josh

My favorite little warriors

vii

Contents

Illustrations ix

Foreword xi

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxi

Introduction xxv

CHAPTERS

ONE Tending to Produce: 1

John Boyd from the Pool to the Pentagon

TWO Done with the Jungle: The Marine Corps’ 33

Near Future after Vietnam

THREE Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?: 60

Paving the Way for Maneuver Warfare

FOUR Unveiling the Character of Conflict: 85

Boyd Builds a Theory

FIVE A Killing Game: Critics Enter the Maneuver 121

Warfare Debate

SIX “What Do You Think We’re For?”: 150

From Argument to Warfighting
CONTENTS

viii

Epilogue 177

APPENDICES

A “Patterns of Conflict” Transcript Excerpts 199

B Seminal Articles on Maneuver Warfare 263

 in the Marine Corps Gazette

C Critiquing Boyd 282

Bibliography 291

Index 307
ix

Illustrations

FIGURES

Figure 1. Energy-Maneuverability Theory equation 18

Figure 4.1 Common OODA loop design 117

Figure 4.2 Boyd’s complex OODA loop design 119

ILLUSTRATIONS

Field of Maneuver 15

MAGTF Composition—Marine Expeditionary 39

 Brigade (MEB)

MAPS

Map 1. NATO northern flank and projected Soviet 67

 invasion options

Map 2. Projected Soviet naval activity in the North Atlantic 67

 during a NATO–Warsaw Pact conflict

xi

Foreword

I believe the world’s greatest military theorists are Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and John Boyd. The first two left an extraordinary 

legacy with their written words; Boyd, however, did not, which is 

unfortunate and no doubt the reason his lessons are fading into the 

distance for active duty military officers today. Major Ian Brown 

has researched and authored the material in this book to rectify 

that deficiency. It is a superb piece of scholarship that U.S. Marine 

Corps officers must read and digest if they are to truly understand 

the roots of maneuver warfare, and more important, advance the 

profession of arms with their own intellectual efforts.

In 1969, I returned from my second tour of duty in Vietnam; 

the first was spent as an advisor to an infantry battalion in the 

Vietnamese Marine Corps and the second as a rifle company 

commander in the 1st Marine Division. Like many young Marine 

Corps officers, I was dissatisfied with much of what I had learned 

from instructors at Marine Corps Base Quantico’s Basic School 

and Amphibious Warfare School before going off to war. My dissatisfaction stemmed not so much from the tactics, employment 

of weapons, or small unit leadership we were taught—all of 

which seemed to work well during combat—but in terms of any 

real knowledge of war as a phenomenon that unfolds with its own 
FOREWORD

xii

dynamics. Before and during the war, the belief that combat leaders could make events play out like clockwork prevailed at Quantico, the “Crossroads of the Corps,” and throughout the operating 

forces, if these leaders would just follow accepted procedures.

Too much of the instruction I received, especially at the Amphibious Warfare School, focused on the techniques of business 

management, particularly system analysis as espoused by the 

then-secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara. The notion that 

leaders could resolve tactical and operational problems by reducing them to their constituent components for study and afterward 

reassembling them into a coherent whole was prevalent in most 

of the classes on planning and decision making. Students spent an 

inordinate amount of time learning to employ various rule-based 

processes, many of which had numerous subroutines that they 

were to master. The focus was inward on elaborate step-by-step 

methods rather than the situation or problem at hand.

Never did map exercises or war games allow for a simulated enemy to work against students’ plans and orders. Rather, instructors injected scripted actions to ensure they covered teaching 

points largely oriented to factual information; students were not 

expected to exhibit initiative, but rather to arrive at a solution 

closely approximating one described in the yellow, a detailed handout provided at the end of each class as the school solution.

The so-called received wisdom offered at what was known 

during the 1960s as Marine Corps Schools Quantico did not 

prove so wise when one considers that the U.S. military won every battle and engagement—often at great cost—while failing to 

win the war in Vietnam. Tactical excellence alone was insufficient. 

Operational art was a lost art. Many junior and midgrade officers 

pondered why this was the case.

Though scores of officers from my generation yearned to understand war in a different way during the early 1970s, few guideposts were readily available to establish a meaningful method of 

personal education. I found reading military history to be one option, an early habit I continued in earnest while serving as a battalion and later regimental operations officer in 1974 and 1976. It 

was not until I attended the Naval Command and Staff Course at 
FOREWORD

xiii

the U.S. Naval War College in 1977 and 1978, however, that I was 

able to properly direct my reading interests. A few years earlier, 

Admiral Stansfield Turner had upended the “take a year off and 

spend time with your family while improving your golf game” curricula at the college when he introduced the requirement for academic rigor and meaningful courses of instruction. Here, I found 

professional military education at its finest. Along with other students I was able to view war through the eyes of Thucydides’s classic, Peloponnesian Wars, and understand its true nature by burrowing 

deeply into Carl von Clausewitz’s opus, On War.

It was during these same years that articles in military journals, 

most particularly the Marine Corps Gazette, proposed a different way 

of fighting, which its advocates named maneuver warfare. Frequently misinterpreted to mean the maneuvering of large mechanized 

units, the term actually refers to a different manner of thinking 

about how to fight. In a nascent way, military history and these 

new concepts merged in my mind and those of contemporaries 

such as future Generals Anthony C. Zinni, Richard I. Neal, and 

Charles E. Wilhelm. 

At the same time, the name of John Boyd, a retired U.S. Air 

Force fighter pilot, began to surface in professional conversations 

and a few articles. I first became aware of him while at the Naval 

War College when my twin brother, Jim, then a student at Marine 

Corps Command and Staff College, sent me a paper copy of one 

of Boyd’s early acetate slide briefings. On the front cover, he wrote 

in red ink, “This is either the most brilliant military officer I have 

ever listened to, or he is nuts! I’m not sure which.” His puzzlement 

was not uncommon and led many officers to too easily dismiss the 

ideas Boyd had developed through his own experiences and eclectic reading habits. As my brother and I were to eventually learn, 

Boyd, though an iconoclast, was anything but nuts.

I would not meet John Boyd until 10 years later, by which 

time, he was known by many officers in the Corps largely due 

to the proselytizing of the man and his ideas by then-Major Michael D. Wyly. During that decade, I had a unique opportunity to 

delve deeper into and to experiment with the emerging ideas of 

maneuver warfare while serving in an infantry battalion, infantry 
FOREWORD

xiv

regiment, Marine division, and Marine Expeditionary Force. I was 

fortunate in all of these assignments to have senior leaders willing 

to move away from Vietnam-era thought, especially Lieutenant 

Generals H. C. Stackpole III, Edwin Godfrey, and Ernest C. 

Cheatham Jr. Though not fully formed, maneuver warfare thinking did prove its value in numerous war games and field exercises 

during those years.

The opportunity to meet John Boyd came in 1988, when Marine Corps Commandant General Alfred M. Gray Jr. assigned 

me as the director of Command and Staff College and issued me 

mission-type orders: “Imbue the curriculum with history and maneuver warfare and set the direction for this college to become the 

finest of its kind in the world.” Early in my tour, a few advancedthinking faculty members arranged for Boyd to visit; my view of 

the world has never been the same since that first meeting and the 

myriad follow-on discourses we enjoyed. Boyd lived up to his wellearned reputation as a zealot who did not suffer fools easily. Once 

he knew you were paying attention, though, he never hesitated to 

engage, often at a most unreasonable time of day; a 0200 phone 

call from Boyd was not unusual. His intensity was beyond anyone’s 

I had ever known. Our daughter, Cindy, soon recognized his voice 

when answering our telephone, but she seldom identified him by 

name, simply saying, “Dad, the man you take your glasses off for 

is on the phone.” Cindy had regularly seen me remove my glasses, 

close my eyes, and lower my head on these calls so that I could shut 

out all distractions and focus on Boyd’s profound thoughts.

In 1988, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, 

newly named by General Gray, was fast becoming the center of 

a Corps-wide intellectual renaissance. There was a feeling of excitement in the air that lasted through the late 1990s. Formal and 

informal groups were meeting constantly to debate the future of 

the Corps and to explore operational concepts. In most of these 

gatherings, it was never the rank of an individual or their billet 

that was significant; it was the merit of an idea that won the day. 

Many a time, I heard a captain or major say something like, “General, your approach to this problem won’t cut it in the real world, 

sir,” and an energetic back-and-forth began, with other officers of 
FOREWORD

xv

all grades entering the fray with passion. After duty hours, plans 

were commonly put on hold when a telephone call announced 

that a group of officers planned to assemble at 1730 to discuss 

some doctrinal topic they deemed important. These gatherings 

occasionally extended late into the night.

When General Gray decreed that there was to be a new and 

different capstone doctrinal manual for the Marine Corps, he 

took the unprecedented step of tasking a junior captain, John F. 

Schmitt, to author the publication. Drawing on the thoughts of 

the world’s greatest military theorists—Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and 

Boyd—Captain Schmitt was to write a seminal document that has 

had more influence on the Corps’ way of thinking about war and 

warfare than any previous manual. Its republication in at least a 

half-dozen foreign languages and adoption by many commercial 

firms attests to its distinctive character, as does the fact it has stood 

the test of time, having undergone only one minor revision in the 

29 years since General Gray approved it with his signature. During 

that revision, Boyd’s influence was more pronounced, because 

what many saw as a new science commonly called chaos or complexity theory, which had found its way into Marine Corps deliberations 

about the fundamental nonlinear nature of war, was not new to 

him. He had read the important works on nonlinearity long before 

they were known to most military theorists and doctrine writers 

and had incorporated their reasoning into his own theories.

Boyd promulgated his insights on warfare in a series of lengthy 

briefings rather than writing. Yet, in a very real sense, each briefing 

was like a small book because most of his hundreds of slides were 

copies of his typewritten thoughts. Collected, they would surely fill 

scores of pages, though lacking detailed transitions—Boyd used 

his own spoken words to accomplish that purpose—such a work 

would not make for easy reading. His presentations were intricate 

but logical assemblages drawn from a wide-ranging study of history and science. Boyd built each one based on a series of simple notions that he amalgamated into a new understanding of a 

complex problem. In his presentations, he repeatedly returned to 

previous elements of his argument to ensure his audience could 

see the reasoning behind every step. Nonetheless, over time, others 
FOREWORD

xvi

reduced his rich concepts to one notion: observe, orient, decide, 

and act (the now near-ubiquitous “OODA loop”). I often liken this 

to the famous Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler’s capturing of 

complex mathematical relationships in a simple expression; one 

that noted American physicist Richard Feynman called “the most 

remarkable formula in mathematics.”1

 Like Euler’s formula, there 

is a wealth of information and thought behind Boyd’s OODA 

loop, and putting forth either formula without knowledge of what 

is behind it is an intellectual travesty. Yet, that is exactly what is 

currently taking place in our Corps and elsewhere.

While filling the Donald Bren Chair and subsequently the Kim 

T. Adamson Chair for Terrorism and Insurgency at Marine Corps 

University from 2004 through 2017, and in lecturing at many 

other U.S. military professional military education institutions, I 

found only a handful of officers who knew more about John Boyd 

than his OODA loop. For this reason, I developed and offered 

a 10-seminar elective on John Boyd and his theories for Marine 

Corps Command and Staff College students with the hope that I 

could revive interest in the man and his ideas. Surprisingly, it was 

a popular course among Air Force officers, but less so with Marine 

Corps officers. In the end, my effort did little to inspire greater 

knowledge about this remarkable thinker that Marines across the 

Corps need.

Several years ago, then acting director of the Marine Corps 

University’s Archives Branch, Dr. James Ginther, and I were discussing the merits of each of the three worthy existing books on 

John Boyd and his theories when Ginther remarked that he believed the seminal book on John Boyd and his work, especially 

with Marines, was yet to be written. I think Ian Brown’s book is 

that book. I hope Dr. Ginther agrees. 

There are many reasons I think Ian Brown has achieved this 

unique merit. First, none of the research done by authors of the 

1 Between 1740 and 1748, Euler developed a mathematical formula establishing 

the “fundamental relationship between trigonometric functions and the complex 

exponential function.” Carl B. Boyer, “Leonard Euler,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 

8 April 2018.
FOREWORD

xvii

other credible works on John Boyd and his theories is as extensive 

as Brown’s. His comprehensive examination of relevant issues of 

Marine Corps Gazette is unmatched. Likewise, uncovering an audio 

recording of Boyd’s essential presentation, “Patterns of Conflict,” 

he transcribed that recording to give him critical insights unavailable to earlier authors. Similarly, his extensive interviews of not 

only the well-known key participants in the Marine Corps post–

Vietnam War intellectual revival but also of many lesser known, 

yet no less important, contributors provided a new and often distinctive understanding of events and actions. Additionally, Brown 

had the advantage of listening to oral histories of Marines responsible for doctrinal development in the 1970s and 1980s that were 

recorded subsequent to the research of previous authors. Finally, 

he has adeptly woven together the many threads of this story in 

a comprehensive, straightforward, clear, and concise manner. For 

Marines and those who observe and study the Marine Corps way 

of warfighting, Ian Brown’s book provides a story for the ages.

Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper

USMC (Ret)

xix

Preface

I did not plan to write this book. As John Boyd once said of his own 

historical journey, it was an accident. Four years ago, I was working 

toward my master’s degree and had to write a short paper on one 

of the great thinkers in military theory. At that time, the entirety of 

my knowledge on Boyd consisted of a vague association between 

his name, the observe, orient, decide, and act (OODA) loop that 

had popped up in a couple of aviation tactics briefs I had seen, 

and a doctrinal publication I had last read at The Basic School 10 

years prior. But for this assignment, I figured my classmates—all 

civilians—would go for one of the well-known names like Sun 

Tzu or Carl von Clausewitz. I hoped to at least get extra points for 

sparing my instructor the umpteenth regurgitation of On War, and 

so picked John Boyd. After all, Boyd must have had some good 

ideas to merit mention in our capstone doctrine and tactics briefs, 

and perhaps the instructor—a retired colonel of the 8th Canadian 

Hussars armored regiment—would be unfamiliar with him. Maybe I would earn points for novelty, if nothing else. Naturally, this 

approach backfired. Responding to my choice, the instructor said 

simply: “Marine, Boyd is one of my favorites. Don’t screw it up.”

I never imagined that Boyd’s name had been heard outside 

the U.S. Marine Corps, let alone north of the border. But I quickly 
PREFACE

xx

learned that there was much more to Boyd and his ideas than I could 

capture in a 15-page paper, and so I ended up writing my thesis on 

him and his contribution to Marine Corps doctrine. I learned that 

his concepts on conflict came in the wake of a long and unprecedented U.S. Air Force career. By the time he retired, Boyd had designed two different fighter aircraft, developed a groundbreaking 

equation on energy relationships, and literally written the book 

on air-to-air combat tactics. I learned that such commonly known 

ideas as the OODA loop barely scratched the surface of what he 

was trying to convey. I learned that many of his theories remain 

highly relevant in today’s threat environment, yet they are unknown 

because the bulk of his work was unpublished or inaccessible.

The more I explored Boyd’s work and influence, the more I 

learned, and the more I felt compelled to write about it. I drove 

my wife crazy talking about Boyd, because each time I thought I 

was done with him, I found some new wrinkle in his slides or oral 

history that launched me down a different path to write another 

piece that I then politely asked her, as an editor, to read. When I 

could not fit all my thoughts into the brief space of a Marine Corps 

Gazette article, I submitted a revamped version of my thesis to the 

Marine Corps History Division with the hope that they might 

publish it in their journal. They told me that my draft was too long 

for the journal, and then, utterly unexpectedly, offered to publish 

it as a monograph if I could flesh it out.

In my journal submission, I truly thought I had plumbed 

Boyd’s depths as much as possible. With the History Division’s offer, I returned to his original works and found I was wrong. His 

briefings and oral history interviews offered new insights each time 

I went back to them, so fleshing out the manuscript was not the 

problem. Rather, it was how to do justice to the ideas of a man 

who had built a rich and multilayered concept of conflict and bequeathed it to the Marine Corps, doing so in a way that was both 

comprehensible and, against my own bad habits, brief.

This book is my attempt to do that. I hope I did not screw it up.

Ian T. Brown

San Diego, California
xxi

Acknowledgments

Victory has many fathers; defeat is an orphan. That is certainly 

the case with this book, built as it was on several excellent works 

that preceded it, and with the assistance of individuals from a multitude of organizations. Any success I owe to them; failures, errors, 

and omissions are entirely my own.

First and foremost, I must thank my parents, David and Claudia. They sacrificed much to ensure that I received the best education possible, and it was thanks to their dedication that I was 

introduced to a slew of high school teachers and college professors 

who taught me how to think, analyze, and write. They also first 

gave me the deep and abiding love for history, particularly military 

history, that I carry to this day. Were it not for childhood vacations 

spent walking through Gettysburg, Yorktown, and countless other 

fields of conflict, this book would not exist.

That this book exists is also due to the support of the Marine Corps History Division at Marine Corps University (MCU). 

As previously noted, I originally submitted this work as a journal 

article. The historians and editors could easily have rejected it as 

unsuitable for their journal and left it at that. Instead, they gave 

me the unexpected opportunity to publish it as a book. I remain 

humbled and grateful for their decision to give such a chance to a 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xxii

nonacademic who had never published a book, and whose work 

on the project would always be subject to the vagaries of Marine 

Corps service. 

There are several individuals affiliated with the History Division who deserve particular thanks. At the top of that list is Dr. 

Alexandra Kindell, the editor who received the unenviable task of 

turning my jumbled article into a book. Her suggestions helped 

drive my research in valuable new directions, and always made 

the manuscript better. She had the highest level of enthusiasm 

for the project, which translated into motivation that I sometimes 

sorely needed to get the book across the finish line. Stephani Miller patiently talked me through her mysterious house styles as she 

copyedited each chapter. Angela Anderson gave the project final 

approval and provided the key breakthrough on cover design. I 

also owe thanks to Dr. Fred Allison and Dr. James Ginther, both 

of whom located a wealth of audiovisual sources and transcripts 

relating to Boyd and maneuver warfare, many of which had not 

been previously published; and Colonel Ray Damm (Ret), director 

of MAGTF Integration Group, for providing an advance copy of 

the interview with Generals Alfred M. Gray Jr. and Paul K. Van 

Riper, and Major John Schmitt.

The pages of the Marine Corps Gazette provided much of my research, and I must thank especially its former editor and publisher, Colonel John Keenan (Ret). He put me in touch with Robert 

Coram and Boyd’s circle of “acolytes” and provided a number of 

timely contemporary resources on Boyd. 

From the Archives Branch of the Marine Corps History Division, the archivists who helped me sort through the vast holdings 

of the archives, and especially Greg Cina, head of the Library 

of the Marine Corps’ Research Library, for providing recommendations on relevant holdings that proved invaluable to the book’s 

argument.

The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation provided a very generous grant that facilitated my transcription work on the audio recordings of “Patterns of Conflict.” Perhaps more so even than this 

book, I believe that having a written version of Boyd’s presentation available as a tool for future researchers will pay dividends for 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xxiii

those seeking a deeper understanding of Boyd and the foundation 

of maneuver warfare. I could not have completed the transcription in anything approaching a reasonable time frame without the 

foundation’s support.

Among those who provided feedback on various versions of 

the manuscript, I owe thanks to Dr. Nathan Packard, currently of 

Marine Corps Command and Staff College, both for his informal 

comments on the book itself and his permission to use his unpublished dissertation on the many other Marine Corps reforms that 

occurred during the same period my book covers. Major General William F. Mullen III, commanding general of the MAGTF 

Training Command in Twentynine Palms, California, kindly took 

extra time that I am sure he did not have out of his schedule to 

review the later version of the manuscript and provided key feedback in several areas prior to publication. And my thanks, finally, 

to the anonymous peer reviewers who donated their own time to 

provide valuable comments during the final stages of the project.

Several former Marines deserve great credit for not directing my cold-call emails to their spam folders. Thanks to Colonel 

Keenan, I tracked down Colonel Wyly relatively easily, and he was 

very patient in helping me get the timeline of many events in the 

1980s in their proper order. Stephen Miller was a pure shot in 

the dark, but with the miracle of social media I found somebody 

by the same name, and from a tentative email learned that it was 

indeed the same man whose articles got so much credit for kicking 

the maneuver warfare debate into high gear, yet about whom so 

little was known. I am grateful for the chance to tell his story here. 

Finally, Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper did not seem to 

mind me grabbing his email address from MCU’s Case Method 

Club distribution list, and generously agreed to write the foreword 

for a manuscript dropped in his lap by an unknown author. All 

three were exemplars of Marines helping fellow Marines. 

Outside Marine Corps circles, I owe a special thanks to Dr. 

Charles Oliviero and Dr. David Ulbrich, both of the Norwich 

University Military History program. Dr. Oliviero read the very 

first version of this work and has been a ready resource for feedback and additional material whenever I asked for it. Dr. Ulbrich 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xxiv

helped me take my original paper from a 15-page baby to a master’s thesis, and he deserves special credit for encouraging me to 

plug into the wider world of professional historians. Both greatly 

influenced the shape this project ultimately took.

Last, but by no means least: Brianne Brown, my wife and inhouse editor, who has read every single version of every page I 

have written about John Boyd and maneuver warfare for my master’s project, Gazette articles, and this book (and really hopes I am 

done this time), all pro bono while working several other editorial 

jobs that actually paid for her time. Few now exceed her in knowledge of maneuver warfare. M/L.

To these and the many others who made this work possible, I 

am deeply indebted and grateful for your support.
xxv

Introduction

In 1989, General Alfred M. Gray Jr., 29th Commandant of the 

Marine Corps, signed his name to a short doctrinal manual entitled 

Warfighting, Fleet Marine Force Manual (FMFM) 1.2

 In itself, this 

was an unremarkable act; many a forest has been felled producing 

military doctrinal publications on every topic from emplacing a 

machine gun to folding socks. But the manual that General Gray 

charged every Marine to “read and reread” was different.3

 The 

manual’s very label as Fleet Marine Force Manual 1 hinted as such, 

with the “1” indicating its preeminence over all other doctrine. 

Warfighting was not a how-to guide for digging a fighting position or 

landing on a beach but rather a conceptual framework for thinking 

about war itself. This framework focused on attacking an adversary’s mental and moral cohesion, with the goal of disrupting their 

ability to think and respond effectively to those friendly activities directed against them. Termed maneuver warfare, this approach did not 

operate at the physical level of weapons and technology so much 

2

 MCU Press’s editorial style treats military publication designations as separate 

from a publication’s title; for example, Warfighting, FMFM-1, rather than the military usage of FMFM-1 Warfighting. 3

 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” in Warfighting: Maneuver Warfare in the U.S. Marine Corps, 

ed. LtCol H. T. Hayden (London: Greenhill Books, 1995), 36.
INTRODUCTION

xxvi

as it did at the spiritual level of the human operators behind them. 

Such a focus was ideal for the Marine Corps, tasked as it was 

to be the nation’s force in readiness. This statutory responsibility meant that the Corps’ expeditionary forces could, as first responders, be called upon to face adversaries ranging from lightly 

equipped guerrillas to heavily armed Soviet-style conventional 

forces. With the smallest force size and portion of the defense budget, it would be impossible for the Marine Corps to materially 

equip itself for this range of contingencies. Yet these threats had 

one thing in common: whatever the weapon system, table of organization, or numbers arrayed against a Marine force, all were 

guided by human minds. The human focus of maneuver warfare 

made it eminently useful for a military organization that operated 

under significant physical constraints and yet had to be prepared 

to fight in myriad combat environments. Maneuver warfare demanded its practitioners think deeply on what gave an adversary 

cohesion; then, using the modest but infinitely tailorable resources 

of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), attack those key 

linkages to cut up an enemy into uncooperative components. So 

long as the adversary’s ability to think and resist could be degraded and kept that way, the wholesale destruction of their armed 

forces was not required. This revelation was particularly important to the Marine Corps, whose small size meant that it could 

not sustain a one-for-one attritional exchange with a numerically 

superior enemy.

The Marine Corps’ doctrine of maneuver warfare did not 

spring into existence ex nihilo. Rather, it was the product of two 

interrelated threads that eventually wove together until culminating in the 1989 manual. The first thread was spun during a 

long period of institutional soul searching following the end of 

the Vietnam War. Historically, the Marine Corps has always been 

an introspective organization. This introspection was not always 

expressed evenly in the Corps’ subordinate elements, subject as it 

was to the strengths, weaknesses, and foibles of any human institution; the drivers of introspection and innovation could change 

through the years and enjoy varying levels of official endorsement. 

As such, the maneuver warfare debate contrasted with another pe-
INTRODUCTION

xxvii

riod of significant institutional change: the development and adoption of amphibious doctrine following World War I. In the case of 

amphibious warfare, senior Marine Corps leaders recognized the 

need to operate across the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean and 

directed that the whole institution prepare for that scenario, to 

the point that the students of official training schools in Quantico were diverted from their normal studies to write amphibious 

doctrine. In the Vietnam era, the dynamic changed, with senior 

leaders grappling with the many corrosive effects the stalemate in 

Vietnam had on the total force and training schools focusing on 

getting their students to the fight as quickly as possible rather than 

engaging in military theorizing. Yet the institutional culture of adaptation and flexibility was still transmitted to Marines through 

the Corps’ history and traditions and was received by willing individuals who recognized what the Corps strove to be. If Vietnam 

had distracted the formal organs of Marine Corps bureaucracy 

from adapting to the future, then Marines would find their own 

informal ways of keeping the institution useful. The Marine Corps 

Gazette, in particular, proved a key outlet for the grassroots movement toward maneuver warfare.

Thus, the course of the Marine Corps through the twentieth century was charted by a desire to be a useful contributor 

to national defense, and the Corps regularly adapted its mission 

and organization to the exigency of the day. But Vietnam added 

new urgency to this attitude. Faced with the bitter reality that the 

Corps’ performance and bloody sacrifice in that conflict had not 

staved off defeat, many Marines searched for new ideas on fighting 

that would prevent such costly failures in the future. The revelations of Vietnam were combined with a larger one: that the post–

Vietnam threat landscape was quite different from the one that 

preceded the war. In this new world, the Marine Corps grappled 

with two key questions: What was its role, and what was the best 

way to fulfill that role? A handful of Marines and civilians teased 

out the rough concept of maneuver warfare, which they believed 

provided both a more successful method of fighting and the answer to the Corps’ two questions.

The second thread originated not in an institution but in the 
INTRODUCTION

xxviii

relentlessly curious mind of a retired Air Force colonel whose 

previous experiences in combat and aircraft design had sparked 

deeper insights on warfare. Colonel John R. Boyd would provide 

the intellectual foundation for maneuver warfare by way of a presentation entitled “Patterns of Conflict.” Colonel Boyd’s presentation resonated with those Marines seeking to reposition the Corps 

for success in the post–Vietnam world by addressing institutional 

shortcomings in the last war. These included ignorance of history’s lessons and the failure to understand the mental and moral dimensions of their enemy. In Boyd’s theory, the moral realm 

encompasses culturally dictated codes and standards of behavior 

that shape one’s responses and contribute to the formation and 

sustaining of social bonds.

What ultimately brought these threads together into a single 

weave was a worldview shared both institutionally by the Marine 

Corps and individually by Boyd. This outlook could be summed 

up in Boyd’s frequent admonition “to be or to do.”4

 Boyd meant 

that, on the one hand, one could make a name for oneself from 

past accomplishments, doing the “right” things, holding the 

“right” jobs, and coasting on faded glory. Or, on the other hand, 

one could try to achieve something concrete in the here and now, 

whether or not it made one popular, famous, or took one down the 

“right” career track. One had a choice: focus on being well known 

or on being useful.

Growing up during the Great Depression, Boyd developed the 

drive to produce and practiced it throughout his life. He always 

felt compelled to do something concrete in the here and now. This 

was reflected throughout his career, from developing theoretical 

equations, to aircraft design, to studying history for those invariants that brought success to battlefield commanders.

In this, Boyd never stopped to coast on past achievements, such 

as creating the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory for aircraft 

performance or designing well-known fighter aircraft. Resting on 

his laurels would have been easy. He could have stopped after any 

4

 Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: 

Little, Brown, 2002), 285–86.
INTRODUCTION

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of his achievements and leveraged their fame for years without 

doing anything new, but that was not Boyd’s style; he had to produce, to contribute, to be useful rather than become famous and 

stagnate.

The Marine Corps also exhibited a drive to be useful, going 

back at least as far as the interwar years when Boyd was growing 

up and ingrained institutionally by its fight for existence after the 

Second World War. The Marine Corps did not rest on its past laurels as the victor of Belleau Wood or on its legacy of amphibious 

operations in the Pacific theater. It felt an inherent need to justify 

itself in terms of utility today, to provide a concrete capability in 

the here and now. There was an element of institutional paranoia, 

a product of past attempts to kill the Corps, but one cannot ascribe fear as the Corps’ only motive for change. There was always 

a desire to provide some good, some resource of value to the nation’s defense. It always held an attitude, subconscious or not, that 

“the Marine Corps’ future lies in being useful.”5

And herein lay the convergence between Boyd and the Marine 

Corps. This attitude of usefulness meant adapting to new circumstances as they arose so that one could survive and thrive. Such 

adaptability required a mind-set that could recognize when circumstances changed, process the new information, and make those 

decisions necessary to adapt and triumph. This is what Boyd made 

manifest in “Patterns of Conflict” and its framework for maneuver warfare. The Marine Corps quite arguably had executed this 

process for decades as it fought for its place in the national defense 

community, from being the Navy’s police and landing force before 

World War I, to seizing advanced bases and amphibious operations 

in World War II, to a force in readiness after World War II, to whatever its new role would be after Vietnam. But the Marine Corps did 

this subconsciously, without recognizing the underlying mechanics.

Boyd made evident the mechanics. He synthesized a “theme 

for vitality and growth,” and he showed how it could be used both 

“constructively” for self-survival and “destructively” against exter5

 Russell Murray II, “The Marine Corps’ Future Lies in Being Useful,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 64, no. 8 (August 1980): 24–29.
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nal threats to survival.6 This was what the military existed to do 

anyway. Boyd illuminated something that the institution already 

knew and practiced at an instinctual level. In return, the Marine 

Corps adopted his warfighting concepts for use in a new threat 

environment in which the variety of possible adversaries required 

a mental framework of infinite flexibility that zeroed in on the one 

thing every adversary shared: a human mind.

The purpose of this book is to explore how these two threads 

evolved and ultimately converged. First, it examines Boyd’s early 

life and military career, outlining how he exhibited his personal 

drive to be useful and how he applied it from the open skies of 

aerial combat to the halls of the Pentagon. It also discusses his first 

glimmerings of a grander idea of conflict, developed from several 

insights gleaned through decades of military service. From there, it 

outlines the Marine Corps’ tradition of adapting to remain useful 

and places it in the context of an institutional realization that the 

post–Vietnam world required another adaptive leap to retain its 

advertised utility. It continues with a discussion of initial attempts 

by Marines and interested civilians to find answers to two key questions—what was the Corps’ role in the new threat environment, 

and what organizing principle should it use to fulfill this role—and 

concludes with the initial discussions about the maneuver warfare 

concept, which a handful of thinkers believed was the answer to 

those questions. The book then returns to Boyd and his development of the ideas on conflict that would become the intellectual 

foundation of maneuver warfare. It illustrates the key events that 

ultimately led him to create a mental framework for conceptualizing survival and decision making as described in his essay, “Destruction and Creation,” and then applying that framework to the 

realm of warfare in “Patterns of Conflict.” After summarizing the 

central insights from those two works, it explains general misconceptions about each that arose as Boyd’s theories gained a wider 

audience and shows how the ideas from “Patterns of Conflict” 

became enmeshed with the debate about maneuver warfare. It 

6

 John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” in A Discourse on Winning and Losing (Quantico, VA: August 1987), 144, hereafter “Patterns of Conflict.”
INTRODUCTION

xxxi

also discusses objections to the maneuver warfare concept raised 

at the time and how the misunderstandings surrounding Boyd’s 

ideas contributed to the resistance against maneuver warfare. The 

discussion identifies four key individuals with whom Boyd’s ideas 

particularly resonated and describes how those individuals would 

finally, in 1989, be in positions whereby they could officially make 

maneuver warfare the organizing principle that would guide the 

Marine Corps’ approach to future war. This work concludes with 

a discussion of the extent to which the Corps institutionalized and 

practiced the ideas of maneuver warfare in combat operations 

during the past three decades.

While this book is a history, the reader should not shoehorn it 

into specific categories. It is part institutional history, as the Corps’ 

tradition as an adaptive institution—with its experience in Vietnam accelerating its adaptivity—made it receptive to new ideas 

that could safeguard its future utility for national defense. It is also 

intellectual history, tracing how Boyd’s mind absorbed, processed, 

and refined concepts from myriad disciplines, first into an abstract 

decision-making model in “Destruction and Creation,” and then 

with the application of that model to real-world conflict. And it is 

biographical, as the life events of not only Boyd but also the many 

Marines who contributed to the maneuver warfare debate from 

beginning to end were critical to shaping their perceptions on war.

A word of caution to the reader: while this book contains biographical elements, it is not a comprehensive biography of John 

Boyd. Boyd’s life and personal idiosyncrasies have been covered 

extensively in two biographies and several other books and articles 

by those who knew him intimately, and this work is not an attempt 

to recreate them. Here, Boyd’s life experiences will be examined 

in the context of how they shaped and steered his innate drive to 

produce and how they fed into his development of those ideas on 

conflict that ultimately influenced the Marine Corps. This work 

does not claim that Boyd was a man without flaws, or that his 

singularity of vision had no repercussions. Boyd’s drive to produce 

often ignored military traditions of rank and chain of command; 

if he felt he was being stymied, he often simply went around the 

person blocking him to the next senior person who would listen. 
INTRODUCTION

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Or, just as often, Boyd would confront that person in profane and 

insulting terms. However, it should be noted that—paraphrasing 

one of Boyd’s own comments—he did not immediately default to 

verbally beating down an opponent. If the person, though skeptical, heard Boyd out, he took the time to explain his thoughts. 

It was those critics who refused to even give him a hearing that 

Boyd excoriated. This also illustrates how Boyd, despite his regular 

clashes with higher ranks, could still cultivate constructive relationships with senior leaders in the Army and Marine Corps who 

let him explain himself, to the point where he greatly assisted in 

revising Warfighting in 1997, the same year as his death.

Boyd also was determined to maintain a strict independence 

to pursue his ideas; consequently, he eschewed speaking and travel 

fees when invited to lecture, and following his military retirement, 

he refused to be paid for more than one day of work every two 

weeks while working as a civilian analyst at the Pentagon, lest he 

become beholden to the agencies giving him money. Boyd’s family 

was thus forced to live in very austere conditions for the sake of 

his ideological freedom. Boyd produced and maintained his independence but there was undeniable collateral damage to his puritanical pursuits. But again, that is not the focus here, and readers 

seeking a fuller picture of Boyd’s personal life are encouraged to 

consult his biographers.

While this book crosses several subdisciplines of history, it may 

be viewed as a data point for a bottom-up model of innovation in 

the realm of innovation studies. As noted by Adam Grissom, most 

schools of thought on military innovation advocate a top-down 

model to describe change. These schools collectively view militaries as “intrinsically inflexible, prone to stagnation, and fearful 

of change”; such resistance must be overcome by “senior officers 

and/or civilians” who can “bludgeon, politically leverage, or culturally manipulate the organization into compliance.”7

 The belief 

in the criticality of powerful leaders at the top is shared even by 

7

 Adam Grissom, “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,” Journal of 

Strategic Studies 29, no. 5 (October 2006): 919–20, https://doi.org/10.1080

/01402390600901067.
INTRODUCTION

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those thinkers, such as Stephen Rosen, who reject as inaccurate 

the assumption of institutional inertia within most armed forces. 

Rosen argued that “respected senior military officers” were still 

needed to formulate the strategy for innovation, spread the new 

ideas throughout the military’s culture, and clear the way bureaucratically for the rise of like-minded junior officers.8

Such a characterization does not describe the maneuver warfare debate portrayed throughout this book. The adoption of maneuver warfare by the Marine Corps offers itself as a potential 

case of bottom-up military innovation. The top-down model was 

not entirely absent, since the Corps, as a “learning organization,” 

had enjoyed a culture of self-reflection and inquiry for decades, 

which maneuverists exploited.9

 The maneuver warfare movement 

also enjoyed a powerful patron in General Gray, who, as he moved 

toward the top of the institution, gave maneuverists the top-level 

leader that could make their ideas stick. But the debate—from the 

unrefined ideas at its inception to the back-and-forth that honed 

those ideas and spread the message—was born and grew from the 

bottom. Maneuver warfare came from the ground-level work of 

Boyd and his development of a detailed intellectual framework. 

Boyd’s ideas, in turn, gained hold among intellectually curious junior and midgrade officers and civilians such as Captain Stephen 

W. Miller, Colonel Michael D. Wyly, William S. Lind, and others 

writing in the Marine Corps Gazette, who then, through schools and 

informal organizations, pushed the debate and spread the word. 

Even General Gray, during his earlier years as the commander of 

midsize units like the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade (4th MAB) 

and 2d Marine Division, can be viewed as a transitional innovator: 

not entirely bottom-up, as he held higher rank at the beginning 

of the maneuver warfare debate, but not entirely top-down either. He remained close to the members of the bottom-up echelon when he held lower-level commands, giving them a chance 

8

 Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military 

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 21.

9

 Eliot A. Cohen, “Change and Transformation in Military Affairs,” Journal of 

Strategic Studies 27, no. 3 (September 2004): 401, https://doi.org/10.1080/1362

369042000283958.
INTRODUCTION

xxxiv

to have their voices heard and implementing ideas he liked under 

his own limited authority. As will be seen in chapters 2, 3, and 6, 

conversation about the Corps’ direction—both in broad and specific terms—was not the exclusive dialogue of generals but found 

much of its substance from frontline operators who believed that 

direction needed to change. And while the generals did not always agree with the conversation’s direction, they at least allowed 

it to happen. While perhaps the top-down model can be used to 

characterize the institutional culture that allowed the maneuver 

warfare inquiry to exist, the inquiry and its substance were driven 

from the bottom up.

The astute reader knows that this book is not the first to discuss John Boyd, his conflict theories, and his influence and thus 

might fairly ask why another work on the subject is necessary. In 

reply, this author believes there are, in fact, several gaps in the 

historical record that this book seeks to fill. The first is a general 

confusion about where, precisely, the intellectual foundation that 

defined the maneuver warfare concept during the 1970s and 1980s 

originated. As will be seen, more vocal proponents of maneuver 

warfare—William Lind, for example—sometimes received this 

credit. When General Gray signed the publication that made maneuver warfare official Marine Corps doctrine, those unfamiliar 

with the background of the debate mistakenly believed that the 

theoretical foundation came from him. As a result, Boyd has been 

undercredited for providing that intellectual foundation, despite 

the fact that this contribution was well known both at the time and 

after his death.

Majors Gary I. Wilson and William A. Woods, two longtime 

maneuver advocates, noted that “the conceptual underpinnings 

of modern maneuver warfare find themselves in the work of Col. 

John Boyd.”10 Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, whose career covered the breadth of the debate, stated that “from my view 

. . . I am firmly convinced that the ideas the Marine Corps adopt10 Maj G. I. Wilson and Maj W. A. Woods, “The Controversy: Attrition or 

Maneuver?,” The Word (Marine Corps Reserve Officer Association), January–

February 1984, 38–42. 
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ed were ideas that came from Boyd. . . . It’s the conceptual, intellectual portions that were from—the main source was Boyd.”11

Lind regularly reiterated this point, even to audiences outside of 

the Marine Corps:

Working from his studies of air-to-air combat, Col. Boyd has 

generalized a theory of conflict which both explains the essence 

of maneuver war seen historically and provides a basis for further development of maneuver tactics. . . . The Boyd Theory 

enables us to understand what happens in maneuver warfare. It illustrates for us the effect of continual relational movement.12

A point paper commissioned by then-Major General Gray in 

1983 emphasized that

the conceptual underpinnings of modern maneuver warfare, then, had to be ferreted out of the history books by 

someone who know [sic] exactly what he was looking for, 

someone who could read between the lines as it were. 

Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret), is just that person. . . . 

Colonel Boyd’s intensive studies and musings led him to 

devise a fascinating theory about the nature of conflict 

which is now known as the BOYD Theory. . . . Colonel 

Boyd’s unpublished papers have been the genesis of all 

the controversy now raging over the merits of maneuver 

warfare.13

The paper’s author is not listed but may well have been either 

Major Wilson or Major Woods; both were part of the Maneuver 

Warfare Board during General Gray’s tenure as the commanding 

11 LtGen Paul K. Van Riper (Ret), interview with LtCol Sean P. Callahan, 20 

February 2014, transcript (Oral History Section, Marine Corps History Division, 

Quantico, VA).

12 William S. Lind, Paper for the 1980 New York Militia Association Convention, 

folder 1980—“Maneuver Warfare” by W. S. Lind, box 39, Alfred M. Gray II 

Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, emphasis added.

13 Talking paper for use by MajGen A. M. Gray, Commanding General, 2d Marine Division, (Rein) FMF, 29 March 1982, folder Sep 1983—2D MARDIV Maneuver Warfare Readings, box 39, Alfred M. Gray II Papers.
INTRODUCTION

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general of the 2d Marine Division. Its language is similar to their 

article, cited on page xxxiv.

Colonel Michael Wyly, a man close to Boyd and one whose 

influence will be outlined in chapter 6, held the same belief. While 

Robert Coram’s biography of Boyd discusses some aspects of 

their professional relationship, an unpublished interview transcript 

makes it clear that Wyly considered Boyd the philosophical father 

of maneuver warfare. Wyly specifically states that “John was my 

teacher.”14 Coram’s notes contain a great deal of similar evidence 

on Boyd’s influence, including an article by Fred Kaplan that characterizes Boyd as “a retired Air Force colonel who is considered 

the intellectual leader of the movement that revived maneuverwarfare philosophy.”15 James Burton, another of Boyd’s close associates, states that “the Marine Corps ingested Boyd’s theories into 

its own doctrine. Fleet Marine Force Manual Number 1[’s] . . . theoretical framework is clearly based on Boyd’s work.”16

Writers years removed from the maneuver warfare debate 

nevertheless credited Boyd’s influence. Major Jeffrey Cowan called 

Boyd the “godfather of maneuver warfare,” echoing a common 

refrain that “maneuver warfare was not a new concept, but the 

way Boyd presented it was.” Cowan argued that Boyd combined 

moral and maneuver elements of conflict into the “counter-blitz” 

construct, which later “would simply be called maneuver warfare 

and leave its unexpected legacy on the U.S. Marine Corps.”17 Colonel William Harkin, a warfare instructor for both the Marine 

14 Col Michael Wyly (Ret), interview with Robert Coram, 22 January 2000, transcript, folder 9, box 3, Robert Coram Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, hereafter Wyly 

interview with Coram.

15 Fred Kaplan, “Marine Who Fought Tradition Is Out; Colonel Led the Charge 

for Speed and Surprise,” Boston Globe, 1 May 1991, city edition, folder 9, box 3, 

Robert Coram Papers.

16 James G. Burton, The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 2014), 2–3.

17 Maj Jeffrey L. Cowan, USAF, “From Air Force Fighter Pilot to Marine Corps 

Warfighting: Colonel John Boyd, His Theories on War, and their Unexpected 

Legacy” (master’s thesis, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2000), 

27–34.
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Corps’ Expeditionary Warfare School and Command and Staff 

College, states that by building on the theories of J. F. C. Fuller 

and B. H. Liddell Hart and by using extensive historical study, 

Boyd “arguably [laid] the foundation for maneuver warfare theory.”18 A dissertation (later revised into a book) by Anthony Piscitelli 

features interviews with many principal actors in the maneuver 

warfare story, and Piscitelli points to Boyd as the “non-Marine 

who entered into the intellectual and philosophical heart and soul 

of this evolutionary process [the maneuver warfare debate].”19

The Marine Corps spared no effort to publicly acknowledge 

Boyd’s impact on its institution. Within two days of Boyd’s death 

in 1997, Marine Corps Commandant General Charles C. Krulak 

contacted Boyd’s family to preserve his papers, all of which now reside in the Archives Branch of the Marine Corps History Division 

at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.20 Krulak also penned a 

remarkable tribute to Boyd, stating that thanks to the many years 

spent sharing ideas, presenting his briefs, and shaping the maneuver warfare debate, Boyd “was an architect of [the Desert Storm] 

victory as surely as if he’d commanded a fighter wing or a maneuver division in the desert.” Krulak concluded: “I, and his Corps 

of Marines, will miss our counselor terribly.”21 The Corps can pay 

18 Col William J. Harkin, “Maneuver Warfare in the 21st Century,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 95, no. 2 (February 2011): 19–24. 19 Anthony John Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War” (PhD 

diss., University of Glasgow, 2014), 222. Just prior to this work’s publication, 

Piscitelli released a revised version of his dissertation as a formal monograph; see 

Anthony J. Piscitelli, The Marine Corps Way of War: The Evolution of the U.S. Marine 

Corps from Attrition to Maneuver Warfare in the Post-Vietnam Era (El Dorado Hills, CA: 

Savas Beatie, 2017). However, it does not include several sections that this author 

found to be among the most valuable in the original dissertation. The new book 

also appears to contain editing errors created by the removal of the aforementioned sections. As the original dissertation is more complete, in this author’s 

opinion, Piscitelli’s doctoral thesis is used as the primary reference throughout 

this work.

20 Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2001), 205. The repository itself may be found in 

Col John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

21 Hammond, The Mind of War, 3–4.
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no higher compliment than claiming a man as one of its own.

Another gap this book seeks to fill is in illuminating the wealth 

of material generated by original members of the maneuver warfare movement, which has only come out recently after the publication of the two Boyd biographies by Robert Coram and Grant 

Hammond. Among these materials are an individual oral history 

by John Schmitt, the author of the doctrinal manual that codified maneuver warfare; a group interview with Schmitt, General 

Gray, and General Van Riper as they reflected on the maneuver 

debate; and this author’s own interview with Captain Miller, who 

as a junior officer in the late 1970s wrote the earliest articles about 

maneuver warfare in the Marine Corps Gazette. These, along with 

other previously unpublished material, shed new light on the path 

maneuverists traveled as they sought to transition Boyd’s ideas into 

doctrine.

In related fashion, this book also attempts to make more extensive use of the primary materials left behind by Boyd himself. 

For example, while Robert Coram utilized Boyd’s official Air 

Force oral history in his biography, a number of segments in the 

history provide deeper insight into Boyd as a man and how he 

developed his ideas on military conflict, particularly the mental 

genesis of “Patterns of Conflict.” Along with the oral history, two 

papers critical of Boyd’s brief and his OODA loop contain notes 

handwritten by Boyd that state what observations inspired him 

to create the loop in the first place. Additionally, as part of writing this book, this author completed a full written transcript of 

an audio copy of “Patterns of Conflict” that is among the Boyd 

holdings of the Marine Corps History Division archives. One of 

the most common critiques of Boyd is that he never wrote anything down, meaning that anyone who did not have the benefit 

of personally attending Boyd’s brief could only access his ideas 

through the slide deck Boyd left behind. While these slides provide 

some insight, when compared with the audio and transcript of 

the full presentation, it becomes clear that the slides are truly only 

half the story. The audio recording demonstrates that Boyd often 

used his slides as jumping-off points for larger discussions, but the 
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xxxix

slides do not show the give and take Boyd encouraged with his 

audience, which also led to further elaboration on his ideas. Thus, 

any analysis of Boyd’s concepts that does not make use of the full 

audio is inherently incomplete. This includes Frans P. B. Osinga’s 

study, though it nevertheless deserves great credit as being the only 

existing attempt to offer a detailed intellectual critique of Boyd’s 

body of work.22

In an email exchange with this author, Osinga confirmed that 

he could not access the audio for “Patterns of Conflict” in writing 

his work.23 As a result, he omits concepts like fingerspitzengefühl (or 

finger-tip feeling), which Boyd discussed at length in his presentation but not in his slides. Osinga also makes no reference to Boyd’s 

oral history, in which Boyd specifically explained the thought process that resulted in “Patterns of Conflict.” Osinga’s book is a remarkable work of deduction based on Boyd’s slides and secondary 

sources, and this author found it an invaluable aid for a deeper 

understanding of Boyd’s ideas. In his email, Osinga states that he 

was not able to access the audio until after his book was published, 

but that upon listening, found nothing that contradicted his own 

conclusions. This holds true; it is simply this author’s assertion that 

the fullest understanding of Boyd, both his ideas and his appeal to 

the Marine Corps, can only be achieved by assessing the slides and 

the audio/transcript as a complete work. Taken together, Boyd’s 

original works illuminate the processes by which he developed and 

refined his ideas and address many of the misconceptions that 

grew around his meaning, which came from the relatively limited 

exposure many in the maneuver warfare debate had to Boyd himself. While there is insufficient room in this book for an exhaustive 

analysis of these resources, this author hopes that by at least introducing them, readers gain better insight into Boyd’s ideas and can 

explore those resources more extensively on their own.

A third category of primary material this book seeks to illu22 Frans P. B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (New 

York: Routledge, 2007). 

23 See Frans Osinga, email message to author, 16 May 2017.
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minate are the many contemporary Marine Corps Gazette articles 

that grappled with the Corps’ post–Vietnam role and ultimately 

fed into the maneuver warfare debate. The Gazette was founded in 

1916 by then-Colonel John A. Lejeune—who went on to become 

Commandant after World War I—as a “venue to debate issues 

of importance to the Corps and disseminate military art and science.”24 While printed journals may seem archaic to today’s digital 

generation, the reader should remember that before the age of 

blogs, social media, and webpage comment threads, there were 

limited opportunities for members of a profession to discuss relevant topics short of physically meeting in the same place. A professional journal provided a forum for sharing new ideas, refining 

old ones, and debating their merits. Members of the profession 

participated in these discussions regardless of their geographic location, a particularly pertinent quality for an organization like the 

Marines, whose members were legally mandated to exercise their 

profession around the globe. 

Those who took their professions seriously were expected 

to subscribe to and write for their professional journal. Before 

the digital age, the Gazette was one of the only media available 

to America’s expeditionary warfighters for a scholarly analysis 

of the issues affecting them. Furthermore, as mentioned above, 

the Gazette enjoyed a disproportionately strong influence on the 

post–Vietnam and maneuver warfare debates, as the formal structures that had driven institutional adaptability in the past, like the 

Corps’ most senior leaders and training schools, were otherwise 

grappling with the fallout of Vietnam. Finally, many involved in 

the maneuver warfare debate directly credited the Gazette, under 

its editor, Colonel John E. Greenwood, with being a vital and irreplaceable vehicle for sharing and refining maneuver warfare 

24 “The Marine Corps Gazette: Since 1916 the Professional Journal of U.S. Marines,” Marine Corps Association and Foundation, accessed 4 August 2017.
INTRODUCTION

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ideas.25 For all these reasons, the Gazette deserves the singular focus 

given its articles in this book.

The Gazette articles of the post–Vietnam War era show an 

organization whose individual members were cognizant that the 

world around them was changing and were aggressively seeking 

the best way to adapt to that world and remain a relevant component of America’s military strategy. As the maneuver warfare 

debate was born and matured, one also sees how Boyd’s ideas and 

terminology slowly became the lexicon by which the debate was 

conducted, even when the debaters themselves were not conscious 

of it. Past works, such as Nathan Packard’s dissertation, “The Marine Corps’ Long March: Modernizing the Nation’s Expeditionary 

Forces in the Aftermath of Vietnam, 1970–1991,” a broad survey 

of institutional reforms within the Corps at the time, often include 

abbreviated lists of related articles.26 But to date, there has not 

been an inclusive study of those articles that helped build the stage 

that maneuver warfare eventually occupied. This book shines a 

light on many such articles that have long been overlooked.

There is a final gap this book seeks to fill, and that is the absence of a study that follows the detailed thread of maneuver warfare’s development through Boyd’s life experiences, into the genesis 

and development of “Patterns of Conflict,” and out into the arena 

of military doctrine as expressed in Warfighting. The existing works 

on Boyd tell parts of the story but not the whole story. Robert Coram’s biography, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, 

offers good material on Boyd’s personal life and career, but it does 

not get into an academic analysis of Boyd’s thought (a problem ex25 Coram, Boyd, 388–89; Capt Terry C. Pierce, USN, Warfighting and Disruptive 

Technologies: Disguising Innovation (New York: Frank Cass, 2004), 92; Fideleon Damian, “The Road to FMFM 1: The United States Marine Corps and Maneuver 

Warfare Doctrine, 1979–1989” (master’s thesis, Kansas State University, 2008), 

44–46, 110; Robert T. Foley, “Lessons in Writing from a Master: Col John E. 

Greenwood, USMC (Ret),” Defence-in-Depth (blog), 17 April 2015; and “Col John 

E. Greenwood, USMC (Ret), Former Editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, Passes 

Away,” Marine Corps Association and Foundation, 14 April 2015. 

26 Nathan R. Packard, “The Marine Corps’ Long March: Modernizing the Nation’s Expeditionary Forces in the Aftermath of Vietnam, 1970–1991” (PhD 

diss., Georgetown University, 2014).
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acerbated by a lack of footnotes and formal references). Coram’s 

work is further plagued by demonstrable inaccuracies—some of 

which this book will address—which often compel the reader to 

consult other material for correlation.27 Grant T. Hammond’s The 

Mind of War has better documentation and greater focus on Boyd’s 

professional career, but it does not delve as deeply into the intellectual development of maneuver warfare as Osinga’s work, and 

it only briefly assesses Boyd’s impact on the Marine Corps. In The 

Pentagon Wars, James G. Burton provides many fascinating personal insights from his friendship with Boyd, but the book’s focus is 

naturally on Burton’s own military career, and so his discussion 

of maneuver warfare is generally tangential. As mentioned before, Osinga’s Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John 

Boyd is by far the most detailed conceptual analysis of Boyd’s essay 

“Destruction and Creation” and the follow-on presentations. But 

his brief discussion of Boyd’s life and career does not reference 

Boyd’s oral history, in which Boyd offered many specific details on 

those key events that ultimately drove the direction of his ideas on 

conflict. Nor did Osinga have access to any audiovisual records 

of “Patterns of Conflict.” With a full transcript of that presentation now complete, it becomes clear that Boyd discussed many 

ideas with his lecture audience that are not covered in the slides. 

Boyd also emphasized certain slides and quickly shuffled through 

others; thus, it is only from the audiovisual records and transcript 

that one learns which points Boyd believed most important. While 

he touches on the turmoil within the American military following Vietnam, Osinga does not specifically address the history of 

the Marine Corps as an adaptive institution or extensively detail 

the maneuver warfare debate that followed Vietnam. This book, 

using the transcript of “Patterns of Conflict” and more of Boyd’s 

oral history, as well as a more comprehensive assessment of Marine Corps Gazette articles, highlights the concepts Boyd emphasized 

27 This may explain why Coram’s book, which graced the Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional Reading List for many years, was replaced in the 2017 

revision by Hammond’s more rigorously documented biography, The Mind of 

War. See “2017 Commandant’s Professional Reading List,” Library of the Marine Corps, last updated 2 May 2018.
INTRODUCTION

xliii

from his own brief and ties them to the cultural undercurrents of 

the Marine Corps at the time.

The more general historical studies of this period also tell only 

pieces of the story. Works such as Allan R. Millett’s Semper Fidelis

are necessarily broad and do not dwell on the development of 

individual doctrinal publications.28 In recent years, several dissertations have focused more closely on the post–Vietnam period in 

the Marine Corps. Packard’s “The Marine Corps’ Long March” 

provides an excellent analysis of the many equipment, personnel, 

and other organizational adaptations the Corps made after Vietnam. This includes a chapter on the development of Warfighting;

however, the understandable constraints of framing this in the 

larger context of concurrent institutional reforms precluded a full 

analysis of Boyd and his influence on maneuver warfare. Piscitelli’s “The United States Marine Corps Way of War” looks more 

deeply at the combat philosophy of the Corps throughout its history.29 He collects a wide array of first-person accounts of recent 

Marine Corps combat operations, as well as interviews with many 

of the participants in the maneuver warfare debate. However, Piscitelli’s focus is less on the development of maneuver warfare than 

its application as a “way of war”; as such, he does not dwell at 

length on the larger post–Vietnam institutional churn that made 

the Corps amenable to Boyd’s ideas, discuss the ideas themselves 

in any detail, or elaborate extensively on the drafting of Warfighting. Fideleon Damian’s master’s thesis, “The Road to FMFM 1: 

The United States Marine Corps and Maneuver Warfare Doctrine, 1979–1989,” makes the manual’s development its central 

story, but as the title indicates, picks up the story near its middle in 

1979.30 As such, it omits the important institutional debate about 

the Corps’ post–Vietnam War role, which preceded 1979. Damian also says very little about Boyd’s life or “Patterns of Conflict,” 

beyond acknowledging that Boyd did indeed influence the other 

28 Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps, rev. 

ed. (New York: Free Press, 1991).

29 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War.”

30 Damian, “The Road to FMFM 1.”
INTRODUCTION

xliv

maneuverists on whom his thesis focuses. Thus, there are many 

books that highlight different aspects of the story of John Boyd, 

the post–Vietnam War Marine Corps, and maneuver warfare, but 

they do not tie them all together. This book does so.

Two final goals this work hopes to achieve are not so much 

the filling of gaps as explaining why Boyd and his concepts remain relevant today. The first reason he remains relevant is that 

his legacy did not end with his death in 1997. His ideas have permeated a number of national defense concepts in the years since, 

and there has been a resurgent interest in applying Boyd to such 

modern threats as Russia, China, and the Islamic State.31 Boyd has 

even been used to understand the less lethal—though no less competitive—realms of business and politics.32 To understand why 

31 For example: Maj David S. Fadok, USAF, “John Boyd and John Warden: Air 

Power’s Quest for Strategic Paralysis” (master’s thesis, Air University Press, 1995); 

John Andreas Olsen, ed., Airpower Reborn: The Strategic Concepts of John Warden and 

John Boyd (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015); Ens Steven Mason, USN, “John 

Boyd and Strategic Naval Air Power,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) 129, no. 

7 (July 2003): 76–78; Daniel Ford, A Vision So Noble: John Boyd, the OODA Loop, and 

America’s War on Terror (Durham, NH: Warbird Books, 2010); Chester W. Richards, 

A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?

(Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2003); B. A. Friedman, “John 

Boyd’s Revenge: How ISIS Got Inside Our OODA Loop,” Medium, 1 June 2015; 

Maj Paul Tremblay Jr., “Shaping and Adapting: Unlocking the Power of Colonel 

John Boyd’s OODA Loop” (master’s thesis, Marine Corps Command and Staff 

College, 2015); and Mark Safranski et al., ed., The John Boyd Roundtable: Debating 

Science, Strategy, and War (Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books, 2008). Dmitry Adamsky’s 

paper on Russian new generation war (NGW) operations, while it does not reference Boyd directly, is arguably a case study of how a nation-state is actively 

employing many of the tenets of mental and moral warfare Boyd suggested; see 

Dmitry Adamsky, “Cross-Domain Coercion: The Current Russian Art of Strategy,” Proliferation Papers (Institut Français des Relations Internationale), no. 54 (November 2015). Russian practices in the NGW construct—attacking an enemy’s 

decision-making apparatus, waging a war of information with kinetic operations 

as a follow-up, using a 4:1 ratio of nonmilitary to military measures to achieve 

national goals, and undermining an adversary’s morale, cohesion, and trust—

are striking echoes of Boyd’s moral aspect of warfare in “Patterns of Conflict.”

32 Chet Richards, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd Applied to Business (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2004); Philip Gold, “John Boyd’s Guide to Hasbara,” Times of 

Israel, 31 August 2015; Philip Gold, “John Boyd and Israeli Retail,” Times of Israel, 

3 September 2015; and Dan McLaughlin, “Military Strategist Explains Why 

Donald Trump Leads—And How He Will Fail,” Federalist, 16 December 2015.
INTRODUCTION

xlv

Boyd matters today, one must understand why he mattered after 

Vietnam. He especially mattered to the Marine Corps then, and 

the Corps is rediscovering him today. The current Commandant, 

General Robert B. Neller, has specifically called for the Corps to 

“reinvigorate a Maneuver Warfare mindset for the 21st Century,” 

a vision that has both refocused the Corps to assess new threats in 

the wake of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and generated renewed 

debate about how well the Corps institutionalized maneuver warfare in the first place.33 This point is addressed at length in the 

epilogue.

The second explanation for Boyd’s continued relevance lies 

in understanding where his thoughts fall on the spectrum of military theory. That Boyd is used today as a model for analyzing 

conflict comes from the fact that he was a true theorist, and theory 

is far more enduring than military doctrine or strategy. Doctrine 

and strategy change from war to war, and even within the same 

war. Boyd and maneuver warfare have remained relevant from the 

late Cold War, through Operation Desert Storm and the Global War on Terrorism, to the continued challenges posed by both 

nation-states and extremist organizations today. This suggests a 

timelessness beyond the rotating cast of trendy operating concepts 

that emanate from the Pentagon. Unfortunately, modern military 

terms tend to define concepts to the point of meaninglessness, and 

so one must look elsewhere for clarity. Dr. Charles Oliviero has offered a framework for military theory that makes the delineations 

clear. His model is a conceptual pyramid going from the broad 

to the narrow. Philosophy is the foundation of everything; theory 

is built on top of it; theory becomes the foundation for strategy; 

and strategy is the basis for tactics, techniques, and procedures 

(TTPs).34 Oliviero further defined each of these terms. Philosophy

33 Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) 01/2016: Advance to Contact (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 19 January 2016).

34 Charles Oliviero, “The Complex Web of Western Military Theory: A New 

Model for the Investigation of Western Military Theory” (PhD diss., Royal Military College of Canada, 2006), 30. This dissertation is a draft of a larger book 

on military theory currently in revision by Oliviero. This author is grateful for Dr. 

Oliviero’s permission to cite his work.
INTRODUCTION

xlvi

is the underlying sets of beliefs upon which a society, including 

its armed forces, bases all that it does. It is the most timeless, with 

changes measured in centuries or longer. Theories are compilations 

of principles or premises to aid in understanding. Strategies are 

plans of action to achieve goals. TTPs are the means of achieving 

those goals on a given battlefield, and given the uncertainty of 

combat, the most transient level of the model.35

Under this framework, one sees that Boyd is, at a minimum, 

a theorist. Indeed, it could be argued that “Destruction and Creation,” as the most abstract and least militant of Boyd’s works, 

rises to the level of philosophy. Yet, it was “Patterns of Conflict” 

that most influenced the Marine Corps, and so Marines had to 

content themselves with Boyd the theorist. However, this was no 

small consolation. From Oliviero’s framework, it is clear that the 

concepts the Corps adopted from Boyd operated far above the 

level of TTPs, regardless of the fact that Warfighting was termed 

a doctrinal publication. Doctrine, in the form of manuals, guidebooks, and pocket checklists, is the prime avenue within the institutional military for the widespread dissemination of knowledge 

that military leaders believe essential for warriors down to the 

lowest levels to understand. Nonetheless, doctrine is rarely timeless, precisely because it is often tied to specific times, places, and 

battlefields and necessarily needs to be changed to ensure that the 

troops on the ground are doing the most effective things to achieve 

national goals.

General Gray believed maneuver warfare to be so important 

that every Marine should learn it—and not just learn it but use it 

as the foundation for contextualizing all other military knowledge. 

Thus, the Marine Corps stood alone among the other Services in 

having as their capstone doctrine something that was not really 

doctrine at all but a theory of conflict with all the temporal endurance that the most valuable theories enjoy—an enviable consolation indeed. That endurance is derived from maneuver warfare’s 

focus on the human aspect of war, something which, over millennia of violence, has changed very little.

35 Oliviero, “The Complex Web of Western Military Theory,” 16.
A NEW CONCEPTION OF WAR

1

CHAPTER ONE

Tending to Produce

John Boyd from the Pool to the Pentagon

In 1973, Air Force Captain Raymond J. Leopold, newly assigned 

to the Pentagon, found himself reporting to Colonel John Boyd. 

According to his foremost biographer, Robert Coram, Boyd welcomed Leopold with the following lecture:

Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road. And 

you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go that way[,] you can be 

somebody. You will have to make compromises and you 

will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will 

be a member of the club and you will get promoted and 

you will get good assignments.1

Boyd counseled the young captain that the other fork in the 

road was harder and lonelier, but it offered a chance for true 

accomplishment: “You can do something—something for your 

country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you 

want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not 

get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite 

1

 Coram, Boyd, 285–86.
CHAPTER ONE

2

of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself.”2

In his later years, John Boyd frequently gave the men whom 

he mentored his “to be or to do” speech, just as he did to Captain Leopold. This singular phrase outlined what Boyd saw as the 

most important choice one could make in life. One could devote 

one’s energy to being well known or to being useful. If renown 

followed utility, so be it; but renown for its own sake emptied and 

compromised oneself too much to be valued highly. This speech 

manifested an attitude that first emerged when Boyd was a child 

during the Great Depression and was one that motivated him for 

the remainder of his life. 

From his youth, Boyd cultivated in himself a drive to produce, 

to do meaningful things in the here and now. His career reflected this drive, from his development of theoretical equations and 

aircraft design to the study of history for the invariant ideas that 

brought success to the greatest battlefield commanders. Guided by 

this attitude, Boyd refused to cruise on old successes. Others might 

become complacent in their triumphs but not Boyd. A problem 

solved was simply a springboard to another; past victories merely 

grist in the mill for future ones. 

This drive, combined with its particular outputs, found a 

kindred spirit in the post–Vietnam Marine Corps. The Marine 

Corps, too, had long striven to prove its utility to an American defense establishment that regularly questioned the Corps’ necessity, 

because, as a Marine once noted during an especially tumultuous 

battle over the Corps’ existence, “in terms of cold mechanical logic, the United States does not need a Marine Corps. However, for 

good reasons which completely transcend cold logic, the United 

2

 Coram, Boyd, 285–86. Capt Leopold evidently took this to heart. Following his 

Air Force career, he would go on to help conceive and design the Iridium satellite 

communication system, which allowed instant point-to-point voice communication between appropriately equipped users anywhere in the world. Variations of 

this speech were reported by most of Boyd’s closest associates. See also Burton, 

Pentagon Wars, 37; and Franklin C. Spinney, “Genghis John,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) 123, no. 7 (July 1997): 45.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

3

States wants a Marine Corps.”3 Yet few desires are independent 

of a perceived need; for America to continue to want a Marine 

Corps, the Corps had to demonstrate that it fulfilled a mission 

the other Services could not. Prior to and during World War II, 

this mission was developing amphibious assault tactics and then 

executing them as the Navy’s ground force in the maritime cam3

 LtGen Victor H. Krulak (Ret), First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps 

(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), xv, emphasis in original.

John Boyd’s official U.S. Air Force photograph, taken shortly before his retirement from active 

duty, ca. March 1974. 

John Boyd Papers, Marine Corps Archives
CHAPTER ONE

4

paign against Japan’s Pacific empire; following that war, it became 

a force in readiness for emergency contingencies. In the postVietnam world, the Corps yet again had to prove it provided 

something unique. That something would be an idea taken from 

Boyd’s mind, as Boyd struggled to find his own purpose following 

his retirement from the Air Force in 1975.

Boyd’s impact was not limited to the Marine Corps. Before 

his enmeshment in the Corps’ post-Vietnam reforms, he had already enjoyed a career characterized by incredible productivity 

and a corresponding single-mindedness to hone both himself and 

those around him into more productive and competitive entities. 

This desire made him a mover and a maverick in the American 

defense establishment. James Burton, another of Boyd’s biographers, may have overstated the case in claiming that Boyd “almost 

singlehandedly . . . changed the way our military leaders think 

about and fight wars.”4

 Yet, there was no denying the fact that, 

from aircraft design to conflict theory, Boyd had a hand in shaping 

many American military developments during the Cold War. 

Boyd’s influence came from an almost pathological obsession 

with winning that manifested itself at an early age. His obsession 

was not over victory for victory’s sake. Though always very competitive, Boyd seemed less interested with the win itself than the 

mechanics behind it. The self-study of success in competition undergirded his life. It was a never-ending quest that began in the 

realm of youthful sport and culminated in the paramount arena 

of global competition: war. To explore Boyd’s outlook, this chapter draws heavily on his 1977 U.S. Air Force oral history interview. 

This interview received brief mention by Boyd’s other biographers, yet there remains a great deal of unexplored material that 

reveals much about his worldview and methodology.

RAISED TO PRODUCE

John Richard Boyd was born on 23 January 1927 in Erie, Pennsylvania, and shared the hardships experienced by many Americans 

4

 Burton, Pentagon Wars, 3.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

5

during the Great Depression.5 Boyd’s family circumstances during 

the Depression—he was the fourth of five children and lost his father when he was three years old—resulted in a significant degree 

of personal independence, described as having “a lot of freedom 

to do things as long as I tended to produce.”6

 Boyd repaid the latitude 

granted to him by his mother by driving himself to produce in all 

things, especially the realms of athletics and academics. Again, 

such circumstances and their by-products of expectation and 

personal industry were not unique during the Depression years. 

Boyd’s zeal was singularly energetic, both during the Depression 

and across the span of his life. From this childhood, Boyd developed two traits that shaped his future: a fierce desire to operate on 

his own, doing things his own way; and an equally fierce determination to maximize self-study and deliver useful products to repay 

this independence.

While Boyd’s experiences pushed him in a particular direction, his general worldview was a well-documented product of the 

era in which he was raised. Russell Baker, who joined the Army 

when World War II began, had a similar childhood. He repeatedly 

noted his mother’s expectation that he make something of himself 

to the point that he felt ashamed when he failed to be productive, especially in supporting the family. Broader studies support 

this anecdotal evidence. In her survey of Depression-era youth, 

historian Kriste Lindenmeyer found both increased emphasis on 

the importance of putting hard work into one’s education and the 

desire for self-improvement fostered by friendly competition. Interestingly, one of her subjects, in writing about the value of hard 

work, echoed Boyd’s later “to be or to do” mantra: “you have to 

have ambition—you just can’t have ability and personality; you 

5

 Boyd official military records, box 9, folder 6, “Research Material (14 of 18),” 

Robert Coram Collection, Personal Papers Collection, Archives and Special Collections Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA; and David R. 

Mets, “Boydmania,” Air & Space Power Journal 18, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 100. 6

 John R. Boyd, U.S. Air Force Oral History (Corona Ace Interview) interview 

with LtCol John N. Dick Jr., 28 January 1977, transcript, box 24, folder 10, Col 

John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, 2, emphasis in original, hereafter Boyd 

Air Force oral history.
CHAPTER ONE

6

have to work.” In his study of Oakland-area youth, Glen Elder, a 

sociologist, provided additional support for the commonality of 

these attitudes. The decline in a Depression-era family’s capacity 

to support individual advancement correspondingly increased the 

reliance on one’s personal resources for success, accelerated interest in assuming the role of an adult, and made self-realized success 

an individual status symbol that surpassed family status in importance. Additionally, mothers exerted significant influence on their 

sons in promoting individual achievement, especially in families 

such as Boyd’s and Baker’s that lacked a father figure during the 

Great Depression.7

COMPETING IN AND OUT 

OF THE MILITARY

Absent the outlets available during good economic times, Boyd’s 

desire to compete and produce manifested itself predominantly 

in sports during his youth. Growing up near Lake Erie, he had 

ample opportunity to swim in the summer and skate in the winter.8

Through junior high school, Boyd played a different sport each 

season, and in high school he became a championship swimmer.9

It is worth noting his early gravitation toward sports was based on 

individual competition. Though Boyd proved eminently capable 

of operating as part of a team under the right conditions, he always viewed competition in highly personal terms.

The love of individual competition carried over into his military career. Boyd wryly noted that his reason for joining the military was because he “was 18 years old in 1945 and Uncle Sam 

said, ‘Hey, we want your hot body.’ ”10 He enlisted in the Army Air 

Corps at the end of World War II—ironically, first applying for 

7

 Russell Baker, Growing Up (New York: Signet, 1984), 17, 23, 121–22, 156, 212, 

228, 233, 239–44; Kriste Lindenmeyer, The Greatest Generation Grows Up: American 

Childhood in the 1930s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005), 113, 125, 127, 145, 198; 

and Glen H. Elder Jr., Children of the Great Depression: Social Change in Life Experience

(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 33, 81, 116, 136, 139, 141, 144. 

8

 Boyd Air Force oral history, 3.

9

 Boyd Air Force oral history, 3.

10 Boyd Air Force oral history, 4.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

7

the aviation cadet program and being rejected for low aptitude—

and was trained as a remote control turret mechanic.11 The war 

ended before he could be assigned to a combat unit, so instead he 

deployed “to meet overseas requirements” as part of occupational 

forces in Japan at the end of 1945.12 His twin drives of competition and productivity evidently did not allow him to idle away in 

the lax lifestyle of occupation duty; he made himself useful as an 

athletic instructor in his squadron and continued to push himself 

individually as a member of the Far Eastern Swim Team.13 Clearly Boyd’s superiors valued his industry, because in 1946 he was 

promoted from private first class to corporal to sergeant in the 

space of seven months.14

He was discharged in 1947, giving little consideration to a future military career. Though privately he noted, “Well, the war is 

all over now. There, of course, might be another one some day 

[sic].” Boyd attended the University of Iowa on the GI Bill and, 

seeking some extra money in his junior year, joined the Reserve 

Officer Training Corps (ROTC).15 He received a commission as 

a second lieutenant in the newly independent Air Force in July 

1951, after the outbreak of the Korean War.16 Mulling his options, 

Boyd’s competitiveness and desire for personal freedom drove him 

toward the fighter wing. As related in his oral history, “You get in 

[the fighter] and the whole load is on you alone—‘Can you or can 

you not do it?’ . . . I really believe it was a carry-over from competing in sports . . . to me it was like a different kind of a sport or 

a continuation of that kind of competitiveness.” Boyd understood 

that the military had a collective mind-set, but he still believed in 

the value of individual contribution: “Granted, you are going to 

work with your teammates, but a lot of it depends on how well 

you do, how well you are trained, how well you think, how well you

11 Boyd official military records.

12 Coram, Boyd, 29–30; Boyd Air Force oral history, 4; and Boyd official military 

records.

13 Boyd Air Force oral history, 4; and Boyd official military records.

14 Boyd official military records.

15 Boyd Air Force oral history, 5.

16 Coram, Boyd, 38; and Boyd official military records.
CHAPTER ONE

8

move.”17 He had hedged his bets that the Cold War might blow 

hot, and it paid off: he would become an officer and a pilot, setting 

him on a path that seemed unlikely just a few years before.

In flight school, the determination to produce on his own 

terms led Boyd to study and practice maneuvers well outside the 

normal flight training syllabus. Finding that the air-to-air combat 

curriculum boiled down to “stay inside, hose him down, and do 

what I tell you,” Boyd experimented on his own to learn which 

moves increased his chances of getting in position for a kill, to 

the point where he began beating his own instructors.18 This did 

not endear him to his teachers, but the result of his experiments 

was the manifestation of a subconscious impulse Boyd described 

as the “hunter instinct.” Boyd stated that the hunter “has to see 

the results of his own personal victory. . . . He gives his all during 

that one-on-one competition and he needs his due reward or penalty. . . . I think it is a challenge due to the fact that it is a stressful 

situation and the fact that he can overcome that stress and come 

out on top.” Boyd believed that the hunter, just as he did, sought 

stress as a way to better himself: “In many things that I do, I will 

set up an adversary relationship—not that I do not like the guy, 

that is not the point—because it sharpens me.”19 Over the years, 

Boyd used many people as unwilling whetstones in his quest for 

self-sharpening. But it is worth noting that Boyd did not consider 

this conflict personal but rather necessary to make himself—and, 

if willing to learn and adapt, his target—better, more competent, 

more successful. Boyd was at his best when people got “pissed off 

so they could fight me and I could get down to work.”20 Those who 

earned Boyd’s genuine ire were the ones who refused to improve 

themselves through this sharpening process.

LESSONS IN THE AIR

Selected to fly the North American F-86 Sabre jet fighter, Boyd 

17 Boyd Air Force oral history, 6–7, emphasis in original.

18 Boyd Air Force oral history, 8, 15; Coram, Boyd, 45, 47; and Hammond, The 

Mind of War, 33. 19 Boyd Air Force oral history, 79–80.

20 Boyd Air Force oral history, 79–80.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

9

was promoted to first lieutenant in January 1953, and he finally 

reached an active combat theater in Korea by March.21 While the 

Korean War was still hot at this point, it also was winding down, 

and Boyd only accumulated 29 missions and 44 combat flight 

21 Boyd official military records.

North American Aviation F-86 Sabre jets on a flight line in South Korea being readied for combat, ca. June 1951. John Boyd piloted the F-86 during the waning months of the Korean War. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
CHAPTER ONE

10

hours before the signing of the Armistice.22 This limited experience meant that Boyd lacked the flight time to earn a leadership 

position as a shooter. His relatively junior position meant that he 

flew as a wingman, providing cover for the senior flight leaders 

who would maneuver themselves into position for the kill.23 Not 

that Boyd never tried to get a kill himself; not given the opportunity to shoot down a Russian Mikoyan Gurevich (MiG) fighter 

jet, he characteristically manufactured his own. Boyd recounted 

22 Boyd official military records.

23 Coram, Boyd, 53.

Gun camera photo of a Russian-built MiG-15 as an Air Force F-86 Sabre piloted by Capt 

Manuel Fernandez, 334th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, attacks 

from the rear, ca. 1952–53. The difference in performance between the MiG-15 and F-86 

during the Korean War resonated with Boyd. Boyd revisited the disparity as he studied historical 

examples of mismatches and fast transient maneuvers during his development of “Patterns of 

Conflict.” 

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force
TENDING TO PRODUCE

11

a mission he flew with a Royal Air Force (RAF) exchange officer, crossing the Yalu River into Manchuria—a practice officially 

forbidden, though unofficially performed by many American pilots—hunting for Communist aircraft. The mission was only partly successful; Boyd and his counterpart did indeed find a swarm 

of MiGs to engage, but his wingman’s aircraft suffered a complete 

electrical failure that prevented the RAF pilot from firing back. As 

a result, both spent the whole engagement wildly maneuvering to 

avoid getting shot down themselves.24 While Boyd never recorded 

an enemy kill, the contrast in performance between Soviet and 

American fighter aircraft resonated with him, and he would revisit 

it later as he developed his warfighting theory.25

LESSONS IN THE CLASSROOM

After the Korean War ended, Boyd was reassigned to Nellis Air 

Force Base in Nevada in March 1954, as an F-86 instructor pilot.26 As he had in flight school, Boyd continued to experiment 

on his own with fighter tactics, and his reputation as a tactician 

garnered an invitation to instruct at the Fighter Weapons School 

(FWS) that same year.27 Boyd was unimpressed by the quality of 

instruction he found at FWS, deriding it as a “gunnery school”—

not that gunnery was unimportant to the fighter pilot; but Boyd 

believed that “we had to get these guys in a position so they could 

use the guns.” This required training beyond simply aiming at 

a large plastic target banner strung placidly behind an aircraft 

flying straight and level. He saw an urgent need to “tweak up the 

tactics” taught at FWS, and so he approached the commanding 

officer with an offer to volunteer for an undesirable billet in the 

academics department if he were allowed the freedom to teach 

tactics as he saw fit.28 Boyd received permission to do things his 

way and began experimenting with both the ground and flight 

curricula to see what worked best. 

24 Boyd Air Force oral history, 17–21.

25 Coram, Boyd, 55–56. 26 Boyd official military records; and Boyd Air Force oral history, 22.

27 Boyd Air Force oral history, 22–23.

28 Boyd Air Force oral history, 22–25.
CHAPTER ONE

12

As he did this, his sharpening process again manifested itself 

as he figured out the best way to teach his students. At the time, a 

prevalent attitude at FWS drove instructors to give their students 

an initial win to build their confidence. On the one hand, Boyd did 

not think this valuable, as a student simply handed a win would 

not learn anything; on the other hand, it was equally worthless 

to let instructors use their superior skills to constantly beat up on 

students. He “had the feeling that if you just kept beating a guy, 

that you would destroy him.”29 Instead, Boyd tailored the curriculum to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual student 

when that student showed a true willingness to learn. If a student thought they already knew all the answers—an attitude Boyd 

called the “obstruction”—Boyd took them into the air, and “as 

soon as I would spot him, I would cut his balls off in 10 seconds.” 

He called this giving the “hardheads who did not want to learn 

. . . the 2 by 4.”30 Boyd continually gave those who refused to open 

their minds to new ideas the same treatment throughout his life. 

While tweaking the academic curriculum, Boyd did not neglect his aerial combat skills. His time at Nellis gave birth to the 

legend of “40-Second Boyd.” He had a standing bet that he would 

meet any pilot over a preselected patch of ground, get on his tail 

for a kill within 40 seconds of the engagement commencing, or 

pay the victor $40.31 No pilot ever collected on that bet.

By 1957, Boyd—now a captain—and his fellow instructors 

had amended the academic program to their satisfaction and 

found ways to share this information with the wider fighter community. They leveraged a preexisting training bulletin, which was 

transformed into the Fighter Weapons Newsletter. The first edition of 

this new circular was published in June 1957, and it became the 

preeminent forum for exchanging ideas on tactics.32 This newsletter showcased two more of Boyd’s trademark characteristics. The 

first was the free sharing of ideas; he would always take extra time 

29 Boyd Air Force oral history, 28.

30 Boyd Air Force oral history, 29.

31 Coram, Boyd, 87–88. 32 Boyd Air Force oral history, 36.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

13

and effort to pass on what he knew to those without the obstruction that impeded real learning. The second was his refusal to accept the rigid, checklist-type approach to problem solving that was 

common in the military. Instead, he strove to build a repository of 

experience and knowledge from which one could draw any number of solutions, depending on the unique nature of the problem. 

Boyd used the newsletter to demonstrate that there was more to 

aerial combat than “just going up there and turning inside and 

hosing him down, [when] other maneuvers could be applied.”33

Boyd repeatedly argued this point with inspectors tasked to evaluate and standardize his tactics program, stating that “you cannot 

tell us how to do a maneuver. Those things vary according to circumstances.”34 There was no such thing as the perfect maneuver that would 

always work. He recounted an attitude pervasive during his time 

33 Boyd Air Force oral history, 36.

34 Boyd Air Force oral history, 37, emphasis added.

A Martin B-57E Canberra towing an aerial gunnery target banner similar to those used at the 

U.S. Air Force’s Fighter Weapons School. Boyd believed that there was more to air-to-air combat 

than pointing one’s guns at a target flying straight and level, such as these plastic banners. Boyd’s 

desire to improve upon air combat tactics would lead him to build the new mental framework 

found in the Aerial Attack Study. 

Official U.S. Air Force photo
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14

at Nellis, where pilots had “this so-called last-ditch maneuver, but 

what if that doesn’t work? What are you going to do, die? You’ve 

got your favorite maneuver, it didn’t work. I said, Christ, that’s 

narrow, guys, you better have a repertoire of maneuvers . . . so if 

you only got one thing you can do and the guy gets wise, that’s the 

end of the line for you.”35 No pilot could accept dying as a viable 

option; better to have a catalog of options available to make things 

as difficult as possible for an adversary, even if one got beaten in 

the end. The newsletter was Boyd’s first attempt to leave behind 

such a repertoire for those who did not have the benefit of his 

personal instruction. His second attempt soon followed and forecasted how he would later think about wider realms of conflict.

In 1959, Boyd’s time at FWS drew to a close as he applied 

for and was selected to the Air Force Institute of Technology’s 

(AFIT) scholarship program at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Determined to prevent the tactics program 

from languishing after his departure, he decided to codify his own 

manual on fighter tactics.36 The resulting Aerial Attack Study was 

such a thorough piece of work that no significant contributions 

have been made to fighter tactics since its publication.37 It also 

presaged, as did the Fighter Weapons Newsletter, how Boyd later approached conflict theory. In the Aerial Attack Study, he introduced 

a new frame of reference—geometric space relationships—that 

had to be understood to provide context for all the maneuvers that 

would follow.38 Boyd came back to this idea in 1976 when he grappled with conflict theory, setting down a new mental framework 

35 John R. Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” transcript of lecture to 

USMC Command and Staff College, 25 April 1989, tape 1, side 2 (8 audio cassette tapes/8 compact discs), Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, 

Quantico, VA, 19. Note that the audio transcript is labeled as “Discourse on 

Winning and Losing,” but it is in fact an audio transcript of Boyd presenting his 

lecture, “Patterns of Conflict.” The author has retained the label in citations for 

ease of use for other researchers.

36 Coram, Boyd, 103. 37 Coram, Boyd, 116; and Burton, Pentagon Wars, 12–13. 38 John R. Boyd, Aerial Attack Study (revised 11 August 1964), box 13, folder 5, Col 

John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, 49.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

15

Aerial Attack Study Excerpt

The following excerpt from Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study describes the new mental 

framework required to understand the context in which fighter aircraft operated.

FIGHTER MANEUVERS

To acquire an understanding of the science of fighterversus-fighter combat, a complete knowledge of the spatial relationships involved in this form of aerial combat, 

is necessary. Before he can achieve this understanding, 

any tactician must be able to define or imagine a frame 

of reference, within which he must operate. In addition, he must know the basic tools which he may employ 

in this frame of reference. Simply stated, this means 

that the pilot must understand the geometric space relationships and how to apply this insight to a given 

fighter-versus-fighter situation. Our purpose, in fighter 

maneuvers, will be two-fold: (1) To define and present 

geometric relationships needed for fighter-versus-fighter 

combat, and (2) to show how to properly apply these 

relationships in fighter maneuvers.

In discussing fighter-versus-fighter combat, it is 

evident that many pilots believe there are an infinite 

number of situations and solutions in a given tactical 

encounter. Such is not the case! The field in which a 

fighter pilot must operate is three-dimensional and finite. The size and shape of the field is determined by 

the pull of 1G gravity [g-force] and the performance 

limitations of the aircraft and its pilot. We can imagine this field to be spherical in shape, with a flattened 

northern hemisphere and an elongated southern hemisphere. See [figure above]. The spherical 

shape is generated by a maneuvering fighter’s turn and velocity operating through three dimensions. The elongation results from the effect of 1G gravity on the fighter in this three-dimensional 

field of maneuver. Turn, speed and the force of gravity determine the operating envelopes and we 

need only understand spatial relationships presented by these factors to develop effective fighter 

maneuvers. To know how to secure an advantage over an opponent, an attacker need only visualize turn, velocity and G projected onto this spheroid shape. He has no control over the force [of] 

gravity, of course, but he can exercise complete control over aircraft turn and velocity. As a result, 

he can maneuver in a manner to effectively use the pull of gravity in a given tactical situation. 

Thus, in a fighter-versus-fighter situation, the pilot can do two things to gain an advantage over 

an opponent: Change turn and/or velocity, in respect to his opponent. He can accomplish either 

or both by maneuvering through both the vertical and horizontal planes by employing either a 

two-dimensional maneuver through three-dimensional space, or a three-dimensional maneuver 

(barrel roll).

Source: Capt John R. Boyd, USAF, “Chapter II: Fighter Maneuvers” in Aerial Attack Study, box 13, folder 5, Col John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, 

Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, 49.

FIELD OF MANEUVER. Boyd 

called this framework “geometric 

space relationships.” This was an 

early example of Boyd building 

new mental worlds to better grapple with an idea; he would continue this trend in his essay “Destruction and Creation.” Capt John 

R. Boyd, USAF, Aerial Attack 

Study (Nellis Air Force Base, NV: 

U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons 

School, 1963), 50.
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16

before turning to the larger theoretical question. Also, as with the 

newsletter, the Aerial Attack Study threw out the dry list of moves 

and countermoves that lacked context, and instead taught pilots 

how to think about combat and the reasoning behind each move 

and countermove.39 Here again came the emphasis on thinking 

about the problem and using a wide repertoire of experience as 

the basis for solving it, rather than simply relying on rote memorization of the standard solution.

As Boyd worked through his engineering degree at Georgia 

Tech, he discovered (accidentally, in the best scientific tradition) 

the foundation for a groundbreaking development in aircraft performance. In the course of tutoring fellow students in thermodynamics, Boyd was asked to explain the basics of aviation tactics 

and maneuvering. To help them understand, Boyd tried to translate pilot speak into something more scientific: 

Well, you treat it like we do in [thermodynamics]. You 

know we talk about air speed, you square it and get kinetic 

energy. When you talk about maneuvering you talk about 

changing altitude, air speed and changing direction. You 

can change altitude and gain air speed by trading off altitude or vice versa by trading kinetic energy for potential 

energy.40

In physics, kinetic energy refers to an object’s energy derived 

from its current motion, and it depends on the object’s mass and 

speed. Potential energy refers to the latent energy stored in an 

object as a function of its position; in the case of an aircraft, 

that is its vertical position or height in relation to the earth or 

another aircraft. An aircraft in motion always has both kinetic 

energy, by virtue of its mass and current airspeed, and potential 

energy based on its altitude. Boyd’s point was that aircraft tactics and maneuvers could be looked at as exchanges of kinet39 Hammond, The Mind of War, 47. 40 John R. Boyd, United States Air Force Oral History Program: Interview #859 

with Jack Neufeld, 23 May 1973, transcript, box 6, folder 5, Robert Coram Collection, Personal Papers Collection, Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, 3–4, hereafter Boyd, Interview #859.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

17

ic and potential energy. A maneuver like a dive traded altitude 

(potential) for airspeed (kinetic); an afterburner climb traded the 

mass of fuel (kinetic) to rapidly build up altitude (potential). A 

physicist could thus view aerial combat as fluidly changing energy states. Boyd therefore concluded, “If you make a lot of turns 

you draw down on your potential [energy], or kinetic or both.”41

Here was Boyd setting up the problem in the context of a 

new framework. In doing so, he sowed the seeds for a genuine 

engineering breakthrough. Thinking back on the explanation he 

had just provided, Boyd had a sudden revelation: “ ‘Gee I wonder 

why I hadn’t thought of that before?’ . . . I had never seen anybody 

treat it from an energy viewpoint and I had just said it by accident.”42 Boyd scribbled down some initial equations capturing this 

insight and brought them to his new assignment at Eglin Air Force 

Base in Florida in 1962.43

APPLYING THE LESSONS

Now a major, Boyd continued his inquiry into the relationship 

between flight performance and energy—aided by government 

computers to which he gained access under dubious legality—and 

ultimately codified it as the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory (figure 1).44

The theory allowed, for the first time, the calculation of an 

aircraft’s performance based on its design characteristics; or, conversely, one could calculate the optimum aircraft design required to 

deliver a desired performance.45 Boyd tested and refined his theory 

by comparing performance data from American aircraft against 

their Soviet equivalents, and he came to a startling conclusion: 

Soviet aircraft, in most performance realms, were superior to their 

American counterparts, and nobody on the American side knew 

it.46 This revelation was simply the latest shock in a Cold War that, 

41 Boyd, Interview #859, 3–4.

42 Boyd, Interview #859, 3–4.

43 Coram, Boyd, 137; and Boyd official military records. 44 Coram, Boyd, 145–46. 45 Coram, Boyd, 148. 46 Boyd Air Force oral history, 102–5.
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to this point, had been characterized by a repeated underestimation of Russian abilities by American “experts.” From the detonation of the first successful Soviet atomic weapon test, First Lightning, 

in August 1949, to the successful delivery of the Sputnik 1 satellite 

into orbit via intercontinental ballistic missile in October 1957, to 

the alarming discovery of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in 1962, 

the Soviet Union had proven adept at catching the United States 

off guard in both its technical capabilities and its skill at hiding 

them. Boyd’s study was simply another data point on this alarming 

trend line.47

PUSHING RIGHTNESS ON OTHERS

As always, Boyd wanted to be useful and to win. In this case, he 

wanted American pilots to understand their vulnerabilities so 

that, should they ever directly confront Soviet pilots in a conventional fight, ignorance would not cost them their lives. Moreover, 

he wanted to give American aircraft designers a crucial tool for 

building airframes that would actually perform as their designers 

intended. Beginning with his immediate superiors, Boyd briefed 

his way up to the four-star general level, demonstrating the performance vulnerabilities of American fighter aircraft based on his 

calculations. Generals and engineers alike cursed him, berated 

47 John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 100, 238, 241, 267; Gaddis, The Cold War: A New 

History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 35, 68, 77; and Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, rev. 

ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 181–82.

PS = V (T-D

W )

Figure 1. The equation that represents the Energy-Maneuverability Theory postulated and 

tested by John Boyd. PS

 = Specific excess power; V = Speed; T = Thrust; D = Drag; and W 

= Weight.

Adapted by MCU Press
TENDING TO PRODUCE

19

him, and even threatened him with a court-martial for stealing 

government resources to work on this entirely unsanctioned project; but Boyd came through unscathed, because the data provided 

by his theory proved indisputably correct. While Soviet military 

capability might again have proven more advanced than anticipated, neither side knew it until Boyd had done the math. Boyd’s 

study gave the United States a chance to correct this deficiency 

before the Russians even knew it existed.48

For the potentially war-winning revelations his theory offered, 

Boyd received two Air Force scientific awards and reassignment 

to the Pentagon to troubleshoot problems found in the development of the Air Force’s latest fighter design.49 The latter reward 

disappointed Boyd, as it countermanded the assignment he originally desired: deploying to Thailand to fly McDonnell Douglas 

F-4 Phantoms in combat in Vietnam.50 Yet his E-M Theory had 

already proven its utility in analyzing the capabilities of existing 

aircraft; now, Boyd could use the theory to shape the performance 

of an American fighter plane before it was even built. In October 

1966, Boyd reported to the research and development section of 

Headquarters, U.S. Air Force.51 His small slice of the Pentagon 

worked the Air Force F-X project, the follow-on aircraft to the 

General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bomber.52

When Boyd arrived at headquarters, the F-X program faced 

many difficulties. It was a pawn in bureaucratic wrangling between the Navy and the Air Force; the Navy had its own futurefighter project called VFAX and wanted to convince the Office 

48 Boyd Air Force oral history, 106–19. 

49 Coram, Boyd, 183–85. 50 Coram, Boyd, 184. 51 Boyd official military records; and Boyd, Interview #859, 14.

52 For a supposedly standardized process, military acquisitions projects have dizzying and inconsistent naming conventions; for the purposes of this book, only a 

handful deserve extensive description. In the Air Force, research or experimental 

aircraft designs that were still in an early conceptual phase—no physical airframe 

yet existed—had an X designator. These designs also had a designator for the 

type of mission the future aircraft was intended to perform: F for fighter, A for 

ground attack, R for reconnaissance, etc. Thus, the F-X program would design 

a future fighter aircraft.
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of the Secretary of Defense and Congress to fund its project and 

make the Air Force adopt it.53 The Air Force’s existing aircraft 

were already under scrutiny due to their lackluster performance 

in Vietnam.54 And Boyd’s initial analysis of the F-X led him to believe that it was simply another 60,000-pound behemoth like the 

F-111.55 The Navy’s VFAX advertised a design weight of less than 

50,000 pounds, which meant reduced parts cost and a more congressionally attractive price tag; and on top of that, Boyd had little 

confidence that the F-X was a substantially better airframe for all 

its extra weight and cost.56 Using the experience gained from his 

E-M-based performance analyses at Eglin, Boyd and his team applied the E-M formula to craft an airframe that could still deliver 

the Air Force’s desired metrics in a lighter and less costly package. 

His promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1967 gave him a modicum 

of extra authority to requisition the data he needed from both 

government and commercial entities.57 Requisition he did; and so 

with input from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), General Dynamics, and Lockheed-Martin, alongside the analysis of hundreds of different configurations, Boyd’s 

team developed a lightweight and maneuverable airframe that 

would ultimately go into production as the McDonnell Douglas 

F-15 Eagle.58

HINTS OF THE FUTURE

It seemed natural that, with Boyd’s design approved, he would 

be assigned to an Air Force Systems Command billet to oversee 

actual production. Indeed, Boyd transferred to Andrews Air Force 

Base in Maryland in October 1969 to take the F-15 from paper 

to reality.59 Surprisingly, he had little enthusiasm for seeing his 

53 Boyd, Interview #859, 15; and Coram, Boyd, 191. The Navy used its own 

variations for conceptual aircraft design projects. VFAX would develop a future 

fixed-wing (V) dual-role fighter (F) attack (A) aircraft.

54 Coram, Boyd, 191–92. 55 Boyd, Interview #859, 15.

56 Boyd, Interview #859, 15–16.

57 Boyd official military records.

58 Boyd, Interview #859,16–22; and Coram, Boyd, 221–31. 59 Boyd official military records.
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“baby” born. Despite all of his work, Boyd’s Air Force superiors 

at the Pentagon had insisted on last-minute design alterations that 

ruined the F-15’s E-M-derived performance purity.60 Supervising 

a project in which he did not wholeheartedly believe was not useful in his mind; but again, when Boyd was not given the opportunity to be useful, he manufactured one himself. In this case, Boyd 

busied himself with two side projects. In the first, he became the 

E-M sounding board for his associate, defense analyst Pierre Sprey, 

who worked on the contentious A-X project for the Air Force at 

the Pentagon. A-X—the Air Force’s effort to design a dedicated 

close air support (CAS) airframe—was a schizophrenic project. 

Air Force leaders were not enthusiastic about the CAS mission, as 

it took resources away from their real missions of air superiority 

and nuclear weapons delivery; but they did not want the Army to 

60 Coram, Boyd, 225–31.

Two Air Force F-15 Eagles. Developed under the Air Force’s F-X program, the F-15 was 

redesigned by Boyd using his energy-maneuverability equation to reduce the aircraft’s weight and 

increase its air-to-air combat performance. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
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take over that mission, because that would also cost the Air Force 

money, not to mention the humiliation of losing a core mission 

to a different Service branch.61 Boyd helped Sprey validate the 

maneuverability calculations for the aircraft that became the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. Boyd’s immediate impact on 

the A-X project proved less important than what he took away 

from it: namely, an interest in German tactics during World War 

II that arose from his interviews with former Luftwaffe pilots in the 

course of developing the A-X. This interest would pay dividends 

in Boyd’s work on conflict theory, which is discussed later.

Boyd’s second side project was far more ambitious. He still 

dreamed of building a fast, maneuverable, deadly fighter plane 

with its performance derived from the purity of the E-M equation 

and not the bureaucratic fiefdoms of the Pentagon. With the help 

of a compatriot still at the Air Force research and development 

office, Boyd was able to sprinkle less than $150,000 in grants to 

Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics to design a lightweight fighter.62 From this modest start, the two companies developed prototypes—the YF-17 Cobra and YF-16 Fighting Falcon, 

respectively—that Boyd steadily and secretly shepherded in his 

quest to create a mathematically pure fighter aircraft, which ultimately entered production as the F-16.63 As with his association 

with the A-X program, Boyd got something else from his lightweight fighter work besides an airframe. The fly-off between the 

YF-16 and YF-17 introduced him to the concept of mismatches in combat due to fast transient maneuvers, which involved rapid changes in energy states. This will be discussed in more detail 

later, but the key revelation from the fly-off was that it was more 

advantageous for an aircraft to have the ability to quickly convert 

potential into kinetic energy and vice versa, rather than simply 

achieve high raw-energy state benchmarks; for example, the ability to rapidly accelerate or decelerate was more useful than raw 

airspeed numbers. This concept also influenced Boyd’s future con61 Coram, Boyd, 233–34; and Boyd, Interview #859, 25–29. 62 Coram, Boyd, 239–46. 63 Coram, Boyd, 243–65.
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flict theories. By 1971, after years of frenetic work, Boyd was a full 

colonel, and he showed no signs of reining in either his desire for 

independence or drive to produce.64

GOING TO VIETNAM

In April 1972, Boyd finally got his chance to go back to war, 

though not in the seat of a fighter plane as he had once hoped. 

He would deploy to a Southeast Asia combat theater in flux from 

President Richard Nixon’s twin goals of “peace with honor” and 

Vietnamization—that is, American disengagement from the Vietnam War under terms that would not appear as if the years of 

American commitment and sacrifice had been for nothing. To 

achieve these goals, the Nixon administration combined gradu64 Boyd official military records.

Side view of the YF-16 and YF-17 during development, ca. December 1972. Boyd shepherded 

the design and development of these prototypes in his pursuit of a lightweight fighter generated 

from the mathematical purity of his E-M Theory. The flight tests of these two aircraft gave 

Boyd his first insight into fast transients, or rapid changes in the energy state of a maneuvering 

fighter. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
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al reductions of American troop levels with targeted escalations, 

such as heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets, mining the 

harbor of the North’s capital, and greater efforts to interdict the 

Communist supply lines that ran through neighboring countries.65

It was to the latter program that Boyd contributed. He was assigned as vice commander for Task Force Alpha, based out of 

Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.66 Task 

Force Alpha monitored an elaborate sensor system set up to track 

Communist activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it passed 

through Laos, though the data derived from the sensors was not always useful or actionable. Ever the utilitarian, Boyd helped change 

that, implementing, among other things, a grid system for sensor 

emplacement that allowed American pilots to rapidly return fire 

on Communist artillery positions.67

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a logistics supply line used by 

the North Vietnamese, first to supply Viet Cong insurgents and 

then its own conventional forces, for operations in South Vietnam. It ran through neighboring Laos and Cambodia, dumping 

personnel and equipment into South Vietnam at various points. 

Initially a footpath through the jungle, by the end of the war the 

trail was a paved two-lane highway capable of supporting trucks 

and other large vehicles. The existence of this supply line was a 

chronic problem facing American forces for the entirety of their 

presence in Vietnam, and despite regular bombing raids and eventually ground incursions directed against it, one that was never 

fully solved.

Boyd’s Task Force Alpha was the name of the command 

that oversaw a series of technologically advanced surveillance 

programs first embraced by Secretary of Defense Robert S. Mc65 Michael Lind, Vietnam: The Necessary War (New York: Touchstone, 1999), 21–23; 

George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950 –

1975, 5th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2014), 277–331; Phillip B. 

Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975 (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1988), 587–732; and John Guilmartin, America in Vietnam: The Fifteen Year 

War (New York: Military Press, 1991), 154–87. 66 Boyd official military records.

67 Coram, Boyd, 269. 
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25

Namara in 1966. These programs were intended as a substitute 

for what McNamara saw as repeated failures to interdict, by conventional military means such as bombing, Communist infiltration into South Vietnam. The idea was to create a barrier that 

combined conventional implements such as fences and mines with 

advanced sensors, surveillance aircraft, and computers, to identify 

infiltrations taking place in real time and counter them with aviation and artillery fires. The program’s legacy was mixed. On the 

one hand, verifiable damage was certainly inflicted on Northern 

Vietnamese forces coming down the trail; the technology showed 

promise; and Marines specifically cited the value of the sensors in 

helping interdict Communist forces moving against them during 

the siege at Khe Sanh in 1968. On the other hand, even at their 

best, the sensors could only identify a zone or area to strike, as 

opposed to a specific target; the lack of direct manned surveillance 

on the Ho Chi Minh Trail made it impossible to accurately verify 

the quality of strikes directed by information from remote sensors; 

and the North Vietnamese were well aware that the trail was unExamples of the sensors deployed by Task Force Alpha to detect and interdict North Vietnamese 

activity along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

Official U.S. Air Force photo
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der surveillance and frequently developed countermeasures to the 

electronic sensors. 

Boyd’s arrival at Nakhon Phanom in 1972 coincided with the 

North’s launch of the Easter Offensive, a direct conventional military invasion of South Vietnam. Interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh 

Trail became more difficult as American aviation was directed 

north to counter the Communist invasion. Communist traffic on 

the trail also fell during 1972, as the Easter Offensive was their 

focus of effort. The histories of Task Force Alpha indicate that the 

program had petered out by the end of 1972, and given the timeline, Boyd may well have helped close the program out entirely.68

CHALLENGES OF COMMAND

In October, Boyd received command of the base itself; and it was 

in this billet, interestingly, that he had a rare instance of self-doubt. 

At the time, Nakhon Phanom experienced many of the problems 

common to American units in Southeast Asia in the twilight of 

the Vietnam War: drug abuse, racial tensions, problematic sexual 

liaisons with the locals, and rampant indiscipline.69 Boyd could not 

solve these problems with an equation, and previous commanders 

had a track record of failure. Boyd recalled that this was 

68 Herring, America’s Longest War, 83, 341. Boyd’s assignment to Task Force Alpha 

is covered briefly in Coram, Boyd, 268–69. For details on the origin and execution 

of Task Force Alpha’s mission, see Maj Philip D. Caine, Project CHECO Southeast 

Asia Report: IGLOO WHITE, July 1968–December 1969 (APO San Francisco: Department of the Air Force, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, 1970); Bernard C. 

Nalty, Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force 

History, 1986); John T. Correll, “Igloo White,” Air Force Magazine 87, no. 11 (November 2004): 56–61; and Nalty, The War against Trucks: Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968–1972 (Washington, DC: Air Force History Office and Museums 

Program, 2005). Boyd briefly mentioned Igloo White, the code name for the 

equipment used by Task Force Alpha, in the audio for “Patterns of Conflict”; see 

Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 1, 38.

69 Coram, Boyd, 268–74. The widespread degradation of good order and conduct among American forces deployed to Vietnam at the end of the war is well 

documented. See Guilmartin, America in Vietnam, 169–73; Herring, America’s Longest War, 309; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 615–19, 631, 661–63; and Otto J. Lehrack, No Shining Armor: The Marines at War in Vietnam (Lawrence: University Press 

of Kansas, 1992), 324–29.
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the first time in my life when I did not have total confidence. . . . I got up every morning and gave myself a pep 

talk in front of the mirror for about 15 minutes or a half 

hour. . . . The base had gone through seven base commanders in something like 2 years, or 18 months. None of 

them went home with honors. They either were fired or 

they went home half nuts or disgraced.70

Boyd’s pessimism was understandable; aside from the grim circumstances themselves, he must have been aware that his career 

to this point was largely defined by solving scientific problems. No 

amount of number crunching would solve people. Yet his time at 

70 Boyd Air Force oral history, 242–43.

Aerial view of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, ca. January 1970. Two camouflaged North 

Vietnamese trucks are clearly visible and appear to be in good condition despite the bomb craters 

around them. This showed the limits of the sensor system used by Task Force Alpha, which 

could only identify a general area to strike. The lack of direct manned surveillance on the trail 

made it impossible to accurately verify the results of strikes directed by remote sensors against 

precision targets.

Naval History and Heritage Command
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FWS and AFIT also showed he had an underappreciated ability to motivate men. That was in the schoolhouse; now came his 

chance to prove he could do so in the stress of war.

Neither fired nor sent home in disgrace, Boyd served his full 

yearlong tour, earning performance reviews that commended 

him for reversing the destructive trends that had stymied previous 

commanders.71 He also continued to show his disdain for unthinking, textbook solutions to unique problems, as he related in a more 

extreme example during his tour. Not long after taking command 

of the base, he had to organize a search-and-rescue mission for 

the crews of two downed aircraft. When one of his subordinates 

said “here’s your check list” for the operation, Boyd did not respond well: “I goddamn near fell over. I said, ‘What do you mean, 

checklist?’ I took that goddamn thing and threw it, it went out the 

window.” When Boyd asked for a map, that same officer “brought 

the checklist back in, and I threw it out the goddamn window. 

. . . I said, ‘if I read this, those guys will die of starvation out there 

before we get to them’.”72 Boyd’s disdain for checklists was not universal—he certainly used them as a pilot—but to him they were 

simply a tool for optimizing interactions with machines. When it 

came to the larger problems of war, which extended far beyond 

the mechanical realm, Boyd again sought to apply new mental 

frameworks tailored to the issue at hand. In other words, he wanted himself and his staff to truly think about the problem. Boyd did 

not want to be bound by a templated solution, developed in a context and circumstances that might have been very different from 

the current problem. Checklists were just such a template, and 

they negated thinking. Boyd’s team recovered the downed crews 

without the aid of checklists.

BACK TO THE BELTWAY

The command tour at Nakhon Phanom proved the high-water 

mark of Boyd’s Air Force career. He returned to the Pentagon in 

May 1973, as director of Operational Requirements and Develop71 Coram, Boyd, 276. 72 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 1, 38–39.
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ment Plans, a long-range planning department whose unsystematic approach to planning made most of its products meaningless.73

As Boyd did not find the official work for this billet valuable, he 

turned his attention to work that was. During his last two years of 

active service, Boyd continued to guide development of the lightweight fighter he held dear, which ultimately entered service as the 

F-16; compelled the Air Force to acknowledge gross cost overrun 

projections for the Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber program; and, 

putting his E-M calculations to work one last time, proved that the 

feared Soviet Backfire bomber was nothing more than a paper tiger.74 But as had been the case since at least his time at Eglin, Boyd’s 

productivity often occurred in the shadows, in the face of constant 

conflict with both individual and institutional resistance to change. 

To him, the Air Force and Department of Defense seemed uninterested in opening their collective minds and learning new things. 

By 1975, Boyd had evidently tired of being one of the few men 

who wanted “to do” in a bureaucracy run by those who preferred 

“to be.” In August, he finally retired from active duty as a colonel.75

During his first year of retirement, Boyd turned his energy 

from solving specific engineering problems to the wider realm of 

fighting and winning wars. He could have rested on his laurels as 

an accomplished fighter jockey and aircraft designer, but the desire 

to be useful burned undimmed. He was determined “to prove that 

I could do something other than just [be] a fighter pilot.”76 Boyd 

filled that year with an intense amount of reading and research. 

Since he had first published the Aerial Attack Study, many ideas had 

slowly accumulated and swirled around in his head: the underlying purpose behind fighter maneuver mechanics; the rejection of 

checklist-based rigidity in favor of assessing and deciding based 

on circumstance; new conceptual frameworks for thinking; mismatches generated by fast transients; and the intermix of competition and survival.77 Boyd had explored all these and more in 

73 Coram, Boyd, 280; and Boyd official military records. 74 Coram, Boyd, 283–87, 294–97, 302–11. 75 Coram, Boyd, 311–12. 76 Boyd Air Force oral history, 84.

77 Boyd Air Force oral history, 245.
CHAPTER ONE

30

the pragmatic world of dogfighting and engineering, and he now 

believed that something bigger lurked in the shadows of his mind. 

It was time to tie it all together. He shifted his focus from building 

better planes for winning in the air, to building a better mental 

framework for winning at the grander levels of conflict. Boyd read 

voraciously on physics, philosophy, and history to find material for 

his framework.78

As stated earlier, Boyd often set up adversarial relationships 

to sharpen his own thoughts. As frustrating as he found it when 

his opponents refused to open their minds, he found it very productive when he engaged in that freedom of thought himself. He 

believed that his success in creating the E-M Theory and in using 

it to design superior aircraft—as well as the dangers inherent in a 

Pentagon bureaucracy that refused to embrace new ideas—lay in 

the willingness or unwillingness to construct new “mental worlds,” 

as he called them:

Let’s say we have an existing situation and we have some 

problems and there are some people who may not perceive of the idea that maybe it is their world that is causing 

the problems and they are not too inclined to give up that 

world. They just keep trying to make their world better 

and better, but really it never does improve—it just does 

not work anymore. But these people become so attached 

to their own worlds, that they cannot change. . . . I could 

always accept a changing situation and I still can; I love it. 

I can come up with energy maneuverability and destroy 

my own mental world. . . . They say, “How did you do 

that?” I said, “That world was just not good enough, so 

I decided to create a new one. There was nothing wrong 

with what I had at that time but I found out there were 

some other worlds that were more important.”79

Boyd spent a year building a new mental world for himself, 

and he used his adversarial sharpening technique to get there; in 

78 Coram, Boyd, 319; and Hammond, The Mind of War, 118. 79 Boyd Air Force oral history, 82–83.
TENDING TO PRODUCE

31

this case, the circle of friends he had accumulated from his time 

at the Pentagon became the whetstone for his mind. Boyd called 

them at random times, day or night, and talked for hours about 

whatever idea happened to be rattling around his brain at the moment. These calls were not confrontational; indeed, Boyd’s friends 

rarely got a word in.80 Rather, they were like a Socratic dialogue 

Boyd had with himself. He needed to set himself up against someone to get better, and so his friends became proxies for the conflict 

raging in his mind. 

FINDING LIKE MINDS

In 1976, Boyd finally laid out his year’s labor in a short essay that he 

called “Destruction and Creation.” Up to this point, Boyd’s career 

had been defined by challenging his own perceptions and conventional institutional wisdom; adapting his own mental framework to 

the implications of new information; and being more productive 

than and outperforming those who either refused to modify their 

own entrenched beliefs or simply could not update their personal 

mental frameworks as quickly as Boyd. The proof of this lay in 

the many groundbreaking outputs Boyd had produced—the Aerial 

Attack Study, the E-M Theory, the high-performance F-15 and F-16 

aircraft—from individual effort and self-study, as compared with 

the dull and lethargic institutional systems actually tasked to develop these things. In “Destruction and Creation,” Boyd fleshed out 

these ideas on perception and adaptability; in essence, the how and 

why of deconstructing and building mental worlds. In describing 

the mechanics of how he, an individual, had lived this process and 

became more productive—or won, in other words—against the 

far larger and resource-rich defense establishment, Boyd was un80 Coram, Boyd, 319–20; Burton, Pentagon Wars, 44; and Spinney, “Genghis John,”

43. These calls became a habit Boyd used for the rest of his life. Almost two 

decades later, when Capt John Schmitt worked with Boyd on Marine Corps doctrine, he too was treated to calls at random times that lasted hours: “When Boyd 

starts talking, just clear the desk and put your feet up and stick the phone to 

your ear, because you’ll be there for a while.” See Maj John F. Schmitt, video of 

seminar lecture and discussion on Warfighting, FMFM-1, Expeditionary Warfare 

School, Marine Corps University, ca. 1996, catalog # 03/757, Archives Branch, 

Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.
CHAPTER ONE

32

intentionally shaping the answer to another institution’s question 

on how to win a similar victory on the battlefield. 

That institution was the United States Marine Corps. In the 

years following the final withdrawal of American troops from 

Vietnam, the Corps struggled with the same issues of adaptability, survival, and understanding the new world it lived in. The 

post-Vietnam threat landscape differed from jungle guerrilla warfare. The Corps needed a mental framework to understand the 

differences, adapt itself to the new world, and above all, survive 

and win against a range of new adversaries. These issues raised 

hard questions that the Corps was forced to answer. The story now 

turns to how the Marines grappled with the questions to which 

Boyd, unbeknownst to them, had begun to construct an answer.
33

CHAPTER TWO

Done with the Jungle

The Marine Corps’ Near Future after Vietnam

Following the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, the 

Marine Corps found itself in familiar territory: defending and justifying its utility, even its very existence, in a world changed by 

war both hot and cold. In this regard, the Corps had developed 

a remarkable degree of institutional adaptability since the end of 

World War I. This trait was so strong that the term adaptability does 

not do it justice, as it implies reaction rather than premeditation. 

In the twentieth century, the Marine Corps developed an institutional drive that looked forward, morphing the organization into 

what would prove most useful in the next conflict. Though not 

immediately aware of it after Vietnam, it was this drive that made 

so many Marines receptive to the ideas of the kindred spirit they 

found in Boyd. Like Boyd, they had long felt an inherent need to 

justify the organization’s utility and provide a concrete capability 

now and when called upon in the immediate future. And after 

Vietnam, the Marine Corps had a great need for fellow travelers 

to prove its worth against the looming Soviet threat. The post–

Vietnam War years forced the Corps to address two key questions: 

What was it to do, and how was it to do it? The Corps had often drawn proactively on its own internal resources when change 

came over the horizon; but in this case, as had also occurred in 
CHAPTER TWO

34

the past, external pressures forced the issue. By 1976, outsiders 

seriously questioned the Marine Corps’ utility. The Corps, already 

engaged in its own institutional evolution, was compelled to accelerate the process.

INTERNAL ADAPTABILITY

In navigating post–Vietnam War challenges, the Marine Corps 

could draw on a long history of readying itself to be useful for 

future conflicts. Major General John A. Lejeune first made this apparent as Commandant in the crucial years following World War I. 

Though his wartime service had been in France commanding the 

Army’s 2d Division, he recognized that geopolitical changes in the 

Pacific would shift the Marine Corps’ focus away from strictly land 

operations back to its naval functions. The likelihood of extensive 

maritime actions in a future war meant the Corps needed to be 

ready, so Lejeune initiated a reorganization to make it able “to accompany the Fleet for operations ashore in support of the Fleet.”1

Lejeune’s foresight, shared by subsequent commandants, ensured 

that the United States had a combat organization fully prepared 

for the intricacies of amphibious combat when war finally arrived 

in 1941.2

 The end of World War II coincided with the dawn of 

the atomic age, and it took very little time for the Corps’ leaders 

to realize that “a small number of atomic bombs could destroy an 

expeditionary force as now organized, embarked and landed.”3

 In 

short order, Marines were experimenting with new doctrine and 

equipment to keep a landing force dispersed from the effects of 

nuclear weapons during embarkation and transit, while still providing the mobility to rapidly concentrate on an objective. This 

included novel use of the newly developed helicopter.4

In 1950, North Korea invaded its southern neighbor, turning the still-young Cold War hot and proving the American fear 

1

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 325. 2

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 319–43. 3

 LtCol Kenneth J. Clifford, Progress and Purpose: A Developmental History of the United 

States Marine Corps, 1900–1970 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1973), 71.

4

 Clifford, Progress and Purpose, 71–78.
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

35

that the Soviet Union sought to spread its influence via armed 

aggression and the use of proxies.5

 The Marine Corps showed its 

worth by rapidly organizing, equipping, and deploying a brigade 

of 6,600 men in less than two weeks to bolster the fragile allied line 

around the Pusan Perimeter.6

 The Korean War drove American 

politicians and national security experts to the conclusion that future Communist aggression was likely and that the United States 

needed some type of force ready to respond immediately while the 

other Services mobilized. In 1952, the Marine Corps was identified as the force best capable of fulfilling this crucial national 

security task and officially assigned “the mission of readiness for 

aggression against the United States,” trained to “suppress or contain international disturbances short of war.”7

The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, hastily thrown together 

for the defense of the Pusan Perimeter, demonstrated the value 

of the air-ground team, and so the Marine Corps codified the 

concept for future use. In 1955, Landing Force Bulletin (LFB) 17,

Concept of Future Amphibious Operations, first laid out the concept of 

an integrated air-ground amphibious assault team, composed of 

“Marine landing forces of ground and supporting air components 

. . . for the projection of seapower deep ashore at any point on the 

world littoral.”8

 In 1962, Commandant General David M. Shoup 

signed two orders that gave this combined force the enduring title 

of Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). Marine Corps Order 

(MCO) 3340.3, Employment of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces in Future 

Amphibious Operations, which superseded LFB-17, affirmed that “the 

most probable employment of Marine Corps combatant forces 

will be in the execution of force-in-readiness missions in limited 

wars utilizing modern high explosive weapons of improved lethality.” Marine Corps leaders understood the changing character of 

twentieth-century war, and while amphibious operations were still 

necessary, they might not resemble their pre-nuclear predecessors. 

5

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 476. 6

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 479–80; and Clifford, Progress and Purpose, 82. 7

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 498, 500, 507. 8 LFB 17, Concept of Future Amphibious Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 13 December 1955).
CHAPTER TWO

36

The order identified the MAGTF as the “landing forces in amphibious operations.”9

9 MCO 3340.3, Employment of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces in Future Amphibious Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 20 April 1962).

Marines from the hastily assembled 1st Provisional Marine Brigade embarking on the USS 

Pickaway (APA 222) in San Diego, CA, ca. July 1950. This brigade, thrown together to help 

defend the tenuous Pusan Perimeter in Korea, demonstrated the value of the Marine air-ground 

team, which would be codified after the Korean War into the construct known thereafter as the 

Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). 

Naval History and Heritage Command
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

37

MCO 3120.3, The Organization of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces, 

then laid out the formal organizational construct of the MAGTF 

and its tailorable levels, ranging from a battalion-based Marine 

Expeditionary Unit (MEU), to division-based Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), or even a multidivision expeditionary corps. 

The nomenclature of these units, though not their scale, changed 

Marine Corps Vought F4U-4B Corsair fighters are loaded aboard the USS Badoeng Strait 

(CVE 116) in San Diego to support the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade. 

Naval History and Heritage Command
CHAPTER TWO

38

several times during the next few decades. The MAGTF was established with the label expeditionary, to emphasize its ready, forwarddeployed nature. For various reasons, however, this title would be 

changed between the formal establishment of the MAGTF structure in MCO 3120.3, and it also changed in the later reforms of 

the 1980s, so for clarity’s sake these changes are covered here. In 

1965, the senior American leadership in Vietnam—Ambassador 

Maxwell Taylor and General William Westmoreland—insisted 

that the Marine unit recently deployed in Da Nang change its title 

to amphibious as opposed to expeditionary, as in their minds the latter 

had uncomfortable echoes of the French expeditionary forces that 

had attempted to reassert colonial control in Southeast Asia after 

World War II. Thus, the senior Marine command in Vietnam became the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF), and smaller 

units were relabeled the Marine Amphibious Brigade (MAB) and 

Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU), respectively. In 1988, General 

Alfred M. Gray Jr. changed the name back to expeditionary to again 

reemphasize the Corps as a force in readiness capable of missions 

beyond the purely amphibious.10

Should the Soviet Union again directly or indirectly threaten 

to spread Communist influence across international borders with 

armed might, the MAGTF gave the United States a responsive 

force, tailorable to the occasion, to convince the Russians to act 

otherwise. In fact, in 1962, the same year General Shoup signed 

his directives, the Marine Corps came the closest it ever would 

to directly facing Soviet forces on a potentially nuclear battlefield 

when the II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) was mobilized 

in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, in accordance with Defense Department plans for aerial strikes and 

an amphibious invasion of Cuba, Marine units from across the 

United States were assigned under the II MEF headquarters. Air 

and ground units, including almost an entire Marine infantry division and air wing, were rapidly moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; 

10 MCO 3120.3, The Organization of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces (Washington, 

DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 27 December 1962); and Millett, Semper Fidelis, 565, 663.
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

39

Puerto Rico; and Key West, Florida, or embarked on amphibious shipping and aircraft carriers. Had it been executed, the invasion of Cuba—with a quarter of a million American servicemen 

landed or parachuted onto the island—would have been a larger 

amphibious operation than the Normandy landings on D-Day in 

1944.11

While blessed with a number of visionary senior leaders, the 

Corps enjoyed another asset that would help define the parameters of the post–Vietnam War debate. This was its professional 

journal, the Marine Corps Gazette. This book’s introduction has already noted the singular importance of the Gazette to the post–

Vietnam debate, in general, and the maneuver warfare debate, in 

particular. Within its pages, all ranks could present ideas and debate their merits. The Gazette articles from 1976 onward are a useful yardstick for tracing post-Vietnam reform and the maneuver 

warfare debate, and they will be regularly referenced throughout 

the following chapters. Moreover, these articles add evidence to 

11 Joseph H. Alexander and Merrill L. Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare, 1945–1991 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 38–39; and Maj 

John M. Young, When the Russians Blinked: The U.S. Maritime Response to the Cuban 

Missile Crisis (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1990), 3–4, 62, 71–72, 80, 85, 115–77, 197–98. 

Graphical depiction of one variant of the MAGTF, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade 

(MEB). Despite superficial name changes over the years, the building blocks of the MAGTF 

have remained unchanged since 1962, when Gen David M. Shoup first laid them out in MCO 

3120.3. Each MAGTF has a command element, a ground combat element, an aviation combat 

element, and a logistical support element. The MAGTF’s size can be scaled up or down and 

additional elements attached as needed depending on the contingency. 

U.S. Marine Corps Concepts and Programs
CHAPTER TWO

40

the bottom-up model of innovation, as the Gazette was an unrestricted forum for discourse, and many of the writers were junior 

or middle-rank Marines writing on their own volition.

Going back to the time of General Lejeune, Marines as individuals and as an institution had shown a desire beyond protecting 

their little fiefdom within America’s defense structure. Marines 

sought to provide a concrete and valuable resource for the nation’s 

protection. They always held the attitude that, as one defense analyst wrote, “the Marine Corps’ future lies in being useful.”12 Utility 

and self-preservation had a symbiotic relationship, and the Corps 

practiced this organically as it examined itself and its place in the 

world after each war in the twentieth century. Now, in the post–

Vietnam War period, John Boyd was developing ideas that built 

on this relationship and how it could be turned outward to defeat 

an adversary. The Marine Corps needed such ideas as it faced a 

daunting postwar landscape.

12 Murray, “The Marine Corps’ Future Lies in Being Useful,” 24–29.

OPLAN 316

When the Cold War Almost Went Hot

It is difficult for those generations born after the Cuban Missile Crisis to appreciate 

how seriously President John F. Kennedy, his staff, and the U.S. military took the 

threat of nuclear missiles staged so closely to their shores. But the vast air, ground, 

and naval forces assembled are a testament to just how grave a menace American 

leaders viewed the situation. At the crisis’s height, the Pentagon was ready to execute Operation Plan (OPLAN) 316, featuring massive air strikes against Cuban 

targets followed by airborne and amphibious invasion. The U.S. deployed five aircraft carrier groups with their attendant cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and submarines (in addition to the already considerable naval quarantine force); mobilized 

more than 25,000 Marines under the umbrella of the II MEF; and readied two 

Army airborne divisions, one infantry division, and an armored division to either 

parachute onto Cuba or follow in the wake of the amphibious assault force. That 

the president was prepared to commit such a force, particularly on a nuclear battlefield with the consequent probability of high casualties, showed how intolerable 

was the thought of Soviet missiles in America’s backyard. 
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

41

EXTERNAL PRESSURES

Impressive as this decades-long drive to adapt to the exigency of 

the moment was, it must be acknowledged that it had an element 

of self-protection. For almost as long as the Marine Corps had 

looked ahead, readying itself for wars to come, it had been dogged 

by attempts to disband it entirely because, as some claimed, it offered no unique value. Indeed, the Corps’ reward for driving the 

Japanese from their Pacific strongholds in World War II was an 

immediate postwar effort to legislate it into extinction.13 As political scientist Terry Terriff observed, this and similar initiatives 

gave Marines an “organizational paranoia,” which caused them 

“to perceive any and all challenges, real or imagined, significant or 

insignificant, as putative threats to the very survival of the Corps 

as a service and to react accordingly in a forceful manner.”14

Part of this landscape was the tremendous strain and turmoil 

placed upon the Corps by the Vietnam War. In its early stages, the 

war had seemed like yet another opportunity for Marines to prove 

their worth. Beginning with a very modest advisory role in 1954, 

increasing numbers of Marines were deployed to South Vietnam 

to help stabilize its government against both conventional and 

insurgent attack from Communist North Vietnam. Marine forces became quite adept at the latter, organizing under their own 

cognizance the Combined Action Program (CAP), which paired 

Marine rifle squads with local village defense forces to prevent insurgent infiltration. It was a testament to the CAP’s efficacy that 

no village, once initially stabilized, ever reverted to Communist 

control. The senior Army commanders in charge of America’s 

overall effort in Vietnam saw the pacification effort as a sideshow 

to the large-unit search and destroy missions. Such missions sought 

to annihilate Communist forces in conventional battles, despite the 

mounting evidence that the Communists would not quit no matter 

how many casualties were inflicted on them. 

13 Krulak, First to Fight, 17–66. Part 1, “The Thinkers,” details the Corps’ postwar 

trials as the defense establishment underwent significant restructuring.

14 Terry Terriff, “ ‘Innovate or Die’: Organizational Culture and the Origins of 

Maneuver Warfare in the United States Marine Corps,” Journal of Strategic Studies 

29, no. 3 (June 2006): 484, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390600765892.
CHAPTER TWO

42

To support all of these missions, the Marine Corps had to 

rapidly grow in size. This growth caused a decline in the quality 

of personnel due to the influx of large numbers of draftees and 

required shifting resources from long-term equipment modernization efforts to short-term combat support. Following President 

Nixon’s Vietnamization policy in 1969, the strain took a serious 

toll. Despite the success of CAP and proud feats of arms such 

as the actions at Khe Sanh and Hue City, the Marine Corps in 

Vietnam became infected with the same problems Boyd later encountered in Thailand. As the end of America’s commitment to 

Vietnam came closer, Marine units suffered indiscipline, drug use, 

racial tension, poor morale, and questions about why Marines 

should continue to die for a mission to which their country was no 

longer dedicated.15

As with its sister Services, by 1975, the Marine Corps’ experience in Southeast Asia had left a bitter taste in its mouth. Its 

final missions there—Operations Eagle Pull and Frequent Wind, 

the evacuations of civilians from Cambodia and South Vietnam, 

respectively—were relatively bloodless, if sometimes tense, affairs. 

15 For a detailed history of the Marine Corps experience in Vietnam, see Millett, 

Semper Fidelis, 559–606; Capt Robert H. Whitlow, USMCR, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory & Combat Assistance Era, 1954–1964 (Washington, DC: History 

and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1977); Jack Shulimson 

and Maj Charles M. Johnson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup, 

1965 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1978); Jack Shulimson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: An Expanding War, 1966 

(Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 

1982); Maj Gary L. Telfer, Lt Col Lane Rogers, and V. Keith Fleming Jr., U.S. 

Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (Washington, DC: History 

and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1984); Jack Shulimson et 

al., U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968 (Washington, DC: History and 

Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1997); Charles R. Smith, U.S. 

Marines in Vietnam: High Mobility and Standdown, 1969 (Washington, DC: History 

and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1988); Graham A. Cosmas 

and LtCol Terrence P. Murray, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Vietnamization and Redeployment, 1970 –1971 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1986); Maj Charles D. Melson and Lt Col Curtis G. Arnold, 

U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The War that Would Not End, 1971–1973 (Washington, DC: 

History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1991); Lehrack, 

No Shining Armor; and Bing West, The Village (New York: Pocket Books, 2003).
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

43

Yet Cambodian Communists on Koh Tang Island gave the Marine assault force one last bloody nose as it departed the region 

for good. In all, as longtime Corps historian and former Marine 

colonel Allan Millett noted, few “regretted that this particular 

war was finally over.”16 Then-Commandant General Robert E. 

Cushman Jr. (1972–75) made this point clear while overseeing the 

withdrawal of Marine forces from Southeast Asia: “We are pulling 

our heads out of the jungle and getting back into the amphibious 

business. . . . We are redirecting our attention seaward and reemphasizing our partnership with the Navy and our shared concern in the maritime aspects of our strategy.”17 This echoed the 

previous Commandant, General Leonard F. Chapman Jr. (1968–

72), who stated that “we got defeated and thrown out, the best 

thing we can do is forget about it.”18 In time, the Corps’ involvement in Vietnam would be reexamined to glean lessons learned. 

For the moment, the central issue was not dwelling on what the 

Corps had done but what it would do in the near future.19

TYRANNIES OF TIME, 

DISTANCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

From 1971 to 1976, several disconcerting trends illustrated the 

16 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 606. This general attitude also pervades the pages of 

the official history chronicling the Corps’ last years in Vietnam; see Maj George 

R. Dunham and Col David A. Quinlan, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Bitter End, 

1973–1975 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1990).

17 Col John Grider Miller, “Robert Everton Cushman Jr.” in Commandants of the 

Marine Corps, ed. Allan R. Millett and Jack Shulimson (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

Press, 2004), 420.

18 Terriff, “ ‘Innovate or Die’,” 485. 

19 This attitude was by no means universal; Marines outside the circle of senior 

leadership, such as Col Michael Wyly and Gen Gray, came out of the war determined to find a better way of fighting for the future, and they would later argue 

that the few successes they saw came from practicing maneuver warfare. Wyly 

stated this explicitly: “Our quest for a better way began in combat in Vietnam, as 

did our experiments with fluid tactics and high initiative at the lowest levels. The 

need for change was clearly visible at junior levels.” Col Michael D. Wyly (Ret), 

“Doctrinal Change: The Move to Maneuver Theory,” Marine Corps Gazette 77, no. 

10 (October 1993): 44. This is discussed in greater detail in chapter 6.
CHAPTER TWO

44

shape of that near future. America’s armed forces were wrapping 

up years of fighting an unconventional and generally low-tech 

conflict in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the global threat 

environment appeared to be increasingly conventional, heavily 

armored and mechanized, fast paced, and generally high tech.20

While American soldiers had spent much of the Vietnam War 

chasing light-armed Communist riflemen through jungle and rice 

paddy, other nations were adding tanks, armored vehicles, and 

precision munitions—often of Soviet design—to their inventories. 

20 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 65.

Marine infantry boarding a Marine Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter during operations 

in Vietnam, ca. 1967. Despite the admonitions of post–Vietnam War Commandants who 

insisted that the Corps was “pulling [its head] out of the jungle,” the Vietnam War was a 

formative experience for many key members of the later maneuver warfare movement. Men like 

Gen Alfred Gray and Col Michael D. Wyly successfully practiced protomaneuver tenets in those 

jungles, and they would go on to seek a broader theoretical framework that could apply those 

limited successes across all the types of conflict the Corps might face. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

45

Furthermore, the Soviet Union also reemerged as the preeminent 

potential adversary. The low-tech adversaries of the past decade, 

while certainly proxies for Soviet activity, remained just that—

proxies. Following Vietnam came renewed American fears of a 

direct confrontation with Soviet forces, with increased capabilities 

of the Soviet military standing in stark contrast to reduced American defense expenditures and modernization delays.21 The effect 

of these fears on the American defense establishment, to include 

the Marine Corps, cannot be understated.

The Yom Kippur War of October 1973 between Israel and 

a coalition of Arab states characterized this near future threat. 

Featuring a conventional fight between armored forces, the war’s 

brevity was exceeded only by its violence. After three weeks, Israel 

and its Arab opponents had collectively lost 1,500 tanks and 500 

aircraft.22 The speed and savagery of the Yom Kippur War highlighted several issues with which the American military as a whole, 

including the Marine Corps, needed to grapple as it emerged from 

Vietnam. The American defense and intelligence communities 

both viewed the Yom Kippur War as a trial run for a potential 

conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

and Warsaw Pact blocs in Europe. Accordingly, they conducted 

extensive postwar analyses that were greatly helped by the Israeli 

government granting American representatives access to the battlefields immediately after hostilities were concluded. The Central 

Intelligence Agency’s report was recently declassified with min21 Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 318–27; Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in 

the Cold War, 87–104; and John M. Collins, American and Soviet Military Trends since 

the Cuban Missile Crisis (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, 1978), xi–2.

22 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 65.
CHAPTER TWO

46

imal redactions.23 Of primary concern were the capabilities of 

Soviet weapons systems and organizations, employed by both the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its client states.

The United States Army took the lead in assessing the Yom 

Kippur War’s lessons for the American military. As head of the 

23 The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: Overview and Analysis of the Conflict (Langley, VA: Directorate of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1975); David Rodman, 

“Eagle’s-eye View: An American Assessment of the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” 

Intelligence and National Security 31, no. 4 (2016): 490–508, https://doi.org/10

.1080/02684527.2015.1010339; Col Richard M. Swain, comp., Selected Papers of 

General William E. DePuy, ed. Donald L. Gilmore and Carolyn D. Conway (Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College, 1994), 69–111; and Saul Bronfeld, “Fighting Outnumbered: The 

Impact of the Yom Kippur War on the U.S. Army,” Journal of Military History 71, 

no. 2 (April 2007): 465–98, https://doi.org/10.1353/jmh.2007.0096.

A destroyed Israeli M-60 Patton tank from the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In three weeks of war, 

Israel and its Arab opponents lost more than 1,500 tanks. This extraordinary level of destruction in such an abbreviated timeframe highlighted the deadliness of the near future threat that the 

Marine Corps faced following the withdrawal from Vietnam. 

CIA Historical Collection, President Nixon & the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 ArabIsraeli War
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

47

Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, General William E. 

DePuy performed a comprehensive evaluation of the war at the 

behest of General Creighton W. Abrams, who was the last senior 

American commander in Vietnam and was now the Army’s Chief 

of Staff. DePuy’s reports specifically included assessments from 

other U.S. Services, including the Marine Corps, and so between 

the DePuy documents and subsequent Gazette articles, it is clear 

that Marine Corps leaders took the implications of the Yom Kippur War just as seriously as the Army.

Soviet armor weighed heavily on the Marine mind. After 

quoting a Russian marshal who stated unequivocally that “tanks 

are the best means for attaining our objective,” Major R. E. Mattingly, an armor officer by trade, dryly observed that “having been 

thus forewarned of the instrument with which we may be clubbed 

Egyptian missile site captured by Israelis during the Yom Kippur War. Aside from its staggering 

materiel losses, the Yom Kippur War also demonstrated the lethality of modern precision-guided 

munitions. The United States and the Marine Corps faced a post–Vietnam War world where 

such deadly weapons were cheap, mobile, and widely proliferated. 

CIA Historical Collection, President Nixon & the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 ArabIsraeli War
CHAPTER TWO

48

about the head and shoulders it seems only prudent to look at 

the components of Soviet armored and mechanized forces.” On a 

conventional battlefield against either the Warsaw Pact or Russia’s 

many Third World clients, a Marine landing force could expect to 

encounter heavy armor.At the time, the disparity between American and Russian armored/mechanized units was on the order of 

thousands. In the Soviet army, “every front-line soldier reportedly rides,” and each soldier was backed up by large quantities of 

tanks, artillery, and heavy mortars.24

While contemplating how the Soviets might employ armor 

generally in a future conflict, the Marine Corps had to consider 

the specific impact on an amphibious landing. In all likelihood, 

the Marine Corps would be outmanned and outgunned but still 

needed to be able to play a role in larger strategic considerations. 

According to Graham H. Turbiville, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) expert on Soviet and Warsaw Pact operations, the Marine Corps indeed had an important role. In the event of a conflict 

with NATO, the Soviets worried specifically about an amphibious 

landing by American and British Marines in the rear of their maritime axes of advance. To counter such a landing, Russian forces 

would employ not only armor but also specialized motorized rifle 

battalions. In addition to the main guns of their tanks, these rifle 

battalions were equipped with heavy artillery, antiaircraft artillery 

(AAA) and handheld surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and antitank 

guided missiles (ATGMs). Tactical nuclear weapons were also 

within the realm of possibility.25

Finally, an American amphibious force might also confront 

its Soviet counterpart. Soviet naval infantry was armored, extensively trained, and backed by heavy firepower. Soviet naval infantry was a capability that Russia disbanded after World War II, 

24 Maj R. E. Mattingly, “Defeating Soviet Armor: A Perspective,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 59, no. 4 (April 1975): 35–39; and Collins, American and Soviet Military 

Trends, 175, 183–89. 25 Graham H. Turbiville, “Soviet Amphibious Landing Defenses,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 59, no. 9 (September 1975): 20–26. See also Alexander and Bartlett, Sea 

Soldiers in the Cold War, 101, for potential landing areas in the case of a conflict 

between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

49

only to reconstitute in the 1960s following Russia’s inability to 

mount an amphibious response to the U.S. landing in Lebanon 

in 1958. Though never present in the same numbers as the 

Marine Corps, Western observers nevertheless considered Soviet naval infantry an elite force; throughout the 1960s and 1970s, 

Russia built up an impressive array of amphibious and merchant 

shipping around this capability. Though lacking the aviation component of the MAGTF, Soviet marines still had a robust combined 

arms capability, including large numbers of amphibious tanks, 

rocket launchers and heavy mortars for indirect fire, and vehiclemounted antiaircraft and antitank weapons.26 In sum, when arrayed 

against the relatively small and lightly armed Marine Amphibious 

Unit (MAU) or only slightly larger Marine Amphibious Brigade 

(MAB), Soviet-style arms and organizations presented daunting 

challenges.

Aside from Soviet capabilities, the modern development of 

precision-guided munitions (PGMs) proved such a radical force 

multiplier that they could drastically change how a MAGTF operated. The range and lethality of PGMs were a sobering matter. 

As America slogged its way through Vietnamese jungles, the Soviet Union developed and fielded to its clients a wide variety of 

munitions that were both effective and cheap. And while the arid 

Middle Eastern battlefield of the Yom Kippur War demonstrated 

the power of PGMs against land targets, it also forced those in the 

naval game to consider the new threat PGMs posed to amphibious 

forces. An embarked MAGTF appeared increasingly vulnerable 

to land-based antiship missiles, both during an assault and while 

transiting to it. Certainly a MAGTF’s helicopter contingent—with 

its ability to launch part of the assault force from outside the range 

of shore-based missiles—gave Marines an advantage not enjoyed 

in past major amphibious operations, such as the Inchon landing 

26 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 95–98; Graham H. Turbiville, “Warsaw Pact Amphib Ops in Northern Europe,” Marine Corps Gazette 60, no. 

10 (October 1976): 20–27; Capt Edward G. Lewis, A Comprehensive Examination of 

the Soviet Naval Infantry (APO New York: U.S. Army Institute for Advanced Russian and East European Studies, 1977); and Collins, American and Soviet Military 

Trends, 188.
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50

during the Korean War. Yet the Yom Kippur War also showcased 

the susceptibility of slow, low-flying aircraft to handheld SAMs. 

Notably, in Vietnam the United States lost almost 1,800 helicopters in the first five years of the war to small arms and rudimentary 

AAA systems. A helicopter-borne amphibious assault force, flying 

into the teeth of a modern SAM defense, could be savaged to the 

point of uselessness.27

Long-range antiship PGMs created a new time-distance headache for the amphibious commander. To avoid these weapons, the 

U.S. Navy’s ships could linger beyond the range of visual or radar 

detection and launch the amphibious assault force from over the 

horizon. This would have a limited impact on the relatively longrange and fast-moving rotary- and fixed-wing assault elements. 

To the lumbering landing vehicle, tracked (LVT), however, crawling through the water at eight knots, an assault over the horizon 

may as well have been an assault on the surface of the moon. Absent a landing craft capable of matching the speed and range of 

a helicopter-borne force, PGMs, in forcing amphibious shipping 

over the horizon, effectively neutralized much of the MAGTF’s 

striking power.28

All of this highlighted potential weaknesses in the amphibious mission to which the Corps desired to return. Among those 

questioning its utility was none other than James R. Schlesinger, 

the secretary of defense, who asked whether America required 

“an amphibious assault force which has not seen anything more 

demanding than essentially unopposed landings for over twenty 

years.”29 Here, again, the Yom Kippur War became a yardstick 

against which amphibious capability was measured and found 

wanting. The sheer speed of that conflict highlighted the new importance of time—especially transit time—in contingency planning. The war lasted three weeks from start to finish. This showed 

that the American military standard for closure time (30 days) in 

27 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 66–67. 28 Col C. V. Hendricks, “Land the Landing Force,” Marine Corps Gazette 59, no. 8 

(August 1975): 33–35.

29 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 68.
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

51

collecting and launching an amphibious force could no longer 

be regarded as sufficient for influencing an overseas conflict. Future wars could already be won or lost by the time an amphibious force arrived on scene. A long, steady decrease in available 

amphibious shipping was another strike against such operations. 

The Navy had fewer ships to carry a Marine force, which, due 

to post-Vietnam modernization efforts, had larger and heavier 

equipment and a correspondingly greater support footprint.30

RELEVANCE OF 

AMPHIBIOUS CAPABILITIES

Marines—wary that their political masters might one day swing 

the seemingly ever-present headsman’s axe—responded vigorously to these questions. Amphibious advocates warned against 

invalidating the utility of an entire form of war simply because it 

had not been recently employed, or turning transitory force structure issues into a permanent strategic gap. F. J. “Bing” West Jr., a 

veteran infantry commander from Vietnam and future assistant 

secretary of defense under President Ronald W. Reagan, noted 

that the amphibious landing was only one piece in the Marine 

Corps’ toolkit.31

The twentieth century provided innumerable examples of 

Marines performing “such other duties as the President may direct,” from relieving the besieged Foreign Legation in Beijing (then 

called Peking), China, during the Boxer Rebellion, to extensive 

land operations in World War I and Korea, to counterinsurgency 

operations in the Philippines and Vietnam.32 A short bulletin on 

Marine Corps missions, dating from well before the post–Vietnam 

debates, noted 11 specified or implied roles for the Corps derived 

from the National Security Act of 1947.33 Indeed, amphibious 

30 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 66–68. 31 F. J. West Jr., “The Case for Amphibious Capability,” Marine Corps Gazette 58, 

no. 10 (October 1974): 22–24.

32 West, “The Case for Amphibious Capability.” 

33 Col Thomas G. Roe et al., A History of Marine Corps Roles and Missions, 1775–

1962 (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1962), 

19–25.
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52

warfare had not even been the Corps’ primary mission until after 

World War I; until 1900, that had been service aboard Navy ships, 

and the first three decades of the twentieth century had seen the 

Corps’ focus split between foreign interventions and land warfare 

in France.34 Marines had proven they could do much more than 

simply guard ships and storm beaches. 

That said, a specialized amphibious force still held strategic 

value. An embarked force hovering near the fringes of a NATOWarsaw Pact conflict in Europe could tie down enemy divisions in 

a defensive role, or it could be used to reinforce littoral flanks in 

Norway or Germany. Concerning the time-in-transit issue, while 

strategic airlift might be faster than sealift, aircraft still required 

secure airfields at which to land, and could only carry a fraction 

of the heavy equipment and supplies of which naval shipping was 

capable. Finally, an amphibious force provided policy makers with 

the ability to project a visible presence without immediate commitment, allowing escalation or de-escalation as desired.35

Others, such as Colonel John L. Tobin, a veteran of both the 

Korean and Vietnam Wars, pointed out that as a maritime nation, the United States must expect to periodically conduct naval campaigns. These would likely have a land component, which 

required “specialized, dedicated forces.” Tobin argued that such 

specialization was only possible by a generations-long development and practice of those operational skills as a primary mission; 

it was unlikely that another branch, assigned such skills as a secondary role, could perform them as proficiently as Marines. Tobin 

concluded by stating that “the only certainty about the future is its 

uncertainty; the only insurance against uncertainty is readiness,” 

and thus having an amphibious force in readiness capable of accessing the world’s littorals was an eminently wise investment.36

Turbiville, the DIA’s Soviet operations expert, made the am34 Roe et al., A History of Marine Corps Roles and Missions, 25. 35 West, “The Case for Amphibious Capability,” 22–24; Alexander and Bartlett, 

Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 92–102; and Collins, American and Soviet Military Trends, 

373–78. 

36 Col John L. Tobin (Ret), “Why Have a Marine Corps?,” Marine Corps Gazette

59, no. 6 (June 1975): 28–40. 
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

53

phibious argument in reverse. While his analysis of Soviet amphibious landing defenses made for a sobering read, it also highlighted 

how much the Russians feared such interference. The Soviets 

thought such landings could disrupt “the offensive momentum of 

Pact forces advancing along maritime axes.” If the Soviets harbored such concern over amphibious landings that they devoted 

considerable resources to defending against them, surely having 

the capability to threaten such landings was worth America’s 

while.37 In considering the many scenarios for future warfare—

be it littoral combat, open-plains mayhem as in the Yom Kippur 

War, or something not yet imagined—warnings such as Tobin’s to 

hedge against uncertainty seemed wise.

Finally, while for some the Yom Kippur War offered only lessons in obsolescence for the Marine Corps, others were not as 

pessimistic. Lieutenant Colonel G. H. Turley noted that the conflict “reconfirmed many principles of Marine tactical doctrine.” 

As much an expert on modern warfare as any thanks to his key 

leadership against the North Vietnamese during the Easter Offensive of 1972, Turley identified “the combined arms concept 

specifically built around the integrated use of air and ground elements” as the most significant lesson. In future conflicts, “combined arms force, possessing an integrated command, control 

communications system will be mandatory for any military force 

to effectively operate in an electronic battlefield.”38 Turley’s judgment on the importance of combined arms was entirely in line 

with the post–Yom Kippur War assessments of the U.S. Army 

and the CIA.39

Of all the Service branches, only the Marine Corps boasted a 

ready-made combined arms team in the MAGTF. More important, properly trained and equipped infantry were not necessarily 

helpless against massed armored formations. The Israeli mental 

resilience noted in American post–Yom Kippur War analyses rep37 Turbiville, “Soviet Amphibious Landing Defenses,” 26. 

38 LtCol G. H. Turley, “Time of Change in Modern Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 58, no. 12 (December 1974): 20. 39 The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 109; and Swain, Selected Papers of General William E. 

DePuy, 76, 86–102.
CHAPTER TWO

54

resented a tantalizing missed opportunity that might otherwise 

have contributed to the later maneuver warfare debate. DePuy, 

the CIA, and others specifically cited Israeli adaptability and flexibility in helping the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recover from the 

initial surprise achieved by the Arab forces and quickly change 

ineffective tactics left over from the Six-Day War of 1967. The Israeli tank crews were repeatedly noted as being very well trained, 

and the quality of this training more than compensated for the 

overwhelming numerical superiority enjoyed by the Arabs. One 

Army general stated that “the best tank on the battlefield is yet the 

one with the best crew.” Yet these analyses did not follow through 

on the implications of such observations. They did not ask what it 

was about the Israeli mind-set that allowed them to recover from 

and then rapidly counter a surprise attack that, by any material 

measure, should have annihilated both the IDF and the country 

as a whole. Virtually all of DePuy’s recommendations focused on 

weapon systems and making soldiers more efficient in their use. 

Discussions of how mental frameworks, rather than materiel lethality, could contribute to victory would have to wait a few more 

years.40

Sharing the concerns of many other Marines writing at this 

time, as seen above, Major Mattingly pointed out the vulnerabilities of Soviet armored forces. He concluded that “while supporting arms and air will certainly play a major role in anti-armor 

warfare there should be no doubt that in the final analysis the 

riflemen and members of the weapons platoon hold some very 

important cards.”41 Part of the destructiveness of the Yom Kippur 

War came at the hands of infantry armed with handheld antitank 

and antiaircraft weapons, the lethality of which neither side truly 

appreciated until they were employed on the battlefield. In other 

words, while in a quantitative sense Marines might be outmanned 

and outgunned against a Soviet-style adversary, Marines armed 

with the right missiles could significantly even the odds. And, in40 The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 107–8; Rodman, “Eagle’s-eye View,” 506; and Swain, 

Selected Papers of General William E. DePuy, 76–111. 41 Mattingly, “Defeating Soviet Armor,” 36–39. 
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

55

deed, stocks of ATGMs were one area where the United States 

enjoyed a pronounced advantage over the Soviet military.42

The bigger question was whether these advantages offset the 

apparent vulnerabilities of a lightly armed, slow-moving amphibious landing force. Turley believed that all American forces, the 

Corps included, required changes to provide a “creditable deterrence” to those threatening the nation’s interests.43 E. W. Girard, 

an operations analyst for the United States Army, supported a 

national reemphasis on maritime strategy—in which the Marine 

Corps would play a vital part—but also could not deny that “our 

potential adversaries can assemble numerically superior and qualitatively comparable strength against any landing force our ready 

forces can mount.”44 His conclusion encapsulated the tacit understanding of even the most ardent defenders of the Corps:

The trick for the Marine Corps will [be] to be integral 

to the presently undefined and undefinable future force 

concepts and structures that are attractive to the top in 

the 1970’s and 80’s [sic], as it was half a century before. 

. . . What is needed are “grabby” concepts and proposals 

that will capture the minds of high level national security 

managers and planners.45

A few grabby concepts had begun percolating at this time, as are 

discussed in chapter 3. But before they could take hold, two analysts dropped a bomb into the middle of the debate. Suddenly, defining the near future for the Marine Corps gained a new urgency.

AMPHIBIOUS IRRELEVANCY

In January 1976, Martin Binkin and Jeffrey Record of the Brookings Institution released a study with the pointed title Where Does 

the Marine Corps Go from Here? Its premise was “whether the Marine Corps is appropriately geared to meet the most likely threats 

42 Collins, American and Soviet Military Trends, 186. 43 Turley, “Time of Change in Modern Warfare,” 20.

44 E. W. Girard, “Return to a Maritime-based National Strategy for the Marine 

Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette 60, no. 11 (November 1976): 40. 45 Girard, “Return to a Maritime-based National Strategy,” 45.
CHAPTER TWO

56

to U.S. national interests . . . and, if not, what should be done 

about it.”46 Although the document weighed in at less than a hundred pages, its conclusions and recommendations fell like hammer blows. After briefly surveying the Corps’ history, doctrine, 

and force structure, the authors embarked on a global survey of 

the most likely threats and domestic implications of each. They 

concluded that “taken together, [the threats] strongly suggest that 

continued Marine Corps fixation on the amphibious mission is 

unwarranted in light of foreseeable military requirements and 

growing domestic political opposition to the use of U.S. military 

forces in general.” While world affairs had moved beyond the ability of an amphibious force to influence them, Binkin and Record 

offered a silver lining. The obsolescence of the Corps’ primary 

mission now made available “some portion of USMC forces for 

alternative missions.”47 Each alternative, however, left the Marine 

Corps more unrecognizable than the last.

Binkin and Record offered four ways to reimagine the Marine 

Corps in the context of the geopolitical and threat landscape as 

they saw it. Their first proposal reduced the Corps’ active forces 

by two-thirds, completely demobilized the Reserves, and left the 

remaining one and one-third MAF to dedicate itself exclusively to the amphibious mission on those rare occasions that called 

for it. The second had the Marine Corps take over responsibility 

for land warfare in Asia and the Pacific from the Army. The authors believed that, given the general lack of technological sophistication evinced by enemies in that region, the lightweight and 

slow-moving Marines would perform well enough against them. 

The third alternative saw the Marines assume the airborne quickreaction mission of the Army’s 82d Airborne Division. Most of 

the III MAF, all of the IV MAF (Reserve), and all Marine fixedwing tactical aviation would be demobilized. The Army did not escape the authors’ force structure scalpel; the 82d Airborne would 

be demobilized too. In the fourth and final alternative, Marine 

46 Martin Binkin and Jeffrey Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here? 

(Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1976), vii.

47 Binkin and Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?, 41.
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

57

Corps units would receive sufficient armor and vehicles to be a viable Army partner for sustained ground combat in Europe. Again 

stripped of their own fixed-wing tactical aircraft, and handed 

enough tanks and armored personnel carriers for the task, these 

newly designed Marine units would be virtually indistinguishable 

from those of the Army. When the authors were done with it, the 

Marine Corps had dwindled to something that was neither marine 

nor a corps.48

Concluding that the Marine Corps must either shrink or join 

the Army, Binkin and Record hammered one final nail in the coffin: “The future of the Marine Corps as an instrument of American military power will depend on a successful resolution of the 

issues raised in this study. Failure to do so could reduce that part 

of the Corps that cannot be justified on the grounds of foreseeable amphibious operations to a costly anachronism increasingly 

haunted by its limitations.” Binkin and Record had opened their 

study criticizing amphibious warfare, in stark contrast to the more 

optimistic appraisals of Marine officers in the Gazette, as an “unwarranted fixation.” They closed it with a last stinging judgment: 

“The golden age of amphibious warfare is now the domain of historians, and the Marine Corps no longer needs a unique mission 

to justify its existence.”49 In less than a hundred pages, the authors 

had determined that both an entire class of warfare and the term 

Marine were redundant. Moving well beyond the idle speculation 

of the defense secretary, they offered apparently well-intentioned 

recommendations on how the Corps could have a future. It just 

had to become completely different. 

REBUTTALS

The last lines of this report demonstrated a significant misunderstanding of how the Marine Corps viewed itself. Since World War 

I, the Marine Corps had always carved out its own unique role. 

This served, in part, as protection from congressmen and Service 

chiefs from other branches who regularly sought to disband it; but 

48 Binkin and Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?, 71–83. 49 Binkin and Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?, 88.
CHAPTER TWO

58

also, as discussed earlier, because the Marine Corps prided itself 

on offering unique capabilities with each change in the global 

threat landscape. Inherent to the Corps’ culture was confidence 

in the organization’s foresight, adaptability, and utility in times of 

crisis. Binkin and Record’s analysis managed to miss this rather 

important institutional perspective.

Unsurprisingly, Marines disagreed with their assessment. 

Indeed, shortly before the study was officially released, Commandant General Louis H. Wilson Jr. (1975–79)—Cushman’s 

successor—replied to a journalist’s observation on the apparent 

obsolescence of amphibious warfare that “critics had said that before. They were wrong then and just as wrong now.”50 But specific 

rebuttals to the Brookings report were not long in coming. Major 

J. K. Rider, a veteran infantry commander with multiple tours in 

Vietnam, argued that with the Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet 

Union expanding their amphibious capabilities, it made no sense 

to hamstring America’s counterweight. He noted that removing 

an amphibious threat could allow Russia to shift its resources elsewhere against NATO.51 Rider also dismissed the proposal to give 

Marines the airborne mission, observing that such a radical shift 

would rob the new airborne force of institutional memory and 

actually make it less responsive in the near term due to the need to 

train Marines in their new tasks. In short, he found that the Brookings study offered a “face-value attractiveness of saving money” 

but “left too many questions unanswered, too many areas that 

need further study.”52 And Rider was not alone in his assessment.

Another Vietnam infantry veteran, Major Michael R. Janay, in “The Brookings Smokescreen,” countered much of the 

budgetary methodology behind the Brookings report, as well as 

sloppy cross-Service comparisons, where such comparisons included equating a Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) commanded by 

50 Col David H. White Jr., “Louis H. Wilson 1975–1979,” in Commandants of the 

Marine Corps, 429. 51 Maj J. K. Rider, “An Alternative Marine Corps” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, 1978), 46–82. Rider shared the assessment of Soviet antilanding defenses provided by Turbiville.

52 Rider, “An Alternative Marine Corps.” 
DONE WITH THE JUNGLE

59

a major general to an Air Force wing—with half the number of 

aircraft—commanded by a colonel. His conclusion was less charitable than that of Rider: “It is a well-known fact that any subject, 

when superficially studied, will furnish agreements in support of 

any theory or opinion. This is what appears to have occurred with 

this study.”53 Attacking the methodology and conclusions of the 

Brookings report could only go so far. The study was simply the 

most public and polarizing data point in a debate that had been 

simmering since the Marine Corps began withdrawing major 

combat formations from Vietnam. It highlighted the uncomfortable fact that, as an institution, the Corps had done a poor job of 

defining its role in the complex and unfriendly near future world. 

CONCLUSION

As had their predecessors from past wars, Marines in the 1970s 

returned from the battlefields of Vietnam understanding that they 

needed to ready themselves for the next conflict. Yet they also realized that the trends of the last decade meant that future warfare would not resemble the golden age of amphibious operations 

during the Second World War. Marines were done with the jungle, 

but unclear on what would come next. They hoped to retain their 

unique Service character and offer valuable capabilities, be they 

amphibious, expeditionary, or something else in nature. Marines 

celebrated their heritage and track record in battle and were not 

ready to see their Service or culture completely dismantled. Even 

though individual Marines understood change was coming, institutional change grinds slowly, and thus Binkin and Record, in a 

backhanded way, did the Corps a favor. They provided a catalyst 

for grappling with crucial questions about the Marines’ future, 

which pointedly drove at the Corps’ ultimate desire to remain useful. While returning officers wrestled with this at the end of the 

Vietnam War, the late 1970s was the time to answer the Brookings 

analysts’ question. Where would the Marine Corps go from here?

53 Maj Michael R. Janay, “The Brookings Smokescreen” (unpublished manuscript, photocopy, Special Collections, Library of the Marine Corps, Quantico, 

VA), 3–12.
60

CHAPTER THREE

Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?

Paving the Way for Maneuver Warfare

In the years following the release of the Brookings Institution report Where Does the Marine Corps Go from Here?, thinkers both inside 

and outside of the Marine Corps engaged in vigorous discussion 

about the Corps’ future. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 

Marine Corps had to reconsider its role in the face of new global 

circumstances and international obligations. As mentioned in the 

previous chapter, the shape of that future revolved around defining 

the Corps’ mission and determining how the Corps would organize and fight to fulfill it. More crucially, it drove to the heart of the 

Marine Corps’ institutional tradition of utility. The outlines of the 

discussion over the Corps’ future could be found in the multitude 

of articles published in the Marine Corps Gazette. These articles were 

written by both civilians and uniformed Marines, and some of 

their recommendations were later codified in doctrine, equipment 

acquisitions, and force structure changes. Yet, as Marines looked 

toward future war and its challenges, they raised more questions 

than answers. 

THE PATH TO MANEUVER WARFARE

The early years of debate offered some solutions, but to a small 

cadre of Marines, these proposals felt incomplete. What remained 
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

61

lacking, they believed, was a holistic vision that could be applied 

to operations “in every clime and place.”1

 As the nation’s force 

in readiness, the Marine Corps already had a physical structure, 

the MAGTF, which could be tailored according to circumstances. Such contingencies included amphibious operations, a mission 

many Marines wanted to return to or at least not abandon entirely 

as a Service capability. Yet this physical flexibility was not coupled to any larger concept that gave the Marine, as an individual, 

deeper insight into the mental and moral capabilities—and, more 

critically, weaknesses—of the myriad human adversaries he might 

face. The veterans involved in the debate saw this intellectual gap 

as the key to America’s costly failure in Vietnam. As leaders looked 

to the lessons of the last war and their application to the future, 

they did not want their Marines to pay the price for this deficiency again. By the end of the 1970s, this small group increasingly 

believed that a concept called maneuver warfare offered the holistic 

vision they sought, and they learned that the foundations of this 

idea came from the mind of an eccentric retired Air Force colonel 

named John Boyd. 

This was the time when Boyd, now a civilian, was exploring 

the deeper questions on conflict that had intrigued him while he 

was in uniform. This exploration first generated his essay, “Destruction and Creation,” with its discussion of mental frameworks 

contributing to survival. Boyd followed this essay with his presentation, “Patterns of Conflict,” which applied the insights of “Destruction and Creation” to warfare. It was “Patterns of Conflict” 

and its robust exegesis on maneuver warfare that, by 1980, influenced the Corps. As Marines became aware of Boyd’s ideas, they 

folded them into their embryonic discussion of victory by maneuver. Other Marines, like a young officer named Stephen W. Miller 

1

 This phrase is taken from the second verse of the “Marine’s Hymn,” the official 

anthem of the Marine Corps. The full line is “we have fought in every clime 

and place/where we could take a gun.” It is one of many parts of the hymn that 

captures the traditionally expeditionary and global character of Marine Corps 

operations. It has often been cited in official Marine Corps doctrine, mission 

statements, recruitment materials, and other documents to indicate the Corps’ 

readiness to execute any job assigned to it.
CHAPTER THREE

62

(who will be introduced shortly), were already experimenting with 

maneuver techniques in the field and found in Boyd’s framework a 

structure to direct their methods, which they previously lacked. As 

with Boyd, this growing group of Marines understood the need to 

survive and thrive, and maneuver warfare offered the basis for accomplishing that as an institution and, more crucially, in combat.

THE BIG QUESTIONS

In the post–Vietnam War era, the questions the Marine Corps 

had to answer were clear: What was the Corps to do, and how was 

the Corps to do it? Marines and their civilian proponents agreed 

on the questions, but finding consensus on the answers proved 

more difficult. In examining these different threads, one can see 

how John Boyd’s ideas—advocated by maneuver warfare proponents with varying degrees of understanding—came to frame and 

shape what became the Corps’ ultimate answer.

Finding a Battlefield

The first question—defining the Corps’ mission—required addressing a few other issues. Many Marines and civilians within the 

Department of Defense believed that the primary mission should 

continue to be amphibious warfare. In the face of increasingly 

strong headwinds, however, defending that mission more vocally and with greater persuasion became critical. That defense also 

required better articulation of the other missions the Corps could 

perform as the nation’s focus shifted from Southeast Asia to the 

defense of Europe. The Marine Corps needed to show that it 

could participate effectively in that big game and outline where it 

could be best deployed to make a difference.

Advocacy of the amphibious mission redoubled during this 

time. Several of the Brookings recommendations required prepositioning Marine forces in likely future hotspots. Yet critics noted 

that the United States had neither the resources nor the global political capital to preposition forces for every possible contingency. 

Deterrence, as a tool for geopolitical purposes, would have to be 

done more creatively, and creativity had been one of the Corps’ 
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

63

greatest strengths over time.2 Furthermore, having an amphibious 

option gave policy makers a flexible, unpredictable, scalable, and 

politically palatable deterrent that prepositioning could not hope 

to match.3

 As Boyd’s ideas began influencing the Marine conception of maneuver warfare, Marines would adapt them to support 

the Corps’ missions, including amphibious operations. Captain 

Stephen Miller was one of those Marines and noted another benefit of the amphibious force in an article focused on mechanizing 

the Marine Corps: 

The mobility imparted by sea power will enable a modern 

aviation/mechanized amphibious team to penetrate an 

enemy’s extended and, therefore, exposed coastal flanks, 

reaching into those vital yet vulnerable logistics and command areas far behind the forward combat elements. This 

force, using flexibility, speed and surprise to maximum effect, will in the destruction of these facilities . . . create a 

ripple of calamity of ever increasing magnitude and effect.4

One sees here, beyond the amphibious argument, a glimpse of 

the mental and moral aspects inherent to Boyd’s theories on maneuver warfare: “the ripple of calamity” inflicted on the enemy’s 

mind had greater importance than the initial physical destruction. 

As Marines tried to answer the question posed by the Brookings 

report, they would find in Boyd the intellectual framework for ex2

 Following World War II, several international relations scholars outlined deterrence theory. Bernard Brodie, Thomas Schelling, Lawrence Freedman, and 

others influenced security studies during the Cold War, but scholars disagreed 

about the best method of deterrence, especially when it came to the use of nuclear weapons. An example of deterrence theory analysis can be found in Lawrence Freedman, “The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists,” in Makers 

of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1986), 735–78.

3

 LtCol Gerald L. Ellis and Maj Gerald J. Keller, “No Doubt; the U.S. Needs 

Amphibious Forces,” Marine Corps Gazette 62, no. 2 (February 1978): 27–34. 4

 Capt Stephen W. Miller, “It’s Time to Mechanize Amphibious Forces,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 62, no. 6 (June 1978): 39. 
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64

plaining how the Corps could be a force in readiness with both 

expeditionary and amphibious capabilities.

Miller, like most Marines, was not ready to abandon the notion 

of amphibious utility, regardless of Binkin and Record’s assertion 

that it was an outmoded capability. Long-serving infantry officer 

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon D. Batcheller cited another Brookings 

Institution study that appeared a year after Binkin and Record’s, 

which highlighted the fact that “naval units were involved in 80 

percent of the 215 times military forces were deployed for political 

impact abroad in the 30 years following World War II.” Batcheller 

attributed this to the unique “ability of naval forces to move on 

some 70 percent of the earth’s surface without the requirement to 

negotiate an international boundary or signal an irrevocable political commitment.”5

 Others outlined the utility of an amphibious 

capability for the specific purpose of deterring Soviet aggression 

and expansion abroad.6

Amphibious proponents also observed that the airmobile option could actually prove less flexible than the supposedly archaic 

use of ships, given its requirement for access to airspace and secure airfields, its inability to transport heavy equipment, and its 

vulnerability to interception.7

 Indeed, noted strategist Captain B. 

H. Liddell Hart once argued that “strategic movement by air is so 

liable to be blocked or impeded by countries in its path . . . that it 

is becoming strategically unreliable as a way of meeting the worldwide problems of the Atlantic Alliance, which more truly should 

be called the Oceanic Alliance.”8

 Furthermore, the fact remained 

that, while one could acknowledge the increased risk to a MAF 

5

 LtCol Gordon D. Batcheller, “Maritime Strategy,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 

7 (July 1981): 45.

6

 See chapter 2 for the initial discussion of how amphibious operations and the 

Marine Corps could be used in Europe during the Cold War. See also John F. 

Lehman Jr., “Amphibious Capability and Maritime Strategy,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 10 (October 1981): 38–43; and Dov S. Zakheim, “The Role of Amphibious Operations in National Military Strategy,” Marine Corps Gazette 68, no. 

3 (March 1984): 35–39.

7

 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 134. 8

 Capt B. H. Liddell Hart, “Marines and Strategy,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 1 

(January 1980): 30–31, emphasis in original.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

65

posed by modern PGMs, such an admission did not necessitate 

dismantling the mission entirely. As defense analyst Russell Murray II observed, “To accept the premise that amphibious assault is 

finished as a viable mission is to assert that the beaches we might 

want to attack anywhere in the world are sure to be defended by 

forces strong enough to defeat a full MAF, even after all the preliminary bombardment or surprise we could possibly muster.” True, 

Marines landing on beaches were more vulnerable than in the past 

because “precision-guided munitions have benefited the defenders 

on the beach more than they have the attackers from the sea.” But 

for Murray, this was an “unfavorable trend, rather than a fatal 

weakness,” and like many Marines, he believed the risk could be 

countered with judicious and creative mitigation and did not require the abandonment of a proven, useful way of war.9

Batcheller, Hart, and Murray all touched on a key point 

about the nature of American geography first raised by Alfred 

Thayer Mahan almost a century earlier: as an inherently maritime nation, necessity demanded that the United States ensure its 

own access to vital resources. Echoing Mahan, Batcheller noted 

that “we are an insular nation with a global economy. Our economic health . . . depends on overseas resources. Our survival is 

directly tied to our ability to maintain control of the sea and air 

lines to these resources, and, if necessary, to a capability to forcibly ensure our access to such resources.”10 Batcheller’s characterization thus made room for the Marines as well as the Navy. In 

1980, a point paper prepared for a General Officers’ Symposium 

captured all of these points—America’s maritime nature, limits 

of prepositioning and strategic airlift, deterrence, and flexibility

—and concluded:

The alleged infeasibility of amphibious assault vis-à-vis 

modern technology is not based upon fact but rather on 

faulty scenarios. This amphibious capability is required 

in a NATO/global war and in a lesser conflict. It provides flexibility to conduct opportune counterstrokes on 

9

 Murray, “The Marine Corps’ Future Lies in Being Useful,” 26.

10 Batcheller, “Maritime Strategy,” 44. 
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66

the flanks, to provide defensive depth, and to retain the 

initiative regardless of the situation.11

One Gazette author summed up the amphibious argument with a 

simple historical truth: “The bottom line, in plain language—amphibious operations work.”12

The defense of NATO’s northern flank—Iceland, Norway, 

and Denmark—gained significant traction as an ancillary mission 

for the Corps during this time. A nonnuclear European conflict of 

any significant duration would require American reinforcements, 

the disembarkation of which had to be protected by NATO forces 

operating from Denmark and Norway. Soviet naval forces also had 

to be denied access to Atlantic convoy routes, and this could not 

be accomplished if Norway and Denmark were overrun by any 

of the Warsaw Pact countries.13 Colonel Richard D. Taber Sr., an 

experienced fighter from Korea and Vietnam, emphasized that 

“if there is one place outside the territorial confines of the North 

American continent where American interests may be regarded as 

truly vital, that place is Europe.”14 As a European war remained 

a key strategic factor in U.S. defense planning, the Marine Corps 

had to be ready to participate.

When the 1976 Brookings report came out, battalion-size Marine forces had already joined in NATO exercises focused on that 

northern flank; now these forces grew to a brigade-size element, 

and continually gained regional credibility and experience.15 The 

11 “Point Paper #318–80, Viability of Amphibious Assault, 1980–2000,” Studies and Reports Collection, Conferences, General Officers’ Symposium (August 

1980), Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

12 Maj C. L. Armstrong, “The Amphibious Business,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 

7 (July 1981): 47.

13 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 609; LtCol Douglas C. MacCaskill, “Norway’s Strategic 

Importance,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 2 (February 1981): 28–33; and Cdr 

James J. Tritten, USN, “The Defense of Northern Norway,” Marine Corps Gazette

68, no. 1 (January 1984): 28–29.

14 Col Richard D. Taber Sr., “One Reason Why Marines Should Be in NATO,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 61, no. 12 (December 1977): 34. 15 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 609; and Maj Roger M. Jaroch, “NATO: Past, Present 

and Future,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 6 (June 1980): 29–40.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

67

Sea control

Sea denial

Less intensive

sea denial

(Top) Map 1. NATO northern flank and projected Soviet invasions. (Bottom) Map 2. Projected 

Soviet naval activity in the North Atlantic during a NATO –Warsaw Pact conflict. As these 

maps show, for the Soviet Navy to enjoy freedom of action in the area and prevent NATO forces 

from sending reinforcements through Scandinavia, it needed to invade and occupy large swathes 

of Nordic territory. The relative isolation of this northern flank from land routes made its defense 

by amphibious forces like the Marine Corps a natural choice. 

National Intelligence Estimate of 1979, adapated by MCU Press
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68

Marine Corps’ option could also help NATO bridge a sensitive 

gap by ensuring the commitment of these northern countries to 

the alliance while avoiding the permanent stationing of forces that 

those countries found domestically unpalatable.16 During his commandancy, General Wilson supported the northern flank role, noting that as “an ace in the hole,” a Marine amphibious force could 

tie down Soviet forces indefinitely on the NATO flanks. Wilson 

also reiterated the value of an amphibious force’s flexibility and 

mobility: “There are 8,000 miles of coastline between Europe’s 

North Cape and Greece, and we are the only ones who can project 

this power ashore.”17

Despite the Commandant’s view, some Marines dissented on 

the importance of the NATO mission. Major Perry W. Miles, for 

example, argued that accepting the northern flank mission would 

require a disastrous organizational reorientation against a threat 

whose likelihood was probably exaggerated. A MAF would not 

arrive in time or with the force of arms necessary to make much 

of a difference against a determined Soviet offensive. The Marine Corps was better used as a responsive and flexible force defending international maritime trade routes against lower-tier, but 

no less dangerous, adversaries that it could actually overpower.18

But high-ranking dissenters were few, and so by 1982, the Marine Corps had adopted the northern flank mission, prepositioned 

equipment in Norway, and developed the necessary training and 

tactics.19 Thus, as of 1982, Marine Corps leaders had prepared 

their Service to participate in the European main event, and in a 

way that gave the amphibious mission new vitality. 

16 Frank Uhlig Jr., “The Marine Corps’ Future May Lie North of the Arctic Circle,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 2 (February 1980): 32–38. 17 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 71; and White, “Louis H. 

Wilson 1975–1979,” 429–31.

18 Maj Perry W. Miles, “Finding Better Use for the USMC than Commitment to 

NATO,” Marine Corps Gazette 61, no. 12 (December 1977): 31–34. 19 Col M. D. Cerreta Jr., “Cold Weather Conference in Norway,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 66, no. 7 (July 1982): 19–21; Millett, Semper Fidelis, 609; and Alexander 

and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 127–28, 139–41.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

69

To Heavy Up or Not to Heavy Up

Answering the second question—how the Corps would organize 

and fight to fulfill its future mission—focused on whether or not 

a light infantry force remained useful on the modern battlefield. 

Others had already argued that the Yom Kippur War offered evidence for its continued utility. But the many concerns raised in 

chapter 2 still required analysis: namely, how a relatively small 

MAU or MAB, lightly armed and mostly infantry, could hope to 

win against a larger, mechanized opponent armed with a plethora 

of PGMs. Many argued for a technological solution to this issue, 

searching for weapons and vehicles that combined tactical mobility with heavy firepower.20 The debate quickly turned to whether 

the Corps should mechanize or heavy up (add armored vehicles, 

such as armored personnel carriers [APCs] and tanks), to what 

degree, and what impact such an effort might have on the already 

limited amount of sealift available.

Amphibious mechanization offered many advantages in the 

realms of mobility and firepower.21 Added to this was the psycho20 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 617. 21 William S. Lind, “Proposing Some New Models for Marine Mechanized 

Units,” Marine Corps Gazette 62, no. 9 (September 1978): 34–38; Maj James R. 

Williams, “Wheeled Combat Vehicles Offer a Possible Solution to the Marine 

Corps’ Ground Mobility Problem,” Marine Corps Gazette 62, no. 10 (October 

1978): 41–48; Col Larry R. Williams, “More Mobility for Today’s Threat,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 7 (July 1980): 32–36; Col Thomas T. Glidden, “Establishing a Permanent Mechanized MAB,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 7 (July 1980): 

43–48; Capt S. W. Miller and Capt R. A. Stewart, “New Fighting Vehicle Options,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 10 (October 1980): 47–53; Col Larry R. Williams, “Acquiring New Armored Vehicles and Weapons,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, 

no. 12 (December 1980): 28–33; Capt Edwin W. Besch (Ret), “Light Armored 

Vehicles—Needs and Candidates,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 12 (December 

1980): 34–44; Besch, “Light Armored Vehicles: Part II Uses and Organizations,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 1 (January 1981): 55–62; Capt Richard A. Stewart, 

“A Light, Medium, and Heavy Approach to Marine Corps Operations,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 65, no. 7 (July 1981): 30–35; Capt Richard G. Carter, “Mechanization: United or Divided?,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 8 (August 1982): 26–28; 

Besch, “Infantry Fighting Vehicles: Their Evolution and Significance,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 67, no. 7 (July 1983): 50–60; Maj Kenneth W. Estes, “More on 

Mechanizing Marines,” Marine Corps Gazette 67, no. 7 (July 1983): 58–59; and 

Besch, “Adding Perspective to the Light Armor Debate,” Marine Corps Gazette 72, 

no. 4 (April 1988): 53–54.
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70

logical impact of the appearance of armor—rumored or real—at 

an unexpected time and place. Captain Miller appeared in the discussion again, noting that modern armored vehicles made terrain 

less restrictive, and it “should also be recalled from combat history 

that because of psychological impact, often the introduction of 

even a small amount of armor in seemingly impossible terrain 

will provide a decisive combat advantage in excess of numbers.”22

Once more, Miller hinted that the decisive battlefield lay somewhere beyond the physical one, and this perspective would be very 

receptive to Boyd’s later packaging of maneuver warfare.

Critics cried that mechanization spelled the death of the 

Corps’ amphibious nature. Yet, proponents pointed out that adversaries’ militaries had already successfully merged the two capabilities. Captain Edwin W. Besch, an experienced analyst of 

both Army and Marine Corps light armored vehicle programs, 

detailed the nature of modern Soviet naval infantry formations. 

He noted that the average brigade came with a large light tank 

battalion and enough APCs to transport every infantryman, and 

employed amphibious ships that could carry a complete infantry 

battalion with all of its vehicles.23 If the Soviets could successfully 

mechanize their amphibious forces, so could the United States. 

In the Cold War era, this was a strong argument, especially given 

Russia’s modern record of masking capabilities from American 

detection and superiority in other conventional military assets, 

discussed in chapters 1 and 2, respectively. This was a matter of 

necessity; otherwise, once deployed to the battlefield, infantry and 

unarmored Marines faced “inherent disadvantages in firepower, 

mobility, and protection compared to the armored and mechanized infantry forces of Warsaw Pact armies and naval infantry.”24

Nevertheless, detractors of mechanization argued that tanks 

22 Miller, “It’s Time to Mechanize Amphibious Forces,” 40. 

23 Alexander and Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War, 95–98; Collins, American and 

Soviet Military Trends, 188; and Lewis, A Comprehensive Examination of the Soviet Naval 

Infantry. 24 Capt Edwin W. Besch (Ret), “Armored and Other Mechanized Forces Can Be 

Successfully Adapted to Amphibious Operations,” Marine Corps Gazette 61, no. 4 

(April 1977): 47.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

71

were fundamentally incompatible with the amphibious mission, 

both in terms of the limitations of sealift and the doctrinal tasks 

required of the amphibious force. One such detractor, Major A. 

C. Bevilacqua, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam, warned that 

those seeking full mechanization risked turning the Marine Corps 

into a second land army. That could lead to the realization of the 

long-held historical fear of actual absorption by the Army, just 

as Brookings authors Binkin and Record had recommended in 

their now-infamous report. Modern threats certainly demanded 

changes in how Marines executed a forcible entry, but Bevilacqua 

believed those changes lay in increasing the quantity of artillery, 

antitank PGMs, and mobile troop carriers available to the landing 

force. Tanks were the provenance of the Army; when a naval campaign reached the point where tanks were required, that meant 

it was no longer truly naval and the Army should take over so 

that the landing force could be withdrawn for use elsewhere. The 

Corps needed to remember it was an amphibious creature and 

that “like all amphibious creatures, the farther it gets from water, 

the closer it comes to death.”25

Another rebuff to mechanization advocates was the argument 

that light infantry need not be encased in armored shells to survive and punch back against opposing armor. Antiarmor PGMs—

which the Corps had already procured for Marine infantrymen 

and supporting aviation—could effectively neutralize armored 

threats without requiring significant mechanization in return. 

Lieutenant Colonels Ray M. Franklin and John G. Miller noted 

that, in a world of PGMs, tanks became “big iron boxes rumbling 

across the battlefield, creating noise, heat, magnetic fields and other distinct signatures, presenting a clear-cut target array for the 

‘smart’ arrows of space-age longbows.”26 Colonel Taber outlined 

the many antiarmor systems present in the modern MAF, and he 

25 Maj A. C. Bevilacqua, “Headlong Down the Road to Extinction,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 64, no. 1 (January 1980): 44. See also Capt R. B. Walters, “Maneuver, 

Mobility, and the LAV,” Marine Corps Gazette 68, no. 6 (June 1984): 50–51. 26 LtCol Ray M. Franklin and LtCol John G. Miller, “Modern Battlefield Technology Calls for Reinvention of the Longbow,” Marine Corps Gazette 61, no. 10 

(October 1977): 42.
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72

borrowed the perspective of Lieutenant General Robert H. Barrow—then commander of Fleet Marine Force Atlantic—on their 

use: “What technology has done for the infantryman boggles the 

mind. The Corps is exploiting that technology and would not be 

too light for any armor the Warsaw Pact sent against it.”27 Finally, Army Major John P. Gritz argued against the use of a light 

armored vehicle as an antiarmor option. He believed that the increased requirements it would foist on both strategic and tactical 

lift, its lack of protection against any weapon larger than a small 

arm, and its significant logistical footprint offset any possible advantages.28

MISSING PIECES

Overall, the pages of the Gazette saw Marine Corps officers—with 

the occasional outside comment from other Services and civilians—trying to adapt to the modern battlefield. These officers 

could find reasons for and against heavying up, but without an 

overriding concept (grabby or not) to tie their thoughts together, 

their voices were a discordant chorus. Major Gritz and others believed that an infantry-centric force like the Marine Corps could 

still thrive under the right conditions. It was defining those conditions that proved elusive. Gritz argued an infantryman or helicopter equipped with antiarmor PGMs was just as enduring and 

lethal as another tank on the battlefield. Helicopters could provide 

required mobility, and in many instances the infantry rifleman, not 

bound to roads, enjoyed greater mobility than a tank or APC. A 

compromise of sorts was reached between the mechanizers and 

infantry-philes in the light armored vehicle (LAV) program that 

began in 1980 and fielded a Canadian eight-wheeled variant in 

1983.29 The LAV offered the greater mobility and firepower that 

mechanization advocates wanted—as it could cross rough terrain, 

travel fast on roads and flat ground, and featured a 25mm chain 

27 Taber, “One Reason Why the Marines Should Be in NATO,” 37.

28 Maj John P. Gritz, USA, “Light Armored Vehicles or Light Armored Victims?,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 8 (August 1982): 36–42. 29 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 619.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

73

gun—without overwhelming amphibious lift capacity, thus addressing the concerns of officers who wanted to keep the MAUs 

and MABs relatively lightweight.

As shown here, in the aftermath of Vietnam and the 1976 

Brookings report, the Marine Corps enjoyed what Lieutenant 

General Paul K. Van Riper called an “intellectual renaissance” 

as it grappled with its place in the modern world.30 This was in 

addition to many other positive changes in an era of reform that 

tackled many of the problems suffered by the Corps at the end 

30 Gen Alfred M. Gray Jr., LtGen Paul K. Van Riper, and Maj John F. Schmitt, 

“Warfighting Discussion Panel with Gen Alfred M. Gray, LtGen Paul K. Van 

Riper, and Maj John F. Schmitt,” moderated by Twayne Hickman, 24 February 

2015, video and transcript, 1:23:29, hereafter Gray et al. interview.

An LAV-25 transports Marines through the Norwegian countryside during Operation Cold 

Winter 1987, a NATO-sponsored military exercise. The LAV offered the additional firepower 

and mobility desired by mechanization advocates in a package that did not overwhelm amphibious lift capability. Its employment in Norway also demonstrated its utility in helping the Marine 

Corps execute the assigned task of defending NATO’s northern flank. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
CHAPTER THREE

74

of Vietnam, such as indiscipline, racial tension, and aging equipment.31 But as stated at the beginning of this chapter, for some 

Marines thinking and writing about the topic, these arguments still 

felt incomplete. The niche mission on NATO’s northern flank was 

high profile but did little to prepare the Corps for the many other 

locations where it might fight. Although the LAV was a good piece 

of gear, the sheer variety of possible missions and terrain in which 

a MAU might operate meant it would not always be employable. 

Moreover, while revalidating the amphibious mission provided 

continuity to the Corps’ golden past, the fact was that Marines 

were often called on to perform nonamphibious tasks.

As arguments progressed about what vehicle to buy or which 

NATO mission to adopt, a few Marines looked for a more satisfying and holistic answer to the question: Where does the Marine 

Corps go from here? They sought a unifying concept compatible 

with the Corps’ larger tradition of being “first to fight . . . in any 

clime and place.” Regardless of the particular weapons employed, 

adversary to be faced, or whether a beachhead was even part of 

the equation, some thread was needed to tie the Corps’ multifaceted operations together to eliminate any perception that, as an 

organization, it was disjointed, anachronistic, or redundant. This 

thread also needed to reilluminate the human elements of conflict. 

The Combined Action Program’s success had come from its emphasis on understanding the Vietnamese people and what things 

could separate them from the Communist insurgents. The grand 

failure of Vietnam derived from the higher leadership’s refusal to 

substitute such attempts at understanding, more difficult though 

they might be, for the conventional large-scale operations that 

were easier for American leaders to wrap their minds around. Yet, 

search and destroy was of little import to Communist leaders who 

knew that the decisive battlefield was the mind, and the key to victory lay not in body counts or the seizure of terrain but in swaying 

the perceptions of both the Vietnamese and American populace. 

31 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 607–35; and Packard, “The Marine Corps’ Long 

March,” 38–229. Packard offers particular detail on the extensive personnel reforms undertaken by Marine Corps leadership in the post–Vietnam War years.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

75

Primacy to the People

While these Marines did not yet know it, their sense that the 

contemporary institutional debate was incomplete mirrored a 

personal mantra held by John Boyd and expressed frequently 

throughout his life. Whether building an organization or fighting 

a war, Boyd believed the human element always deserved primacy: “People, ideas, hardware—in that order.”32 Technology and 

concepts should empower the person, not the other way around. 

And these Marines felt intuitively that the arguments taking place 

during the late 1970s inverted such priorities. Things (mechanized 

and armored vehicles, force structures, missile systems) and ideas 

(amphibious and other missions, the NATO flank) were getting 

the most consideration. There was little discussion of the people 

who would always be present in a way vehicles and terrain might 

not. Those people were the Marines and their adversary; surely, 

then, the central discussion should focus on the mental and moral 

factors that needed to be strengthened for the former and undermined for the latter. From that, missions and hardware could be 

better tailored for both.

Consequently, the unifying thread these Marines sought had 

to do many things. Contrary to the conclusion reached by Binkin 

and Record, it had to be unique. The idea required a distinctiveness that matched the singular history of an American naval 

infantry organization that had adapted itself, along with its homeland, to the ever-changing requirements of a world power. The 

idea had to be adaptable, for the Marine Corps was mandated 

by law to be infinitely flexible as a force in readiness for myriad 

contingencies. The idea needed a relentless focus on the one constant in a world of infinite threat variables: human beings. It had 

to be useful. It had to be, as E. W. Girard labeled it, grabby. The 

nascent concept of maneuver warfare seemed to meet these criteria. As Marines saw that it did, it became the vehicle by which 

John Boyd infiltrated the Marine Corps and found a home for his 

ideas on conflict.

32 Coram, Boyd, 354, 382; and variations of this statement are also found in Hammond, The Mind of War, 12, 110, 193.
CHAPTER THREE

76

Maneuver warfare did not enter the postwar debates fully formed or with great fanfare. It came in hints and whispers, 

often—as seen in several of the articles cited above—as a tangent to some other central point. It gained greater prominence 

as the debates wore on, because those Marines dissatisfied with 

the Corps’ performance in Vietnam increasingly found that arguments over equipment and mission sets missed the larger deficiency: understanding one’s enemy. Adding more tanks to a table of 

organization or claiming custody of a northern flank did nothing 

to address the intellectual analysis required to figure out why an 

enemy fought and what would make him quit. The maneuver debate soon brought the cognitive and spiritual elements into focus. 

THE FIRST MANEUVERISTS

Stephen Miller’s name has long been associated with the early 

stages of the maneuver warfare debate.33 His Gazette articles hinted at its various aspects and later became the first attempts at a 

detailed description of its many facets. However, little is known 

of his background or how he came to the ideas later credited with 

igniting a historic institutional discussion; this deficiency deserves 

a detailed correction.

Commissioned in 1971, Miller joined the Marine Corps at 

the tail end of its involvement in Vietnam. Assigned as a tank officer, his high Basic School class ranking allowed him to receive his 

initial training at the U.S. Army’s tank school at Fort Knox, Kentucky.34 There, Miller was introduced to some of the raw elements 

that later coalesced into the maneuver versus attrition arguments 

that will be examined in chapter 5. Miller became interested in 

the armored cavalry concepts that the Army experimented with at 

Fort Knox, which melded light tanks with a combined-arms force 

using mortars, infantry, and reconnaissance elements. This force 

enjoyed greater maneuverability and mobility than a heavy tank 

33 Damian, “The Road to FMFM–1,” 30–31; Packard, “The Marine Corps’ 

Long March,” 316; and Terriff, “ ‘Innovate of Die,’ ” 477, 495–99.

34 Stephen Miller, telephone interview with author, 11 November 2016, hereafter 

Miller interview.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

77

force, bringing a variety of firepower options to bear against the 

slower, one-trick tank opponent. Thus, in his earliest periods of 

training, Miller had been exposed to the basics of a warfare style 

where the application of arms could be tailored based on analysis 

of the enemy’s vulnerabilities.

Just as this trial piqued Miller’s interest, he watched the Army 

abandon it in favor of a traditional heavy tank force designed to 

slug it out with Soviet armor. Miller recounted that “it was the 

Fulda Gap in Europe, that was the Army’s focus. How many tanks 

can we kill before we get overrun? Not really a maneuver concept.”35 Maybe the Army could afford to match the Soviets tank 

for tank; but that was not an option for the smaller, less armored 

Marine Corps. Along with many other thinkers within the Corps, 

Miller sought ideas for how Marines could win without being 

deeply rooted in, and dependent upon, elements in the physical 

dimension. It is worth noting that Miller’s motives for doing so 

echoed Boyd’s mantra of “to be or to do.” Miller stated that “nobody comes in the Marine Corps to get good chow, or just stick it 

for twenty years. They want to do something.”36 Taking his observations from Fort Knox to his first tank platoon at Camp Lejeune, 

North Carolina, Miller looked for that something to do.

At Camp Lejeune, Miller’s tank battalion generally operated 

by itself, and as a platoon commander he enjoyed a great degree 

of independence. He decided that the bright yellow lettering on 

the side of his tanks’ otherwise green paint made little tactical 

sense and, painting over the yellow, began experimenting with 

camouflage patterns. From this one relatively small change, Miller 

made a fascinating discovery. He found that, in addition to the 

tactical advantage of better camouflage, “the Marines got a morale advantage . . . this was more like [being] a warrior, more like 

combat, not a parade with dirt on the side. Simply changing the 

paint scheme gave a morale advantage.”37 From the tactical and 

psychological advantages gained by his own Marines, Miller con35 Miller interview.

36 Miller interview.

37 Miller interview.
CHAPTER THREE

78

sidered the comparable disadvantages that camouflage and other 

deception methods might inflict on an adversary. Using his tank 

training as a building block, Miller combined his inquisitiveness 

with experimentation to create what Boyd would have recognized 

as new mental worlds.

At the end of 1975, the young but innovative then-lieutenant 

Miller published these thoughts in a Gazette article that proved a 

remarkable foreshadowing of the arguments that came years later during the maneuver warfare debate of the 1980s. Miller acknowledged that the Marine Corps faced “overwhelming forces 

in almost every possible deployment area” but argued that this 

disadvantage could be offset with “the application of deception at 

all levels.”38 Deception caused confusion and hesitation within an 

enemy, which could buy crucial time for a smaller friendly force. 

Miller described time itself as a weapon, observing, “Time is the 

essence. Time to react, to gain surprise, to enhance our own survivability and increase the effectiveness of the combat power presented to the enemy.”39 His conclusion is worth quoting at length:

An enemy who does not know the dispositions or intentions of his opponent is greatly disadvantaged. He must 

spread his efforts or choose one course of action without sufficient supporting intelligence. It is our option to 

choose where, how, and when we will act. To mass our 

forces against his weakest point and with speed and surprise smash the force opposing us before they can react. 

Thus, through camouflage and deception, we can take the 

advantage. Though disadvantaged in numbers and faced 

by sophisticated weapons systems it is still possible to negate their effectiveness, minimize our losses, and increase 

our decisive combat power to win.40

Here, Miller applied on a larger scale the lesson he had learned 

38 1stLt Stephen W. Miller, “Camouflage and Deception,” Marine Corps Gazette 59, 

no. 12 (December 1975): 25. 

39 Miller, “Camouflage and Deception,” 26. 

40 Miller, “Camouflage and Deception,” 29.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

79

from repainting his tanks. The physical element—in this case, 

quantity of tanks—was less vital than how it could be leveraged 

to exploit mental and moral elements. Deception and ambiguity, 

based on understanding an adversary’s perceptions and thinking, 

could undermine the enemy’s ability to effectively use his preponderance of forces while enhancing the power of the friendly side’s 

limited resources. 

The extent to which the elements of the debate and ultimate 

solution to come were present in Miller’s article is extraordinary. 

He captured the problem—winning while outnumbered and outgunned—and forecast the kernels that Boyd supplied to undergird maneuver warfare doctrine: time as a weapon; using decision 

making to deceive, confuse, and slow an enemy’s response; launching unexpected strength against critical weaknesses to make an 

enemy unravel. These parallels are even more remarkable considering that Miller, by his own admission, was not yet familiar 

with Boyd, Boyd’s ideas, or any of the other individuals who later 

played key roles in the maneuver warfare movement.41 Regardless, 

Miller exemplified the small but growing group of Marines who 

wanted the Corps to be useful on future battlefields and who, up 

to that point, remained dissatisfied with the proposals about how 

the Corps could be so. Increasingly, Miller and Marines like him 

proved their readiness to think about a grabby concept because 

such concepts seemed to work. However, the grabby concept still 

needed more intellectual heft, which John Boyd would provide.

At least among the postwar generation of Marines, Miller’s 

article on camouflage and deception first hinted at this type of 

warfare, where surprise, speed, and mass at a specific weak point 

could cause a numerically superior enemy to fall apart.42 Following 

this article, and with increasing regularity, Marines discussed victory by maneuver while addressing tangential subjects such as tactical mobility. Major James Williams’s article on wheeled combat 

vehicles provided an example of how these two ideas intertwined. 

He discussed using off-the-shelf light-armored and wheeled vehi41 Miller interview.

42 Miller, “Camouflage and Deception,” 25–29.
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80

cles to increase the infantry’s mobility. While doing so, he provided 

another nascent view of the maneuver warfare concept. He began 

with the common contemporary view of modern war: “I believe 

our future battlefield will be marked by a density of weapons, an 

intensity of firepower and a confusion of maneuver and control 

never before seen in battle. The Marine Corps . . . must expect to 

be substantially outnumbered on most battlefields.” He then asked, 

“How . . . can a force which is outnumbered in men and materiel 

gain victory over such an enemy, on such a battlefield?” Williams 

offered: “The only acceptable alternative is to equip and educate 

ourselves to seek victory by maneuver where combat, fighting and 

losses will likely be less.”43 In other words, employing victory by 

maneuver, Marines could be outmanned and outgunned, but they 

could offset these disadvantages with an agile mental framework 

that would still let them win. 

Like Miller, Major Williams captured what would become the 

standard attrition versus maneuver dichotomy later offered by maneuverist proponents. Several pages later, he argued that armored vehicles permitted “the commander of a numerically inferior force 

to move his men about the battlefield, concentrating them at a 

decisive time and place, thus seeking a victory of maneuver, as 

opposed to a set-place battle of attrition.”44 As will be seen, this 

language was strikingly similar to the maneuver tenets that would 

be debated in the years to come. This suggests that Williams, as 

with a growing circle of other Marines, had become familiar with 

Boyd’s theories through Boyd or one of Boyd’s many advocates. 

It was also possible that the gravitation toward the intangible elements of war was a natural outgrowth from rejecting the Vietnam 

metric of victory by body count. Either way, the movement toward these ideas and the parallels in language demonstrated that, 

as the Marine Corps sought new direction after Vietnam, Marines 

would be receptive to a thinker like John Boyd. Boyd could pull 

all the bits and pieces together, as he did in “Destruction and Creation” and “Patterns of Conflict.”

43 Williams, “Wheeled Combat Vehicles,” 42–43.

44 Williams, “Wheeled Combat Vehicles,” 44. 
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

81

Maneuver in Practice

Stephen Miller again took center stage in the discussion, as his 

mind continued to refine these ideas after he left Camp Lejeune. 

He was ultimately assigned to the Marine Corps Air Ground 

Combat Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine Palms, California. 

As the Corps’ premier live-fire, large-scale training facility, the 

MCAGCC offered Miller a front-row seat for analyzing how various commanders succeeded or failed in the face of live adversaries.45 He watched as senior Marine leaders actually practiced how 

they would fight against a larger, heavily armored Soviet force. 

And he came in contact with two men who, in the following decade, helped drive the Corps to officially adopt maneuver warfare. 

Miller watched General Gray take the lessons he learned about 

maneuver from his time in Germany (see chapter 6) and use them 

to great effect, employing only light vehicles and aircraft in unconventional ways in the California desert. Miller became familiar 

with Boyd’s works through William S. Lind, who often observed 

the exercises at Twentynine Palms. The central point here is that 

Boyd’s ideas were being proliferated, and Marines like Miller 

found those ideas to be the answer to the deficiency of vision that 

lay at the heart of the Corps’ institutional troubles. 

Observing all this, Miller had his own vision of how the maneuver concept could address the two questions and their ancillary 

problems—light forces fighting heavy mechanization, the Corps’ 

amphibious character, the existence of PGMs, and demands on 

mobility—discussed in the last two chapters. He saw the need 

to build a concept of employment of how the Marine 

Corps could operate in a mechanized environment with 

just a few tanks and light vehicles. You do that with maneuver warfare. This also ties into the amphibious side. 

The beach is not the objective. In the maneuver warfare 

concept, the beach is a line of departure, you don’t even 

need a beach head. [In the MAGTF, you already have] 

this self-sufficient organization, vehicles that can go 400 

miles on one tank of gas, organic fire support . . . infan45 Miller interview.
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82

try, command and control, this self-contained entity, I 

don’t need a beachhead any longer, I move to the objective . . . quickly, not waiting on the beach for everybody. Maneuver warfare is now being executed, I can 

land places where the enemy doesn’t know where I’m 

landing. That mitigates going against massive armored 

forces with PGMs.46

Miller laid out this vision in a two-part article that elaborated on victory through maneuver. The first article mirrored Major 

Williams’s characterization. Miller stated that history’s great commanders regularly won battles while outnumbered and in hostile 

territory by using maneuver to exploit their adversaries’ weaknesses. Surprise and deception threw their enemies off balance into a 

state of disorder and uncertainty. Despite all quantifiable factors 

seemingly arrayed against them, the great commanders used moral ascendancy as a decisive equalizer. Miller then applied these tenets to a meeting engagement between an assaulting amphibious 

force and defending Soviet regiment. His concluding paragraphs 

covered many additional rough-hewn tenets of maneuver warfare 

that would later find more cohesiveness and detail in Boyd’s briefings in the 1980s. First was the use of ambiguity and deception to 

counterbalance force size and strength: “The goal of the landing 

force is to sow confusion and disorder. Uncertainty and fear must 

be fostered among the enemy commanders and troops.” Second, 

Miller turned the perceived weaknesses of Marine units into a 

strength by using their mobility, as an adjunct to ambiguity and 

deception, against forces weighed down by their heavy, mechanized equipment: “Through the high tempo of operations, constant shifting of forces and fluid, flexible action by ground and air 

elements working in close harmony, the Soviet-styled enemy will 

rapidly lose control, cohesion and momentum.” Understanding 

that the Soviet system was inflexible and centralized, a flexible, 

decentralized, and ambiguous attacker could inflict “disorder and 

46 Miller interview.
WHERE DOES THE MARINE CORPS GO FROM HERE?

83

paralysis,” thus “leading to panic and a collapse of the Soviet opponent’s capacity and will to resist.”47

Enter John Boyd

Miller’s second article showed that by now he had come into direct contact with Boyd’s ideas, and they were shaping his own 

thoughts.48 Miller concluded the second article with an assertion 

that brought Boyd’s name out of the shadows and into the light of 

the Corps’ professional discourse. He observed that “the origin of 

maneuver doctrine is not recent. It was the basis for the successes 

of both Alexander [the Great] and Genghis Khan.” While certain 

modern authors had revisited this type of war, its best contemporary expression was “in the unpublished works of Col John Boyd, 

USAF (Ret.), father of the energy management approach to air 

combat tactics.”49 Only a few months later, William Lind—the 

vector by which Miller had encountered Boyd’s ideas—reiterated 

the centrality of Boyd to the maneuver concept. Lind stated that 

Boyd had “organized and expanded” ideas about maneuver warfare “into an overall theory of conflict.” Lind called it the “Boyd 

Theory” and unequivocally said that “the Boyd Theory is the theory of maneuver warfare.”50

READY FOR BOYD

The 1970s had closed with a discussion about what the Marine 

Corps was to do. The 1980s opened by adding a new thread to the 

argument about why the Corps should embrace maneuver warfare. The rationale came from maneuver proponents who noted 

that the Marine Corps was already tasked as a force in readiness, 

47 Capt Stephen W. Miller, “Winning through Maneuver: Part I—Countering the 

Offense,” Marine Corps Gazette 63, no. 10 (October 1979): 35–36. 48 Capt Stephen W. Miller, “Winning through Maneuver: Conclusion—Countering the Defense,” Marine Corps Gazette 63, no. 12 (December 1979): 57–63. 49 Miller, “Winning through Maneuver: Conclusion,” 63.

50 William S. Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 3 (March 1980): 56. See also William S. Lind, Maneuver 

Warfare Handbook (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 5, for a slightly expanded 

version of this perspective.
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84

and as such had to be flexible and adaptable to any threat. The 

Corps enjoyed physical flexibility and adaptability in its tailorable 

MAGTF. Maneuver warfare would give it the mental and moral 

flexibility to win in the human dimension, just as the MAGTF 

gave flexibility in the physical realm. And while it might seem 

strange that a discussion first characterized by arguments about 

equipment and venues for battle should suddenly shift to one characterized by the mental and moral aspects of war, it does not seem 

so strange when looked at in the larger context of an institution 

perennially driven by a desire to be useful. That Marines such as 

Miller and Williams turned in this direction indicates the seriousness of that desire, heightened by the sense that their institution 

had missed that mark in Vietnam. And the proffered solutions of 

tanks and terrain seemed to echo the same mistaken focus from 

that war. The American military had not lacked for vehicles or 

troops in Vietnam. It had applied overwhelming numbers of both 

to rack up body counts and control the ground in South Vietnam, 

though its efforts proved futile. What was missing in Vietnam, and 

in the debate that followed, was consideration of the enemy’s human aspects. 

If the Marine Corps could focus on those aspects as avenues 

for success in future wars, then arguments about tanks and terrain 

became far less relevant. Technology and battlespaces would vary 

tremendously from war to war, but the presence of a human adversary would not. Maneuver warfare offered a framework for understanding an adversary’s mind and will and how that mind and 

will could be subdued. Such a framework would prove useful in 

fights everywhere, because adversaries with minds and wills were 

everywhere. By 1980, as Miller’s articles showed, Marines thirsted 

for precisely that kind of concept. Boyd gave it to them. This book 

now turns to Boyd and the theories that the Marine Corps found 

so attractive.
85

CHAPTER FOUR

Unveiling the Character 

of Conflict

Boyd Builds a Theory

The 1970s ended with many Marines seeking answers to the questions of survival and conflict that confronted them after Vietnam. 

John Boyd was working out his own approach to these problems 

at about the same time. He did so by first building a new mental framework for analyzing how perception and decision making 

contributed to survival on an individual level; this became his essay, 

“Destruction and Creation.” Boyd then applied this framework to 

national survival in the face of military conflict in a presentation 

called “Patterns of Conflict.” As more Marines became familiar 

with Boyd’s presentation, they found its ideas answered their questions in the cohesive manner that they sought. 

“Destruction and Creation” did not enjoy the wide proliferation of “Patterns of Conflict,” but the ideas of the former laid 

the intellectual foundation of the latter work, and so it still had an 

influence on the Marine Corps. “Destruction and Creation” spoke 

to the Corps’ institutional character with its description of adaptation in service to survival when confronted with external change. 

Marines could appreciate this based on their own history in the 

face of inter-Service and political challenges to their existence. 

“Patterns of Conflict” then took that process of internal adaptation, flipped it, and turned it toward wrecking an external adver-
CHAPTER FOUR

86

sary’s ability to survive and adapt. Thus, the great gift of “Patterns 

of Conflict” to the Marine Corps was the conceptual framework 

of conflict called maneuver warfare. It was rooted in history and 

emphasized the mental and moral—that is, human—aspects of 

war that American leaders had, as Boyd and many Marines saw it, 

ignored in Vietnam. 

The historical evidence of Boyd’s ideas showed that maneuver warfare was not merely interesting on an intellectual or theoretical level but also that it was a concrete and lethally effective 

way for a military force to win. The human emphasis demanded 

that one understand the adversary’s mental and moral framework. In Vietnam, the American side had—despite notable exceptions like the Combined Action Platoons—largely dismissed 

this calculus, with its focus on searching physical terrain, destroying physical material, and indifference to whether such physical 

attrition mattered at all to the Communist side. The historical 

and human emphases combined to demonstrate that while the 

physical elements of war, such as terrain and technology, could 

vary greatly over time, the most successful military commanders 

won by mentally and morally “ungluing” their opponents. These 

successes came from common methods that repeatedly worked 

across the centuries precisely because they did not focus on defeating weapon systems, but instead focused on the one element 

present in every war in every age: the human will. In a world of 

opponents ranging from low-tech insurgents to modern morskaya 

pekhota (Soviet naval infantry), one begins to see why the Marine 

Corps—tasked by law to potentially face any or all such adversaries—became drawn to a conflict theory rooted in the universal humanity of the operators behind the weapon systems rather 

than the weapon systems themselves.

THE GREAT ACCIDENT

Boyd had not intended to spend his retirement developing theories of warfare; it was, by his own admission, “an accident.”1

 Yet, 

that is where his restless mind led him. Two key events catalyzed 

1 Boyd Air Force oral history, 123.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

87

the intellectual journey that ultimately coalesced in “Patterns of 

Conflict.” The key events were the flight tests of his YF-16 prototype fighter and his work with Pierre Sprey on the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt. These events covered the two realms 

Boyd explored in his presentation—the conceptual and the historTwo early-model Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support aircraft, ca. June 

1977. Boyd’s consultations with Pierre Sprey on the A-X project that developed the A-10 led 

Boyd down the path of historical research that became one of the cornerstones of “Patterns of 

Conflict.” 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
CHAPTER FOUR

88

ical—and the events themselves were important because their implications sparked his imagination and set him on a path to answer 

the questions that emerged. 

The fly-off between Boyd’s YF-16 fighter prototype and the 

YF-17 in early 1975 triggered his conceptual interest in fast transient maneuvers and tempo as factors in survival. The test pilots 

who participated in the fly-off unanimously declared the YF-16 

superior in almost all flight regimes. This contradicted the E-M 

calculations done on both aircraft prior to the flight tests, which 

predicted that the YF-17 should have performed better in certain 

flight envelopes. After talking to the test pilots, Boyd determined 

that the discrepancy resulted from thrust-to-weight design characteristics in the YF-16 that allowed it to shed and regain energy 

far more quickly than the YF-17.2

 Boyd labeled these traits fast 

transient maneuvers, and he found that they granted the YF-16 pilots 

quicker responsiveness and a faster operating tempo, repeatedly 

generating favorable mismatches against the less responsive YF17. The notion of mismatches contributing to one’s success and 

survival—of using agility and tempo to overwhelm an adversary’s 

perceptions and reactions, thus causing his perceived reality to diverge from actual reality—stuck with Boyd, and he revisited it in a 

study on air-to-air combat he completed for NASA in 1976.3

 Boyd 

considered an entirely new conceptual framework through which 

survival might be viewed.

Boyd’s collaboration with associate Pierre Sprey on the development of the A-10 close air support (CAS) aircraft sparked his 

exploration of history. The project was Sprey’s, with Sprey consulting Boyd on performance analysis, E-M Theory, and views on 

warfare in general. When designing the A-10, Sprey had to determine what aircraft features provided the firepower and loiter time 

required by ground forces, while also granting survivability against 

the enemy ground fire that would inevitably be directed against 

2

 Spinney, “Genghis John,” 45–46; and Coram, Boyd, 305–6. 3

 John R. Boyd, “New Conception for Air-to-Air Combat,” 4 August 1976, box 

3, folder 11, Col John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, Archives 

Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA; Osinga, Science, Strategy 

and War, 26–27; and Boyd Air Force oral history, 125–26.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

89

it.4 The German Wehrmacht had pioneered both the design and 

employment of dedicated CAS aircraft in World War II. Thus, 

Sprey and Boyd interviewed experts on and former members of 

the Wehrmacht, especially Hans Rudel, a Junkers Ju-87 dive bomber, or Stuka, pilot credited with more than 2,500 CAS missions 

and 500 kills against Soviet tanks.5

From this, the inquiring mind that had developed the Aerial 

Attack Study and E-M Theory again went into action. Sprey had focused on the aircraft and tactics that made German CAS missions 

successful. Building on that, Boyd, in his first year of retirement, 

broadened the scope to examine German tactics and strategy in 

World War II, and then worked his way back to the time of Sun 

Tzu as he studied history’s most successful military commanders.6

Initially, Boyd did not relish this journey; after it dawned on him 

that the results of these various tests and engineering projects might 

be expanded into the wider realm of military conflict, his first reaction was: “Oh, god [sic], I don’t want to do this. I will have to read 

history books and everything else.”7

 But his mind refused to leave 

the scintillating possibilities of this avenue unexplored. If something useful to his emerging concept of survival within conflict 

existed in the realm of history, then Boyd would study history back 

through its earliest chroniclers.

MOVING BEYOND THE PAST

To derive the most value from the questions raised by his engineering projects and historical research, Boyd knew that he must first 

flesh out his conceptual framework. He wanted a new framework 

because he believed that the uncritical adoption of older mental models deliberately deprived one of new data that could be 

4

 When applied to aviation, the term loiter refers to a phase of flight in which 

combat aircraft remain in the vicinity of a specific area or target. Loiter time is 

generally a function of the aircraft’s fuel capacity and weapons load.

5

 Hammond, The Mind of War, 121; Coram, Boyd, 235; Burton, Pentagon Wars, 

24–25; and Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 26. 6 Boyd Air Force oral history, 147–49; Hammond, The Mind of War, 121–22; and 

Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 26. 7 Boyd Air Force oral history, 126.
CHAPTER FOUR

90

useful to one’s decisions and actions. As he put it in his opening 

remarks in “Patterns of Conflict”: “For those people [who] use 

Clausewitz as the lens filter to look at the problem, you’re going 

to make a horrible mistake. . . . All you’ve told me is your thinking 

hasn’t proceeded beyond 1832, and a lot of things have happened 

since 1832.”8

 The same could be said of Antoine-Henri Jomini, 

Alfred Thayer Mahan, Giulio Douhet, B. H. Liddell Hart, or any 

number of other military thinkers through the ages. Boyd’s point 

was not that their ideas lacked merit; Boyd incorporated elements 

from many of them in his own concepts. But he believed that one 

must not halt one’s own thinking by deciding that Clausewitz or 

someone else had gotten military theory the most right, to the 

point where that thinker’s framework should shape all future theory. Because military history did not end at the time of On War’s 

publication, one’s thinking could not end there either. Clearly, significant changes in the character of armed conflict occurred since 

Clausewitz’s time. And, as Boyd noted, Clausewitz did not have 

all of his own ideas straightened out.9

 One’s mental framework 

needed to account for all this. To this end, Boyd built his own 

framework, incorporating all of the developments in the military, 

psychological, and scientific realms up through his own time.

Destroying and Creating New Foundations

Boyd’s initial energy went into developing his framework in “Destruction and Creation.” The pages of this short essay underlay all 

of his future work about the nature of war, and thus—arguably 

even more so than “Patterns of Conflict”—were where Boyd’s 

unique contribution to military studies resided. 

Underlying Boyd’s discussion in “Destruction and Creation” 

is the fundamental assumption that all human activity is shaped 

by the goal of ensuring survival on one’s own terms. Survival demands constant and repeated action. An action that supports the 

8

 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 3. Note that this 

source is in fact a recording of Boyd presenting “Patterns of Conflict.”

9

 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 2, 27–28; and tape 4, 

side 1, 114–15.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

91

goal of survival must be influenced by a proper decision. Such decisions are formed by constructing “mental concepts of observed 

reality,” and changing these concepts when reality is perceived to 

change. Boyd argued that these mental concepts were derived in 

two ways: general-to-specific (deductive) and specific-to-general 

(inductive). The essence of deduction is destructive, as it smashes 

one or more larger “domains” into smaller constituent elements. 

Induction is constructive; it finds the commonality among a multitude of free-floating elements and builds them into a new domain 

or concept.10

Using these methods, an observer could thereby change their 

perception of reality and then verify the internal consistency of 

this new perception and the degree to which it matched reality. 

Satisfied that their new concept was internally consistent and corresponded with what they were seeing, the observer would then 

focus inward to further refine the concept and merge it with reality. Here, Boyd argued, lay the potential for a dangerous divergence. This self-satisfaction tended to block out any “alternative 

ideas and interactions” that might “expand, complete, or modify 

the concept.” The mental block created by this inward refinement 

meant that a “mismatch” was created between “new observations 

and the anticipated concept description of these observations.”11

Obviously, a discrepancy between actual reality and perceived reality was detrimental to taking actions necessary to ensure one’s 

own survival.

To prove this decision-making concept, Boyd merged three 

concepts from the realms of mathematics and physics. The first 

came from Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel’s proof that the 

consistency of a system cannot be proved from within the system; 

one needed another system beyond it to do so. Boyd adapted the 

second concept from Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 

which held that the very presence of an observer introduced an 

element of uncertainty into the system being observed. This, as 

10 John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” in A Discourse on Winning and Losing

(Quantico, VA, 1987), 1–3, hereafter “Destruction and Creation.”

11 Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 4–8.
CHAPTER FOUR

92

Boyd noted, made it difficult to “determine the character or nature (consistency) of a system within itself.” The deeper an observer injected themselves into the observed system, the more erratic 

the behavior they would see, of which they were, in fact, the cause. 

The final concept came from the second law of thermodynamics: 

that all observed processes create entropy, a “low capacity for taking action or a high degree of confusion and disorder.”12 Entropy 

increased within closed systems. This made it impossible to determine the system’s consistency from within itself as it was always 

moving toward a higher state of confusion and disorder.

How did Boyd relate all of this to his decision-making concept? Per Gödel, one cannot determine the true nature of a system 

from within the system. Heisenberg and the second law of thermodynamics showed that any inward-directed attempt to do so only 

increased the uncertainty and disorder of that system, pushing it 

further away from the true nature of the reality observed. Thus, 

once an individual made a decision and chose an action, clinging 

to this decision and attempting to refine it without any additional 

external input would, over time, make that decision less and less 

suited to reality. That action would not contribute to survival and 

therefore be potentially self-destructive. The solution to this dilemma went back to Boyd’s initial destructive deduction and creative 

induction concept. The observer could never be satisfied that their 

most recent observation of reality was, in fact, final. They had to 

break it down again and again, using both the broken pieces from 

within the system and new observations outside of it to build an 

even newer perception.13 This never-ending decision-making process was the only way to ensure that an individual made survival 

choices with the most accurate perception of reality possible.

In “Destruction and Creation,” Boyd finally had the mental 

framework required to wrestle with the other ideas that had danced 

about in his mind for years. “Destruction and Creation” gave his 

ideas a foundation: “All of a sudden everything I had done before 

12 Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 8–13. 

13 Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 13–15.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

93

jelled into this kind of thing.”14 Boyd turned that “thing” into a 

presentation covering the history of war and national survival laid 

out over the framework of “Destruction and Creation,” which he 

named “Patterns of Conflict.”

Finding Patterns of Conflict

In developing this presentation, Boyd first went back to lessons 

learned from the YF-16 fly-off; namely, that there was something 

uniquely advantageous in having “a fighter that could both lose 

and gain energy more quickly [while out]-turning an adversary.”15 Boyd had termed this rapid energy shift a fast transient. 

The fast transient gave its user an edge in the realm of timing 

or tempo, suggesting that “to win or gain superiority, we should 

operate at a faster tempo than our adversaries, or if you want to 

put it in another way . . . get inside our adversary’s observationdecision-action time scales.”16 Previously, Boyd had looked at this 

as simply a mechanical phenomenon in an aircraft. “Destruction 

14 Boyd Air Force oral history, 127. 15 Boyd Air Force oral history, 129.

16 Boyd Air Force oral history, 132.

Boyd and the Uncertainty Principle

An early incarnation of the Uncertainty Principle appeared in a 1927 paper 

by Werner Heisenberg, entitled “On the Perceptual Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics.” Heisenberg was a German physicist working 

with a Danish colleague, Niels Bohr, at his institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, 

at the time. It is unclear when Boyd first came across the ideas of Kurt Gödel 

and Heisenberg; they may have comprised part of his intensive reading program following his retirement from the Air Force. In his earliest oral history, Boyd 

mentioned taking thermodynamics classes during his last two academic quarters 

while enrolled at Georgia Tech as part of the AFIT program and said he “had a 

good feel for the subject.” This was likely the first time he studied the subject indepth, though as his high school transcript indicates a course in physics, he was 

probably introduced to it as a teenager.

Source: Boyd, “Interview #859,” 2–3; and Boyd official military records. For more on 

Gödel’s proof, see Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, Gödel’s Proof, rev. ed., ed. Douglas 

R. Hofstadter (New York: New York University Press, 2001).
CHAPTER FOUR

94

and Creation” pushed him to view the phenomenon from the 

other extreme—the purely conceptual. Boyd now looked at a way 

to apply it at a practical level, between the purely mechanical and 

conceptual.

With a new mental framework in hand, Boyd saw that the 

pilot’s exploitation of the mechanical energy shift in a fighter aircraft was simply an example of the perceptual decision-making 

activity of “Destruction and Creation.” The true advantage lay 

not in the characteristics of the weapon system, but in understanding the mental framework; understanding that both oneself and 

one’s adversary used said framework, even unconsciously, to make 

decisions; and using that knowledge to find ways to degrade the 

adversary’s framework while enhancing one’s own. This was particularly effective if the adversary already suffered a poor or incomplete comprehension of the framework compared to oneself.

Knowing this, one acted against an opponent to degrade their 

perception of a conflict scenario, with their subsequent actions 

and reactions becoming more and more divergent from reality—

precisely the dilemma presented in “Destruction and Creation.” 

Boyd stated the net result: “I am going to tend to become a bit uncertain because your actions appear ambiguous to me. I become a 

little uncertain and pretty soon I am confused, disordered, and going into a panic situation. You have unraveled me, and that is what 

you wanted to do.” Success was measured by a confused and disoriented opponent saying, “What happened?”17 Boyd found this 

to be in line with his conclusions drawn from Gödel, Heisenberg, 

and the second law of thermodynamics.18 As an engineer, Boyd 

knew that proving an idea required running tests and collecting 

evidence. But his study of history told him “that those tests have 

been run”; the evidence had already been collected in a millennia’s worth of recorded history.19 It simply required examination 

in the context of his new concept.

17 Boyd Air Force oral history, 134–35.

18 Boyd Air Force oral history, 139.

19 Boyd Air Force oral history, 139.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

95

Past Proof

Boyd reviewed the historical evidence and found the results 

startling. His work with the A-10 had familiarized him with the 

German blitzkrieg; he now returned to it through the lens of 

his concept. In “the very first history book I picked up,” which 

concerned the French experience in 1940, Boyd read that the 

French Army facing the blitzkrieg became “uncertain, confused, 

disordered—almost like I had said it, I felt like I had written the 

goddamn passage.”20 Unfortunately, Boyd did not give the title or 

author of this “very first history book” on the German conquest 

of France in World War II. At the time of Boyd’s oral history 

interview, however, an extensive historiography existed on the subject. John Cairns provided a detailed survey of the works extant 

only a few years prior to Boyd’s interview, and it is possible the 

book Boyd read is somewhere on Cairns’s list.21

The most recent detailed analysis of the French reaction to 

German tactics is by historian Julian Jackson. In his book, The 

Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940, Jackson both explained the 

weaknesses in the historiography available to military historians 

in Boyd’s time and supported Boyd’s interpretations. Jackson described the mental shock inflicted on the French that so impressed 

Boyd and that has been a standard explanation for the rapid collapse of the French Army in 1940. Jackson quoted French soldiers 

who acknowledged that they “had lost the operational initiative”; 

they never recovered it, and so they felt like they were “moving 

in a kind of fog.” French surprise at the unexpected locations of 

the Wehrmacht’s thrusts—bypassing French fortifications along the 

Maginot Line and sending armor through the supposedly impassable Ardennes forest—was compounded by mental unpreparedness for the style of war the Germans used.22

In the interwar years, the Germans experimented with new 

20 Boyd Air Force oral history, 140.

21 John C. Cairns, “Some Recent Historians and the ‘Strange Defeat’ of 1940,” 

Journal of Modern History 46, no. 1 (March 1974): 60–85. 22 Julian Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2003), 219–27.
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ways to fight the next war; the French, on the other hand, tried 

to perfect the tactics of static lines from the previous war. One 

sees the parallel between the two mental systems Boyd described 

in “Destruction and Creation”: the closed system, with the selfsatisfaction that it was good enough and so only looked at how 

to further refine it; and the open system, receptive to new information that could improve its survivability. French doctrine focused on methodical warfare, using a highly centralized command 

structure to maintain sufficient control over what had become, 

by 1940, an amateur army of conscripts and reservists leavened 

only by a small cadre of professional soldiers. This meant that the 

officers charged with making key decisions were behind the front 

in static command posts, awaiting enough information about the 

big picture to properly maneuver their inexperienced troops. This 

situation stood in stark contrast to German doctrine, whereby senior leaders were regularly at the front, empowered to take the 

initiative and make key decisions on their own without seeking 

permission from higher up the chain of command. French leaders also had not absorbed the implications of improved mobility 

since World War I; they believed that the initial German advances, rapid though they were, would soon bog down due to fatigue 

and logistical problems, affording the French enough time to react. Overall, this methodical mind-set was badly shaken when 

the invading Wehrmacht refused to act with equal deliberateness, 

and as the Germans kept the pressure on, the French never recovered. This was summed up in the description of one French 

general’s reaction: “He gave . . . the impression of a man whose 

brain had ceased to function . . . the blows that had fallen on 

us in quick succession had left him ‘punch drunk’ and unable 

to register events.”23 The Germans, however, operated smoothly 

and rhythmically, pushing the French where the pressure would 

most likely cause them to collapse. The Germans understood the 

framework; the French did not. 

Next, Boyd looked to his own experience as an F-86 pilot and 

aircraft designer. The F-86 had regularly outperformed its MiG23 Jackson, The Fall of France, 219–27. 
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

97

15 counterpart; now, Boyd better understood why. The F-86 had a 

bubble canopy and superior window heating system, which granted its pilot a greater ability to observe external conditions. It also 

had a hydraulically powered flight control system, which allowed 

the pilot to transition more quickly from one maneuver to another. 

Boyd noted that this transition and his fast transients were clearly 

related.24 Finally, Boyd examined the 1976 Israeli hostage rescue 

at Entebbe airport in Uganda, Africa. The Israeli operation was 

conducted so rapidly from start to finish—“they were in, they were 

out”—that the only response then-President Idi Amin and his soldiers could muster was to wonder, “What happened?”25

The further back Boyd traveled through history, the more 

he found “a whole body of evidence that supports this idea that 

I am talking about, of getting inside the other guy’s observationdecision-action time scales.”26 But nobody had examined this 

evidence the way Boyd did; that is, in the context of the lessons 

gleaned from “Destruction and Creation.” Boyd applied these lessons and concluded that “knowing and having this information 

plus . . . the idea of fast transients or faster tempo, together with 

the synthesis here, associated with Gödel, Heisenberg, the Second 

Law . . . suggest[s] a new conception . . . for waging war.”27 Here 

was the core of Boyd’s new conception:

Generate a rapidly changing environment, quick clear 

observations, fast tempo, fast transient, quick kill; or you 

can turn it around the other way, to inhibit an adversary’s 

capacity to adapt to such environment [sic] . . . suppress 

or distort his observation by suppressing or distorting your 

signatures. . . . Always try to remain somewhat inconspicuous, at least more inconspicuous than he is . . . unstructure [sic] your adversary’s system into a hodge-podge of 

24 Boyd Air Force oral history, 142; and Spinney, “Genghis John,” 46.

25 Boyd Air Force oral history, 143–44. A detailed history of the Entebbe raid 

can be found in Saul David, Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe 

Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History (New York: Little, Brown, 

2015).

26 Boyd Air Force oral history, 144.

27 Boyd Air Force oral history, 145–46.
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confusion and disorder [thus] causing him to . . . under- or 

overreact to your activity, which appears uncertain, ambiguous, and chaotic to him.28

With his mental framework and historical study, Boyd now 

had a how for thinking about war. But “Destruction and Creation” 

demanded that Boyd ask himself a fundamental question that 

necessarily preceded the how; that is, “Why do you even have a 

war?”29 To properly construct the answer to how, he needed to 

deconstruct the complexity behind why.

In “Destruction and Creation,” Boyd had already introduced 

the assumption that human activity was shaped by the goal of ensuring survival on one’s own terms and had examined this on an 

individual level. But, of course, there were many other individuals 

in the world with this same goal, and therein lay the potential for 

conflict, or to use another word, war. As he explained it in his oral 

history, “It is this drive for survival on our own terms—to improve 

our capacity for independent action with limited resources; and 

when you improve your capacity for independent action and deny 

somebody else’s, there are arguments. If the arguments get violent 

enough, there is clubbed warfare.” This was an old story, reaching back through two world wars, centuries of European conflict, 

the Mongol conquests, and past the eras of the ancient Romans 

and Greeks to the time of Sun Tzu. Boyd took the old tale and 

retold it through the lens of his new mental framework to derive 

the most useful common lessons. And that was the purpose of his 

presentation, “Patterns of Conflict.” The need to survive as a nation when in competition with other nations raised questions that 

he wanted to ask and answer: “How do we realize such a goal by 

waging war?” and “Does history give any insight or suggest any 

useful patterns?”30

28 Boyd Air Force oral history, 145–46.

29 Boyd Air Force oral history, 149.

30 Boyd Air Force oral history, 149–50.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

99

Presenting “Patterns of Conflict”

Understanding both the how and the why, Boyd now laid out his 

synthesis of the conceptual and the historical in a slide-based lecture. The first few iterations—or warps, as Boyd termed each revision in deference to his children’s love of Star Trek—he kept to 

himself and a few friends at the Pentagon. In 1976, Boyd presented his first public version of “Patterns of Conflict,” nicknamed 

“WARP-4,” at the United States Air Force Academy, and still 

was “not even too happy with it.”31 But he continued to refine 

it, and these later warps were the ones that spread his influence 

throughout the Marine Corps.32 From 1976 onward, he delivered 

this lecture hundreds of times to a wide variety of audiences and 

repeatedly revised it until just before his death. This is no exaggeration. His monthly planners dated 1980–84 tell the story: he 

delivered “Patterns of Conflict” 37 times in 1980 and 54 times in 

1981. After 1982, he shifted to briefing “Organic Design for Command and Control” more often, or combined it with “Patterns of 

Conflict.” He presented one or both 62 times in 1982, 54 times in 

1983, and 25 times in 1984. This was in addition to a very robust 

speaking and meeting schedule each year.33

Life before PowerPoint

Before examining the content of “Patterns of Conflict,” the experience of being briefed by Boyd deserves comment. In a modern era 

when the military briefing has become synonymous with a PowerPoint presentation (a.k.a. “death by PowerPoint” when in the hands 

of a less-skilled presenter), it becomes difficult to envision an hourslong presentation lacking a computer screen. Yet, this is precisely 

31 Boyd Air Force oral history, 127–28.

32 Damian, “The Road to FMFM 1,” 35. As discussed in chapter 3, proponents 

of an amorphous maneuver concept existed before Boyd’s ideas were promulgated. As Damian points out here, and as is discussed later, when maneuverists 

sought details to flesh out their concept, they went to Boyd and “Patterns of 

Conflict.”

33 Coram, Boyd, 384, 431. Boyd’s monthly planners also show when many of the 

key figures who will be discussed in later chapters received his brief of “Patterns 

of Conflict.” See box 22, Col John R. Boyd Papers, Personal Papers Collection, 

Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA. 
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Did Boyd Influence the Army?

Beyond demonstrating the time Boyd spent with his Marine and civilian audiences, Boyd’s calendars also show that he met with several of the U.S. Army officers 

who sought to reform their own Service. For instance, he briefed General Donn 

A. Starry, then head of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, in February 1981. Lieutenant Colonel Huba Wass de Czege, selected by Starry to revise 

the Army’s own capstone doctrine, got a brief from Boyd in November 1982. 

Additionally, Boyd’s calendars show that from 1980 to 1983, he presented his lectures to the Army War College, Army Command and General Staff College, and 

U.S. Military Academy at West Point. However, there exists a separate debate 

about to what degree, if any, Boyd’s ideas influenced the Army’s development of 

AirLand Battle doctrine, which has been held up as another version of maneuver warfare. Long-time Boyd devotee James Burton accused the Army of directly copying Boyd’s work without attribution. While it is demonstrably true that 

some Army reformers heard Boyd’s presentation, and that Boyd briefed at Army 

schools as part of his yearly speaking schedule, the links between Boyd and the 

AirLand Battle doctrine are far murkier. Air Force major Todd Larsen analyzed 

the literature on the subject and concluded that Boyd’s presentations to Army officers were under the rubric of a larger reform dialogue already underway within that Service. While other historiography offers tantalizing potential evidence 

of Boyd’s influence—such as the sudden introduction of German concepts like 

schwerpunkt (main effort) into AirLand Battle’s language, or an evolutionary sketch 

of maneuver warfare that virtually mirrors the historical synthesis in the first part 

of “Patterns of Conflict”—Boyd was certainly not involved in the development 

of AirLand Battle to the same extent he influenced Warfighting. Moreover, there 

were far fewer Army officers who acknowledged Boyd as an influence, and the 

institutional Army never made a public claim on Boyd’s contribution, as the Marine Corps did after Boyd’s death. Nonetheless, Boyd’s engagement of officers 

across the Services was a further example of his own desire to flesh out his ideas 

by sharpening them against the minds of as many people as possible, and his free 

willingness to share his thoughts with any interested stakeholders.

Source: Burton, Pentagon Wars, 51–54; Operations, FM 100-5; Maj Todd M. Larsen, USAF, 

John Boyd and the AirLand Battle Doctrine (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 2012); John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army Doctrine, 1973–1982 (Fort Monroe, VA: Historical Office, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1984); Douglas W. Skinner, Airland Battle Doctrine (Alexandria, 

VA: CNA, 1988); and Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver-Warfare Theory and 

AirLand Battle (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1991).

how Boyd delivered his lecture. Indeed, perhaps performed is a better 

description, as Boyd fired out his material with all the movement 

and energy of an actor on stage. He anchored “Patterns of Conflict” on a stack of 200 slides, each of which was typed onto a plastic 
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

101

transparency sheet. A transparency projector displayed the material 

on a screen behind him; part of the brief ’s frenetic nature came 

from Boyd’s constant movement to and from the projector, shuffling and changing transparencies, frequently with barely enough 

time for the audience to read one slide before he replaced it with 

the next. Boyd had no interest in simply letting his audience read 

the slides or showing a slide and then reading its contents verbatim 

back to the audience in the death-by-PowerPoint style of modern 

briefings. As often as not, the slides were a point of departure for 

discussion. Sometimes the discussion focused on the slide, but it frequently sidetracked on tangents that Boyd allowed if his audience 

seemed interested or that he generated himself. 

The slides also were only part of the content Boyd delivered; 

most of “Patterns of Conflict” came from talking points that Boyd 

carried in his head and never wrote down. This likely proved 

problematic for diligent notetakers in his audience, as Boyd talked 

through his material very rapidly, often interrupting himself many 

times in the same thought to explore new ideas as they came to 

him or to answer audience questions. “Patterns of Conflict” was 

no university hall lecture, with quiet students packed into a room 

to be placidly fed by a professor behind a podium; Boyd expected and encouraged continuous audience engagement. Some slides 

consisted of one or two questions that Boyd forced the audience to 

openly answer and discuss before moving on to the next. He would 

also immediately pause in his prepared delivery to answer audience 

questions, which he did thoroughly and with complete disregard for 

Boyd’s Brief on YouTube

While Boyd presented his briefs in the predigital age, there are still resources 

available for those seeking a taste of what it was like to be there. Former Marine tank officer Captain Daniel R. Grazier has done a great service by posting 

a series of video clips on YouTube from an undated presentation of “Patterns 

of Conflict” to an apparently civilian audience. Grazier has integrated digital 

versions of Boyd’s slides with the video clips, as the actual slides are not readable 

due to poor video quality.

Source: John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” YouTube video playlist, posted by Daniel R. 

Grazier, 7 December 2015.
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the overall timing of his presentation. This partly explains why his 

briefs sometimes took more than 10 hours, across multiple days, to 

deliver in full; certainly a stark contrast to modern military education programs experienced by Marines today. Boyd also briefed the 

same way that he argued with coworkers at the Pentagon or talked 

on the phone—loudly, gesticulating energetically with his hands 

and arms, and interjecting a hefty dose of profanity as his oral history has already illustrated. All told, Boyd’s delivery and audience 

interactions, as much as his slides, were what left their impression 

on those who experienced “Patterns of Conflict” in person. And 

this may explain the difficulty for people today, having only Boyd’s 

essay and slides to examine, in understanding Boyd’s outsized influence on the Marine Corps at the time.34

EXPLAINING THE NEW CONCEPTION

The period immediately following the writing of “Destruction 

and Creation” was Boyd’s most dynamic in his exploration of 

conflict. From the slides and audiotapes, one sees the output of 

this dynamism captured under the umbrella of “Patterns of Conflict.” Here, Boyd viewed warfare as a struggle for survival writ 

large. “Patterns of Conflict” surveyed concrete historical examples 

wherein the concept of “Destruction and Creation” was successfully used. From these examples, one could “make manifest the 

nature of the Moral-Mental-Physical Conflict; . . . discern a Pattern 

for Successful Operations; . . . help generalize Tactics and Strategy; . . . 

find a basis for Grand Strategy” and ultimately “unveil the character 

of conflict, survival, and conquest.”35 Though “Destruction and 

Creation” is not explicitly cited in the presentation, its influence 

is clear from Boyd’s opening comment that the goal of humans is 

34 The Archives Branch of Marine Corps History Division holds a complete audio recording of a brief presented to a primarily Marine Corps audience in 1989, 

as mentioned in chapter 1. This author completed a written transcript of the 

1989 audio recording with slide annotations to partially remedy the complaint 

that Boyd never wrote anything down and aid in following the audio, which is of 

generally poor quality. This transcript is also available from the Archives Branch 

and Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

35 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 2, emphasis in original.
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103

to “survive, survive on [our] own terms, or improve our capacity 

for independent action.”36 Because war was the greatest survival 

struggle of all, it required decisions and actions from both the individual and the group. As stated above, Boyd saw history as the 

laboratory for his ideas, and wars and battles as his test data. In 

this way, he took his audience through many historical examples of 

war and different methods for making decisions and taking action. 

Beginning with Sun Tzu, he surveyed ancient times through Greek 

and Roman conflicts; the Mongol invasion and pre-Napoleonic 

European battles; Napoleon and his two most famous interpreters, Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini; and detoured 

briefly into the clash between nineteenth-century economic systems. Eventually returning to conventional warfare in World Wars 

I and II, he ended the survey with contemporary guerrilla conflicts 

before extrapolating the elements of success common to each of 

these eras.37

Unconventional Lessons

Noting that the blitz/guerrilla style of war appeared to garner 

the greatest success throughout history, he outlined some common 

characteristics.38 These characteristics aligned with Boyd’s new 

conception derived from “Destruction and Creation” in attacking what he saw as the key to survival—the mental framework for 

perception and decision making—and not unnecessarily wasting 

energy, lives, and materiel attacking the opponent physically, in 

the blind pursuit of conventional battle. The blitz/guerrilla style 

avoided pitched battle, striking instead at those things that gave 

an enemy cohesion. The friendly force repeatedly used ambiguity, 

mobility, and violence to generate surprise and shock. Finally, it 

mopped up the enemy fragments isolated by shock and lack of cohesion. By the end, an adversary would be paralyzed and collapse. 

36 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 10. In the audio recording, Boyd very briefly 

mentions the influence of Gödel, Heisenberg, and the second law of thermodynamics on his thinking, but “Destruction and Creation” is not referred to by 

name; see Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 2, 18.

37 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 10–97.

38 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 98.
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Boyd used these lessons as building blocks for the next segment of 

the presentation, which elaborated on this style of war and gave it 

a name (see appendix A).39

Successful blitzers and guerrillas practiced what Boyd characterized as maneuver conflict, and a comparison showed the similarities between the two. In maneuver conflict, one generated and 

used ambiguity, deception, novelty, fast transient maneuvers, and 

focused thrusts to severely degrade an adversary’s ability to act coherently. Boyd explained further that the aim of maneuver conflict 

was to “generate many non-cooperative centers of gravity, as well 

as disorient, disrupt, or overload those that the adversary depends 

upon, in order to magnify friction, shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about his collapse; or equivalently, uncover, create, and exploit many vulnerabilities and weaknesses, hence many 

opportunities, to pull [the] adversary apart and isolate remnants 

for mop-up or absorption.”40 The efficacy of maneuver conflict 

was borne out in the laboratory of history, tied as it was to long 

strings of both blitzkrieg and guerrilla victories.41

Fingerspitzengefühl and the Glue

At first glance, these ideas apparently required an unnatural degree of prescience and internal cohesion on the friendly side. To 

operate in this amorphous manner, one’s own force had to quickly 

identify key enemy vulnerabilities, rapidly exploit them, and break 

apart enemy cohesion without discombobulating its own soldiers 

in the process. German military tradition had a label for the key 

enabler of this style of war: fingerspitzengefühl, which literally meant 

“finger-tip feeling.”42 This was an intuitive ability to look at a given 

situation, immediately grasp the essentials, and rapidly act. A few 

39 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 101.

40 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 117.

41 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 89, 97. While some critics would later argue 

that Boyd’s lists were highly selective in their twentieth-century focus, Boyd also 

showed that blitzkrieg was really the conceptual culmination of trends going 

back millennia, which he had already covered in the first half of his presentation. 

See Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 84.

42 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 15.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

105

rare individuals enjoyed fingerspitzengefühl as a natural gift, yet it 

could be developed in most people by giving them constant and 

repeated hands-on experience under a variety of conditions to 

build a repertoire of responses and, just as importantly, inculcate 

decision making and action as a habit. Boyd appreciated this German concept because, as chapter 1 showed, he had already spent 

most of his life living it. From flight school to the Aerial Attack Study, 

from the YF-16 fly-off to his time in Nakhon Phanom, he had 

cultivated in himself a predilection for variety and bias for action. 

Fingerspitzengefühl simply gave his habit a name. Throughout 

“Patterns of Conflict,” Boyd hammered on the need for warriors 

to use fingerspitzengefühl to be “adaptable and unpredictable . . . 

because the moment you start becoming rigid or non-adaptable 

and predictable, you know the game’s over.”43

The friendly force required a glue to maintain its own cohesion while simultaneously disorienting its enemy. This glue was a 

deceptively simple but essential element: trust. Trust, between both 

superior and subordinate and laterally between different units, derived naturally from the process of building fingerspitzengefühl 

in the first place. Both individuals and units developed this sense 

by being exposed to a repertoire of experiences in training.44 In 

due course, leaders could observe the strengths and weaknesses 

of individual and unit fingerspitzengefühl and use that knowledge 

to build and direct their teams in a way that made individual and 

collective abilities complement one another.45 The result of this 

process was an organization trained to achieve the objectives given 

to them by their leaders, but free to do so using the experience of 

individual and unit fingerspitzengefühl to decide the best means 

of going about it based on the circumstances. Consequently, those 

fighting did so with the knowledge that their leaders, having observed them individually and collectively, would not entrust them 

with a task beyond their own capabilities. As Boyd said, “you not 

43 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 15; tape 2, side 1, 

47; tape 2, side 2, 54–58, 60; tape 3, side 2, 94–95, 106, 110; tape 4, side 2, 130, 

140; and tape 5, side 2, 168–71.

44 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 2, 54–58.

45 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 15.
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only want to have individual fingerspitzengefühl, in a sense you 

want to have organizational fingerspitzengefühl.”46 Done properly, 

one’s organization thus developed a “whole organic philosophy, 

so you can operate as a family . . . you really want to operate like 

a family, and you’re a very large family . . . the whole family’s got 

the fingerspitzengefühl.”47 As members of a family can predict or 

sense how other family members will react in various situations, 

fingerspitzengefühl and trust allowed implicit communication and 

understanding in the absence of written or verbal orders. When 

these practices were employed by a friendly force, they disrupted 

an adversary’s responsiveness as they attempted to process apparently concurrent yet disjointed threats. But thanks to the peacetime 

development of fingerspitzengefühl and trust between leader and 

subordinate on the friendly side, the disjointed actions all aimed 

toward the common end state desired by the overall commander. 

It is worth noting here the extent to which Boyd discussed 

guerrilla conflict. Later critics often argued that Boyd’s theories 

were not applicable beyond the realm of air-to-air or conventional 

ground combat. Anyone who sat through the brief or examined 

the slides could see this was flatly untrue. In fact, Boyd argued that 

guerrilla war, with its focus on the populace upon whose support 

both the military and government depended, was a more total 

form of warfare than the blitzkrieg that became synonymous with 

46 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 2, 94.

47 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 140.

Terminology

Terms such as unconventional war, insurgency, irregular warfare, low-intensity war, and 

asymmetric war are more common in the twenty-first century, but for the American 

warrior schooled in the jungles of Vietnam, the term guerrilla had a particular 

resonance. As historian Max Boot points out, however, there is not one definition 

of guerrilla—a term blurred by the modern terrorist, for example—and this ambiguity applies to the other terms above as well.

Source: Max Boot, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the 

Present (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013), xxi–xxii.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

107

“total war” in the twentieth century.48 Boyd analyzed several insurgencies to demonstrate that his conflict theories applied to all 

types of war.49 This was one more reason why Boyd appealed to 

the maneuver warfare movement.

THE ENDGAME

Boyd’s wrap-up tied the threads of “Destruction and Creation” 

and “Patterns of Conflict” together. In war, the game was to generate multiple thrusts and mismatches—some real, some false—

directed against the moral and mental bonds that allowed the 

enemy to act as a cohesive whole. Severing, or at least degrading, 

those bonds would reduce an enemy to discordant, uncooperative elements, induce paralysis, and “collapse his will to resist.”

One accomplished this by getting “inside [the] adversary observation-orientation-decision-action loops (at all levels) by being subtler, more indistinct, more irregular, and quicker—yet appear to 

be otherwise” (see slide 175 in appendix A).50 Here again was the 

new conception, the culmination of the threads of Boyd’s theories. 

In “Destruction and Creation,” Boyd warned of the danger inherent in a mismatch between perception and reality. In war, the goal 

was to create precisely such a mismatch for the enemy. One had 

to prevent the enemy from gleaning the benefit of the continuous 

destructive/creative decision-making cycle. The adversary’s focus 

had to be kept inward on a deteriorating observed system that was 

increasingly disconnected from actual reality. Their decisions and 

actions would be less and less useful to their own survival, until 

the entire system finally collapsed and they were rendered incapable of any decision or activity.51 War should target an enemy’s 

decision-making system; maneuver conflict provided the mental 

framework for analyzing how best to attack that system.

Maneuver conflict did not require a specific technology, timeframe, or battlespace, but rather a relentless focus on tearing apart 

48 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 1, 86; and tape 4, side 

1, 127.

49 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 64–65, 69, 90–97, 107–8.

50 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 175.

51 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 141.
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an adversary’s ability to do those things necessary for their own cohesion and survival. That Boyd considered things like terrain and 

technology almost irrelevant when compared with the mentalmoral focus on the adversary cannot be overemphasized; indeed, 

he hit that point at the very beginning of his presentation and 

repeated it throughout: “Terrain does not fight wars. Machines 

don’t fight wars. People do it and they use their minds. So you better understand the people, because if you don’t understand them, 

you ain’t gonna make it, period.” Concerning war’s physical elements, Boyd added that “terrain is just the means through which 

you operate. The machines are just tools that you use.”52 The only 

objective that mattered was the enemy’s mind.

One example Boyd provided of using terrain as a medium 

for mentally unhinging an enemy, and not simply as a military 

objective in itself, came from Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s 

“Donetz counterstroke” against the Soviet Red Army in World 

War II. Manstein deliberately took a “long step backward,” giving 

up large swathes of territory to make the Soviets overconfident 

and overextended.53 When Manstein finally counterattacked, the 

surprise caused complete mental and moral disorientation on the 

part of the Russians, netting Manstein all the territory he had 

voluntarily surrendered and, more important, large numbers of 

Russian prisoners.54 For a Marine Corps that would rarely enjoy 

a preponderance of forces and thus the ability to control wide 

swathes of terrain, this mentally focused perspective showed that 

a smaller force, properly oriented, could still be highly lethal and 

victorious.

Boyd demonstrated throughout “Patterns of Conflict” that 

this mental attitude—and not bigger cannons, faster jets, or 

hordes of soldiers—had enabled the successes of history’s greatest commanders, often when those commanders faced adversaries 

52 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 3. Boyd repeats this 

point at tape 1, side 1, 16–17; tape 3, side 1, 82; tape 4, side 2, 134; and tape 5, 

side 1, 151.

53 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 1, 81.

54 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 1, 81–82; and tape 5, 

side 2, 165–66. 
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

109

who enjoyed significant physical and materiel advantages. The test 

data from millennia of human conflict, tried in history’s laboratory, bore Boyd out. This same focus made his ideas attractive to a 

Marine Corps that would rarely enjoy purely physical dominance, 

and thus needed something more than a magic bullet with which 

to win on the future battlefield.

FRICTION POINTS

Before assessing the impact of Boyd’s works on the Corps, there 

are two areas that deserve further commentary, as they became 

friction points for the maneuver warfare movement later on. Boyd 

had a complex interpretation of conflict, and his nuances were 

not always appreciated by his proponents, let alone his critics. The 

friction was not just because Boyd and his critics disagreed but 

because his ideas were often interpreted by friends who missed 

his deeper points or simplified them too much, especially as they 

concerned attrition and the OODA loop. 

The American Way of War

The first friction point centered on a general misunderstanding of 

the relationship of an even higher level of warfare—which Boyd 

called moral conflict—to the overall argument presented in “Patterns of Conflict.” It is important to note here that Boyd did not 

define moral in the strictly ethical sense of right and wrong. By his 

own admission, he did not actually define it at all in “Patterns 

of Conflict,” but did in one of his shorter presentations called 

“The Strategic Game of ? and ?.”55 In “The Strategic Game,” 

Boyd defined the moral realm as “the cultural codes of conduct 

or standards of behavior that constrain, as well as sustain and focus, our emotional/intellectual responses.”56 However, despite the 

absence of a working definition in “Patterns of Conflict,” Boyd 

offered many different examples of the moral realm’s characteristics in the presentation. Moral strength was the “mental capacity 

55 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 137.

56 John R. Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? and ?,” in A Discourse on Winning and 

Losing (Quantico, VA: August 1987), 35, hereafter “The Strategic Game.”
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to overcome menace, uncertainty, and mistrust.”57 He saw moral 

victory as “the triumph of courage, confidence, and esprit over fear, 

anxiety, and alienation, when confronted by menace, uncertainty, 

and mistrust.”58 Moral elements were those things that permitted individuals to operate harmoniously as groups, organizations, 

or societies. Consequently, Boyd characterized moral conflict as 

a style of warfare that sought to deliberately fray or sever those 

bonds in a way that reduced an opponent to a chaotic assortment 

of frightened, mistrustful, and isolated individuals. 

As chapter 5 will show, the maneuver warfare debate was often reduced to a binary choice between attrition and maneuver. 

Maneuver proponents argued that, up through Vietnam, an attritionist philosophy characterized the American “way of war”: the 

United States preferred to build up massive military strength to 

throw against an opponent, with the goal of causing more materiel damage to them than to American forces. Maneuver warfare 

mitigated the cost of this exchange in blood and treasure, especially as materiel advantage was no longer a given. While Boyd never 

explicitly claimed that American warfare was attritionist—indeed, 

he gave several examples of American commanders skilled in maneuver conflict—he did believe that the United States generally 

measured victory in physical terms, such as quantities of materiel 

produced or number of battles won.59

While the Marine Corps had its own practical reasons for 

seeking a nontechnological advantage, Boyd determined that, on 

the whole, technology had replaced thinking in the American way 

of war. From his research, he identified unique trends in the military focus of various nations. Boyd found that historically, the British excelled at the strategic level of winning wars; the Germans 

were superior at the operational and tactical level of winning battles; and the Russians’ only real strength in war came from a large 

population that was used as cannon fodder. For Boyd, America’s 

57 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 138.

58 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 138.

59 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 111.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

111

great contribution through much of modern history was providing 

“widgets, gadgets,” but after World War II this materiel emphasis 

no longer guaranteed dominance.60

The situation had changed after the Second World War. In 

Vietnam, Boyd believed that American leadership’s myopic materiel fixation blinded its understanding of what was needed to 

win that war. The American focus was entirely physical, searching for and physically destroying Communist forces with physical 

firepower on solid ground. America’s obsession with conventional 

means in an unconventional war ignored the fact that North Vietnamese leaders also fought, and ultimately won, a battle of ideals 

and public opinion. This was an asymmetric battle on a mentalmoral plane that the United States entirely conceded to the Communists. As a result, while some Americans could claim that the 

United States won all the physical battles, it lost the moral battle 

on the home front; and that was the only battle that mattered.61

Interestingly, Boyd left no evidence that he was familiar with 

the chief work that posited a uniquely American way of war, written by Russell Weigley. Weigley’s American Way of War does not 

appear in the source list at the end of “Patterns of Conflict” or 

in the appendix of Burton’s The Pentagon Wars, which details the 

reading list of Boyd’s acolytes. Boyd’s personal paper collection 

at the Marine Corps History Division’s Archives Branch contains 

hundreds of books that he studied and annotated; Weigley’s is not 

among them. But it seems likely that Boyd would not have disputed its thesis, which was that the history of American combat 

arms began with a strategy of attrition. It is important to note that 

Weigley’s definition of attrition was not that of the later attrition 

versus maneuver debate, which defined it as the application of 

strength against strength with the goal of inflicting high materiel 

damage on an enemy. Rather, Weigley’s attrition was the strategy 

of the weak or the guerrilla, which characterized the American 

60 Boyd Air Force oral history, 234–36.

61 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 1, 43; tape 3, side 1, 

88; and tape 4, side 1, 115.
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military effort during the War of Independence against Britain. 

For Weigley, attrition meant “exhaustion, or erosion . . . employed 

by a strategist whose means are not great enough to permit pursuit 

of the direct overthrow of the enemy.” About the time of the Civil 

War, when the United States had increased its industrial might, 

American strategists adopted the goal of annihilation, seeking the 

utter destruction of an adversary’s military forces and the complete overthrow of the adversary. Weigley argued that this strategy 

sought to fulfill Clausewitz’s admonition that the annihilation of 

an enemy’s force “is the leading principle of War.”62 While technological advancements and industrial might grew over time, he 

found that the cost of a strategy of annihilation reaped diminishing returns. Eventually, America’s adversaries benefited from 

those same advancements as well.63

Weigley’s thesis dovetailed with the criticisms made by Boyd. 

Moreover, from the beginning the maneuverist school had savagely attacked the wastefulness of throwing one’s strength against 

an opponent’s strength. Weigley’s definition of annihilation closely 

matched the one of attrition that was used in the later debate about 

maneuver warfare. In all likelihood, Boyd would have agreed with 

Weigley’s conclusions and maintained his own position that such a 

national strategy deserved to be abandoned as quickly as possible.

MORAL CONFLICT

Part of the problem in the maneuver debate came from misinterpreting Boyd’s position on maneuver and attrition. Boyd never 

presented the two styles as a binary choice. Moreover, a close reading of the “Patterns of Conflict” slides and transcript reveals that 

maneuver warfare only captured two-thirds of Boyd’s full concept 

of conflict. Maneuver conflict, while operating at a higher mental 

level than attrition warfare, still aimed its effects primarily at an 

adversary’s military and the political leaders directing the military. 

62 Russell Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), xxii. 63 Weigley, The American Way of War, xxii. 
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

113

This ignored the crucial support base for both the military and 

government: the people. A holistic theory of conflict needed to 

target the people as well; indeed, perhaps even more so than the 

military or government, because absent the people’s support, both 

the military and government became “useless overhead . . . they 

have nothing to run. [They] wither away.”64 This is why Boyd argued that guerrilla warfare was more total, because it deliberately 

targeted the population base.

Boyd recognized the fundamentally destructive nature of maneuver conflict, and he understood the futility of trying to win 

over a population by smashing everything around it.65 One could 

not secure the support of one’s own people or win over adversaries exclusively through devastation and ruin. There had to be 

something more on the table, something positive and constructive 

to “pump up” friendly resolve, drain the adversary’s resolve, and 

attract the uncommitted to one’s cause.66 This integrated concept 

of war required that one “know your enemy, you know yourself, 

and also, those third parties out there. It’s not just a two-cornered 

stool, it’s a three-cornered stool.”67 Moral conflict reflected this 

totality. It employed the destructive aspects of maneuver warfare 

at the lower levels of tactics and strategy, focusing on the adversary’s military and political leadership; at the higher level of a nation’s willpower and moral resolve—provided by the people—it 

offered a “grand ideal,” a unifying vision of existence “so noble, 

so attractive that it not only attracts the uncommitted and magnifies the spirit and strength of its adherents, but also undermines 

the dedication and determination of any competitors or adversaries.”68

The most effective way to exploit the moral power of the 

grand ideal was to place it in the context of trust that Boyd had 

64 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 1, 126.

65 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 134–37.

66 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 139; and Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 5, side 1, 153.

67 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 5, side 1, 153.

68 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 143–44.
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already discussed in maneuver conflict. If trust was the glue that 

held an adversary’s organization—or a people—together, then 

one should seek to dissolve that glue by spreading mistrust. And 

the simplest way to generate mistrust was by highlighting the hypocrisy of those in positions of authority; by calling out, in Boyd’s 

characteristic phrasing, “those dirty bastards, they say one thing 

and they do another.”69 Guerrillas were particularly adept at analyzing and exploiting such discrepancies. Boyd noted, “If you 

want to subvert or pull apart a guy’s center of gravity . . . you want 

to find out what are those bonds, those connections that permit 

that organic whole to exist.” Boyd believed that in larger social 

organizations, such as a government or military, “people aren’t 

glued together” by the same kind of direct blood bond found in a 

family or tribe. Rather, they are held together artificially with “certain bonds or connections of rules of conduct, codes of conduct, 

standards of behavior.” Successful guerrillas were the ones who 

could identify the artificial bonds holding an organization together, and then publicly highlight how the organization’s leaders were 

failing to adhere to or uphold those standards. For Boyd, this was 

a way to weaponize ethics. The guerrilla could prove to the target 

population that they were “goddamned getting screwed,” which 

in turn built up “mistrust and discord” between the populace and 

its leaders. Driving this wedge between the leaders and the led 

was how the guerrilla turned a cohesive society into “many noncooperative centers of gravity,” thus ungluing the artificial bonds 

that held it together.70

Violence, strategically applied, helped accelerate this ungluing, but if moral conflict were executed properly, then the grand 

ideal’s potency would have already undermined an adversary’s cohesion, leaving military violence as a last hammer tap to shatter 

the whole. And while guerrillas were good at this, it could be used 

in conventional conflicts too. Boyd observed that, prior to World 

War II, Adolf Hitler understood this, mixing threats and promises 

to isolate individual countries, paralyze the international commu69 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 2, 30.

70 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 2, 70–71.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

115

nity, and expand the Third Reich’s territory well before his armies 

invaded Poland.71

Failing to understand moral conflict had caused some of the 

twentieth century’s greatest military disasters. Hitler’s initial insight inverted itself as World War II went on. Rather than fomenting distrust among his adversaries, he poisoned the internal trust 

between him and his generals.72 Hitler assumed more and more 

direct authority for military decisions, and he denied it to his commanders. This disrupted the Wehrmacht’s entire decision-making 

process, corroding its flexibility and adaptability so that it became 

less able to achieve national goals despite its consistent successes 

at the operational and tactical levels. A greater flaw, more so even 

than his micromanagement of combat operations near the end of 

World War II, was Hitler’s unwavering commitment to Nazi ideology. Nazi racial theory, in its implications and implementation, 

was so utterly repellent that it became an antigrand ideal, driving 

support away from him and into the hands of the Allies. Critics 

of maneuver warfare would often attribute Germany’s ultimate 

defeat to a fatal flaw in the Wehrmacht model, but Boyd understood 

where the true flaw lay and addressed it in his briefs. A nation 

could absorb and recover from battlefield mistakes, but no amount 

of military acumen could offset a broken national strategy.73 This 

critique will be examined further in chapter 5.

Similar flaws underlay America’s problems in Vietnam. American leaders appeared increasingly untrustworthy with their claims 

that victory hovered just around the corner. It was not difficult for 

the North Vietnamese to counter that narrative with well-timed 

offensives and a steady stream of American body bags coming 

71 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 1, 89. Author William 

Shirer discussed in detail the Nazi machinations that successfully garnered Hitler 

the territories from Austria and Czechoslovakia without resistance between 1937 

and 1939. See William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of 

Nazi Germany (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 323–454. See also Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), 

53–62. 

72 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 1, 117.

73 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 141–42; tape 5, side 

1, 153–56; and tape 5, side 2, 167.
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home.74 Furthermore, for all its firepower, the United States could 

not articulate the grand ideal for which it was supposedly striving, 

beyond countering Russian influence in the Cold War. And even 

this ideal was being accomplished in other parts of the world without hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground and massive 

bombing campaigns. Boyd used this as a prime example of the 

disparity between word and action. The North Vietnamese, however, could offer a grand ideal in their supposed desire for national independence and self-determination. Their disingenuousness 

on the subject was beside the point; their grand ideal was easily 

understood, marketable, and sympathetic in the face of a superpower’s might.75 Here again, the influence of “Destruction and 

Creation” could be seen in Boyd’s lecture; whether in the realm of 

individual or national survival, one could not destroy a worldview 

without building a new one to replace it. Listening to the audio 

of “Patterns of Conflict,” it is clear that Boyd’s audiences were 

engaged and enthusiastically absorbed his material. But not all 

of that material was effectively transmitted beyond the classroom; 

such became the case with Boyd’s discussion on moral conflict. 

A Broken Loop

The OODA loop was another friction point between maneuverists 

and their critics. The loop remains the most well known of Boyd’s 

ideas, yet even Boyd’s acolytes tended to gloss over its nuances 

as they strove to share it with a larger community of warfighters. From its perceived origin to its application, the OODA loop 

was often misrepresented. Boyd was clear that the loop’s genesis 

“came from work and anomalies associated with [the] evolution 

74 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 2, 71; and tape 3 side 

1, 87–88. A lack of military progress, increasing casualties, contradictory messaging, and weak leadership from President Lyndon B. Johnson have long been 

identified as contributing factors to a credibility gap that undermined American 

support for the war. See Davidson, Vietnam at War, 450–54; Herring, America’s 

Longest War, 248–52; Gaddis, The Cold War, 169–70; and Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 268–70. 75 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 2, 20; tape 2, side 2, 

67, 71; and tape 5, side 1, 153.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

117

and flight tests of [the] YF 16/17.”76 These flight tests have already been discussed earlier in this chapter, and the kernel of the 

OODA loop was part of the fruit they bore. The tests drove Boyd 

to explore the concept of mismatches contributing to one’s success 

and survival, as well as the relationship between agility, tempo, and 

how one could exploit them to make an adversary’s perceived reality diverge from actual reality. To better explain these mismatches, 

the influence of tempo, and their cumulative effect on perceptions, 

Boyd broke the process down into the loop that he regularly referenced (though did not visually depict) in his briefings. The OODA 

loop is commonly depicted as seen in figure 4.1.77

The simple four-step decision-making process begins with ob76 Roger Spiller, “Critique of John Boyd’s ‘Patterns of Conflict’,” undated, folder 

9, box 5, Col John R. Boyd Papers, see appendix C for excerpts.

77 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 2.

decision

action orientation

observation

Figure 4.1. Common OODA loop design

Adapted by MCU Press
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servation: sensing oneself and the world around one.78 Orientation follows and is the application of many filters, such as culture, 

knowledge, and personal experience, to the initial observation.79

Next, potential actions are considered and the observer chooses 

one. Finally, there is action, or the application of that decision. 

Seeing the results of that action, the observer then begins the 

whole process over again.

The Real Loop

The problem with this depiction is that it actually shows precisely 

the type of closed system Boyd warned against in “Destruction 

and Creation.” Both Boyd’s critics and proponents, however, mistook this oversimplification for the full nature of the “Boyd cycle.” An example comes from the many written works by William 

Lind—who helped bring Boyd’s work to the attention of the Marine Corps—which rarely tried to go beyond this basic level of 

understanding. Lind argued that the key to maneuver warfare was 

going through this decision-making process at a faster absolute 

speed than one’s opponent.80 Many critics argued that the OODA 

loop was simplistic and flawed, as the next chapter will discuss. 

Those critics might have been right, had that been all there was to 

the loop. That was not the case. Though he often spoke about it, 

Boyd did not offer a graphical depiction of the OODA loop until 

two years prior to his death. When he finally did, it was a far richer 

concept than its four steps implied (figure 4.2).81

Here, the loop is not a closed, one-way cycle of seeing, de78 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 230. 79 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 230–32. 80 Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, 6. Though more detailed than his Marine Corps 

Gazette articles, the Maneuver Warfare Handbook still emphasized Boyd’s OODA 

loop almost to the exclusion of everything else. Lind seemed somewhat aware of 

this, admitting in the first chapter that his summation of Boyd “[misses] some of 

the subtleties and the supporting historical evidence in [Boyd’s] briefing.” A comparison between the Maneuver Warfare Handbook and Osinga’s far more detailed 

examination shows that, in many respects, Lind missed or omitted Boyd’s main 

points entirely. Regardless, Lind’s influence on the maneuver warfare debate cannot be understated.

81 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 231.
UNVEILING THE CHARACTER OF CONFLICT

119

ciding, and doing. It is “an ongoing many-sided implicit crossreferencing process of projection, correlation, and rejection.”82

While observation is the first step, orientation is the most important; it “shapes observation, shapes decision, shapes action, and in 

turn is shaped by the feedback and other phenomena coming into 

our sensing or observing window.”83 Orientation was where the 

exhaustive process of cultivating fingerspitzengefühl, trust, adaptability, flexibility, initiative, and cohesion on the friendly side, and 

analyzing those factors on the adversary’s side, paid its real dividends.

CONCLUSION

“Patterns of Conflict” was a monumental work. It synthesized 

years of personal observation with almost two millennia’s worth of 

historical lessons, all laid over the mental framework described in 

the equally groundbreaking “Destruction and Creation.” Across 

82 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 232. 83 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 230.

OBSERVE ORIENT DECIDE ACT

Implicit 

guidance 

& control

Observations

Outside 

information

Unfolding 

circumstances

Cultural 

traditions

Analysis & 

synthesis

Previous 

experience

New 

information

Genetic 

heritage

Implicit 

guidance 

& control

Decision

(hypothesis)

Action

(test)

Unfolding 

interaction 

with 

environment

Unfolding 

interaction 

with 

environment

Feedback

Feedback

Feed

forward

Feed

forward

Feed

forward

Figure 4.2. Boyd’s complex OODA loop design

Adapted by MCU Press
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hundreds of slides and days of lecture and discussion, Boyd introduced a concept of conflict that grounded national survival not in 

materiel strength but in the ability of a nation’s people to perceive, 

think, and adapt. He supported this concept with evidence dating 

back to the earliest written records of warfare that was tried and 

tested in the laboratory of history. And he concluded that success 

came not through overwhelming numbers or advanced weaponry, 

but through a deep understanding of the human element. 

The Marine Corps, bereft of numbers and weapons and 

struggling with the consequences of misunderstanding its adversary in Vietnam, found itself drawn to Boyd’s ideas. In them, Marines saw answers to the problem of what the Marine Corps was 

to do with itself and how it was to do it. Boyd’s audiences started 

small, but those people listened to Boyd and then spread his message with prophetic zeal. They took and injected Boyd’s ideas—or 

what they understood to be his ideas—into the larger debate of 

how maneuver theory might serve the future Corps better than 

simply buying a new tank or adopting a different NATO mission. 

This book now returns to that debate.
121

CHAPTER FIVE

A Killing Game

Critics Enter the Maneuver Warfare Debate

By 1980, John Boyd had presented “Patterns of Conflict” enough 

times that his ideas on maneuver warfare were discussed both 

within the Marine Corps and without, among ranks high and low. 

Within the Fleet Marine Force, company- and field-grade officers 

made extensive use of the Marine Corps Gazette to debate the merits 

of maneuver warfare and refine and integrate its concepts operationally. Moreover, a handful of officers began mixing maneuver 

warfare into formal training and education curricula at Marine 

Corps schools. In the meantime, Boyd and his civilian fellow travelers, especially William Lind, continued their enthusiastic campaign for an institutional adoption of maneuver warfare. 

As maneuver warfare discussions proliferated, the concept 

drew its fair share of criticism, and it still does to some degree 

today. Such critiques came from (1) a failure to understand Boyd’s 

ideas holistically—sometimes due to intellectual laziness on the 

part of the critic, but other times because the critic did not have 

access to Boyd’s ideas directly or accessed them through the imperfect interpretation of maneuver proponents; (2) a natural resistance to radical change; and, (3) it must be said, by personality 

conflicts, often generated by the well-meaning but acerbic admonitions of William Lind. Nevertheless, in the 1980s, the profession-
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al discourse of the Marine Corps was increasingly characterized 

by the argument that a doctrine of maneuver warfare would 

answer the question of institutional philosophy. Numerous articles in the Gazette, other military journals, and public newspapers 

demonstrated the level to which Marines and their supporters digested Boyd’s packaging of maneuver warfare, to the point that 

the decade ended with its adoption as the Marine Corps’ official 

capstone doctrine.

BOYD’S PRESENT 

AND THE CORPS’ FUTURE

The central debate about adopting maneuver warfare represented 

a convergence of the two threads examined thus far: John Boyd’s 

personal determination to do rather than to be, which led him to 

continually generate concrete, useful products; and a similar institutional attitude on the part of the Marine Corps, which felt compelled to offer a useful capability for American defense in a world 

very different from that which preceded the Vietnam War. The 

attitude of being useful, of retaining utility, meant adapting to new 

circumstances as they arose so that one could thrive. This required 

a mind-set that could recognize when circumstances changed, 

process that information, and make decisions and take actions to 

adapt and succeed. This is what Boyd made manifest to the Marine Corps in “Patterns of Conflict” and its concept of maneuver 

warfare. The Marine Corps had arguably executed this process 

for decades as it fought for its place in the national defense framework, from acting as the Navy’s police and landing force before 

World War I, to seizing advanced bases and conducting amphibious operations in World War II, to serving as a force in readiness at 

the dawn of the Cold War, to whatever its new role would be after 

Vietnam. But the Marine Corps did this subconsciously, on an ad 

hoc basis, without recognizing the underlying mechanics.

From the Horse’s Mouth

Boyd’s briefings made manifest the mechanics of maneuver warfare, and he gave the Corps a framework for thinking about its 

future role. He analyzed and synthesized a “theme for vitality and 
A KILLING GAME

123

growth,” showing how it could be used not only in a constructive 

sense for self-survival, but turned destructively against external 

threats to survival; a useful turn, as destruction was already the 

object of a military force.1

 Moreover, Boyd gave the Marines—

quantitatively a small force—a potential advantage over a larger one by offering a path to victory that did not depend on the 

materiel currency of overly physical warfare. Boyd made evident 

something that the institution already knew and practiced on an 

instinctual level. His concepts, backed with historical evidence, 

were the way ahead for an organization seeking a way to win in an 

unfamiliar world.

The job then, for those Marines and civilians who gravitated 

to Boyd’s insights, was explaining and proving the value of those 

insights to the institution as a whole. Another challenge was countering the emergent critiques of maneuver warfare that arose as 

the concept became more widely known. Most critiques came 

from a poor understanding of Boyd’s ideas, caused either by degrees of removal from Boyd or transmission problems from maneuverists. Throughout the 1980s, maneuver proponents had to 

find a balance between the less-familiar mental and moral aspects 

of maneuver warfare and the Marine Corps tradition of locating, 

closing with, and destroying the enemy. As one observer noted, to 

the Marines, war was not a chess game but a killing game. As a 

consequence, part of the maneuver warfare debate meant changing the very lexicon of the game; really, war was a victory game 

that could be fought at many levels, with the physical level and 

its metric of stacked bodies being less decisive than the mental 

and moral levels presented by Boyd. This debate now took center 

stage.

Before Boyd’s ideas had spread widely, Marine Corps officers 

and others outlined a handful of tenets, roughhewn though they 

were, in attempting to describe maneuver warfare. Once Boyd 

regularly presented “Patterns of Conflict” in the early 1980s, maneuver proponents suddenly had a very detailed conceptual framework from which to draw. And while Boyd repacked his ideas in 

1

 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 144.
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different ways throughout the brief, his wrap-up provided a useful 

summary maneuverists could use to shape public discussion:

Game

Create tangles of threatening and/or nonthreatening 

events/efforts as well as repeatedly generate mismatches 

between those events/efforts adversary observes or imagines . . . and those he must react to . . . as [a] basis to

Penetrate adversary organism to sever his moral 

bonds, disorient his mental images, disrupt his operations, 

and overload his system, as well as subvert or seize those 

moral-mental-physical bastions, connections, or activities 

that he depends upon, thereby

Pull adversary apart, produce paralysis, and collapse 

his will to resist.

How

Get inside adversary observation-orientation-decisionaction loops (at all levels) by being more subtle, more indistinct, more irregular, and quicker—yet appear to be 

otherwise.2

This summation did not capture all the nuances of a 200-slide, 

hours-long presentation, but at least it gave those who wanted to 

spread the gospel of maneuver warfare something to work with. 

They needed a way to quickly convey Boyd’s ideas, because those 

outside the Washington, DC, area rarely had the chance to hear 

Boyd in person. This distillation proved problematic as the maneuver debate continued; but the urge to spread maneuver warfare drove its proponents to get at least some of the ideas out in the 

public realm to be refined later.

Boyd’s Loudest Promoter

One such proponent was William Lind, whose already-cited March 

1980 Marine Corps Gazette article helped frame the debate that fol2

 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 175.
A KILLING GAME

125

lowed. In one of the first attempts at a precise definition, Lind 

equated the Boyd Theory, as he called his understanding of “Patterns of Conflict,” with maneuver theory. According to Lind, 

Boyd “observed that in any conflict situation all parties go through 

repeated cycles of observation-decision-action. The potentially 

victorious party is the one with an observation-decision-action cycle consistently quicker than his opponent’s (including the time 

required to transition from one cycle to another).” Lind portrayed 

the loser as the one with the longer cycle, who then found “himself facing ever-widening divergence. Suddenly, he realizes there 

is nothing he can do to control the situation or turn it to his advantage. At that point, he has lost. Often he suffers mental breakdown in the form of panic and is defeated before he is destroyed 

physically.”3

Lind held that the real goal of maneuver warfare was not 

physical destruction but the “nervous/mental/systemic breakdown caused when [the enemy] becomes aware the situation is 

beyond his control.”4

 Attacking the opponent’s mental capabilities worked for the Marine Corps because “in many scenarios 

Marines are likely to be outnumbered in men and materiel. An 

attrition contest is not promising for the outnumbered force, while 

maneuver makes quantitative factors less important by striking at 

the enemy’s mind.”5

 Lind believed the Corps’ likely future opponents were Third World militaries modeled on their Soviet benefactor; that is, militaries numerically large and well-equipped but 

“tactically and operationally inflexible.”6

 Marines could exploit 

this inflexibility with a more rapid decision-making cycle, placing 

initiative and independence of action at the lowest leadership levels. Lind and other maneuverists regularly emphasized the need 

for such initiative and independence, along with the imperative 

3

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 56. It is worth noting that here, in Lind’s first attempt to define Boyd’s concepts, he omits the orientation step, which Boyd considered by far the most important.

4

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 56–57.

5

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 57.

6

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 58.
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to actually train officers and men to act in accordance with that 

need.7

DEFINING AND REFINING THE DEBATE

Maneuver warfare did not require excessive mechanization, as 

mobile infantry operating in rugged terrain were as well suited to 

maneuver as were tanks operating in the open.8

 This was not to say 

that further mechanization could not support maneuver warfare. 

Captain R. A. Stewart, an evaluator at MCAGCC Twentynine 

Palms, and the aforementioned Captain Miller, showed several 

linkages between increased use of wheeled, armored fighting vehicles and exploiting the tenets of maneuver conflict.9

 Such vehicles 

could wreak havoc in the enemy’s rear, keeping them off-balance; 

their speed allowed the landing force to assault the enemy’s weakest points and still maneuver to an objective; they could replace 

tanks as a mobile reserve force for challenging a counterattack; 

and they could deceive the enemy as decoys while a commander concentrated their force for decisive action elsewhere.10 In any 

case, the specific level of mechanization was less important than 

the mental framework used to employ it; that is, using initiative and 

independent action to build a rapid decision-making cycle coupled 

with sudden and unexpected actions to force the enemy’s mental and moral collapse. With some amplification, this summary 

of maneuver warfare was the one carried forward in the debate.11

7

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 58; and William S. 

Lind, “Tactics in Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 9 (September 

1981): 36–39; CWO-2 Bryan N. Lavender, “Current Training and Maneuver 

Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 2 (February 1982): 63–67; and William 

S. Lind, “Preparing for Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 68, no. 6 (June 

1984): 47–55.

8

 Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 58.

9

 Miller and Stewart, “New Fighting Vehicle Options,” 53.

10 For further discussion, see also Col Bruce G. Brown (Ret), “Maneuver Warfare 

Roadmap—Part I, Trends and Implications,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 4 (April 

1982): 42–47; and Maj James A. Marapoti, “Battlefield Mobility and Survivability of the MAGTF,” Marine Corps Gazette 68, no. 3 (March 1984): 52–62. 11 Capt G. I. Wilson reiterates the Lind article with little modification in his own 

subsequent commentary; see Capt G. I. Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ 

Concept,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 4 (April 1981): 49–52. See also Lind, Ma-
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To Maneuver and Attrite

These amplifications often focused on refining the definition of 

maneuver and quantifying the level of actual physical destruction 

required during a conflict. In 1980, Major General Bernard E. 

Trainor, then education director for the Marine Corps Development and Education Command, addressed the topic early. He 

expanded on the meaning of maneuver by noting that it did not 

necessarily equate to movement. Trainor stated that maneuver instead meant “physically disposing the enemy at a disadvantage to 

himself and an advantage to us,” and thus “the key to maneuver 

is not our disposition, but his.”12 This echoed Boyd’s admonitions 

to focus on the enemy rather than on one’s own formations or a 

piece of terrain. In time, maneuver would come to mean any advantageous disposition—be it troop disposition, tempo or timing, 

or geography—but always in relation to the enemy.13

Destruction versus Attrition

There also was considerable debate about the destruction of enemy forces—or rather, what and where things and people should 

be destroyed. Some maneuver proponents stressed that no matter 

how brilliant one’s maneuvering, parts of the enemy force still had 

to be destroyed. Trainor stated that “while it has been emphasized 

that a battle of attrition should be avoided, battle itself must be 

sought, because war is a killing game, not a chess game.” Physical 

punishment was the only way to finally break an enemy’s will.14 He 

reemphasized this point elsewhere: “Marines never seem to fight 

enemies who capitulate when the rules of chess would so dictate. 

Until we do, I still think it’s wiser for an enemy to know that we inneuver Warfare Handbook, 4–6; Lind’s section of this work is essentially a summary 

of his many published articles up to that time.

12 MajGen Bernard E. Trainor, “New Thoughts on War,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, 

no. 12 (December 1980): 50. 

13 Capt G. I. Wilson, “Maneuver/Fluid Warfare: A Review of the Concepts,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 1 (January 1982): 54–61; Maj G. I. Wilson and Maj 

W. A. Woods, “Defending Maneuver Concepts,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 8 

(August 1982): 34; and LtCol Michael D. Wyly, “Those Confusing Ms,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 67, no. 9 (September 1983): 30. 14 Trainor, “New Thoughts on War,” 50. 
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tend to kill him, not psych him.”15 Other Marines shared concerns 

over maneuver warfare’s underemphasis on killing. Writing later, 

infantry officer Major G. S. Lauer believed many maneuverists 

had still not absorbed Trainor’s point. He criticized the maneuverist argument, as he saw it, as “badly flawed.” He disliked maneuverists’ “explanation of the fundamental nature of war as one 

in which elegant maneuver can substitute for bloodshed.” He argued that maneuver proponents sought to replace both firepower 

and mechanized assets to an extent that was “neither historical 

nor logical.”16 In the case of Lauer and others—including proponents—disagreement often grew from ignoring, forgetting, or 

misunderstanding how Boyd had explained the complexities of 

maneuver warfare. 

Debate over the lexicon of maneuver warfare also became 

more complex. Some proponents argued that destruction should not 

be confused with attrition. Destruction meant attacking those things 

“he cannot do without,” an open-ended definition as compared 

with attrition, which carried an inherently physical connotation.17

Then-Lieutenant Colonel Michael Wyly elaborated on this distinction: “We destroy the enemy when we destroy his will to resist. 

We will need much more than attrition to destroy his will, unless 

he is woefully short on resolve . . . the [body] count doesn’t mean 

anything. Where you strike the enemy does.” The object of destruction in maneuver warfare was not hunting down every last tank or 

platoon, but “skillfully selecting objectives [so] you can throw him 

off balance so that he can’t pick himself back up. You can destroy 

him by attacking his command and control or his logistic lifeline. 

15 Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” 54.

16 Maj G. S. Lauer, “Maneuver Warfare Theory and the Operational Level of 

War: Misguiding the Marine Corps?” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College, 1991), 37–41. While proponents at the early stages of the 

maneuver warfare debate did appear to discount the value of both firepower and 

heavier mechanized assets, as is seen below this notion was quickly corrected, and 

so it is curious that Lauer, writing at a later time, does not take this into account. 

Boyd also never discounted the value of firepower in his briefings. Unlike other 

critics, at least Lauer referenced Boyd’s primary works.

17 Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” 52.
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You cannot destroy him by attrition.”18 This was but one effort by 

Wyly and other maneuverists to expand the language of combat 

beyond the purely physical/attritional level into the mental and 

moral realm of maneuver warfare. Yet, the challenges inherent 

in redefining language meant that the opposing sides frequently 

clung to their own definitions of common terms. Thus, efforts like 

Wyly’s tended to add clarity for the true believers but cause confusion for the unconverted. 

Wyly’s comments echoed Boyd’s own words concerning the 

view of some American military officials on body counts. In “Patterns of Conflict,” Boyd put it this way: “So what we’re going to 

do is, we’re going to go out and have an attrition campaign and 

just pile up body counts and they’re going to surrender. That’s 

probably going to make them madder than hell and they won’t 

surrender.”19 Wyly’s use of the word destroy also matched the few 

instances within Boyd’s brief where he did not use the word in 

a disparaging sense. At the strategic level of conflict, Boyd argued that the goal was “to destroy internal harmony, produce 

paralysis, and collapse [an] adversary’s will to resist.”20 This reinforced his point that the quickest way to destroy an organization was through its morale, by fomenting mistrust and discord, 

though it did not entirely discount the need for some measure 

of firepower, as will be seen.21 Boyd also employed a singular 

turn of phrase to define victory—“pull his socks down,” or occasionally “his pants”—which emphasized his goal of mental and moral disruption rather than quantitative bloodletting.22

Bodies versus Prisoners

Then as now, much of the confusion about maneuver warfare cen18 Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” emphasis in original.

19 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 2, 71.

20 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 5, side 1, 151; and Boyd, 

“Patterns of Conflict,” 133.

21 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 2, 71.

22 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 16; tape 1, side 2, 

18, 22, 28; tape 2, side 2, 71; tape 3, side 1, 76, 84; and tape 3, side 2, 104, 111. 
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tered on definitions and metrics. Recently, former Marine Captain 

Daniel R. Grazier, in addition to his work publicly posting and editing original videos of “Patterns of Conflict,” also developed his 

own briefing that touches on the firepower versus maneuver discussion. 

For those requiring a metric of what victory by maneuver looks 

like, he provides the following analogy that would likely have aided 

the maneuverists then and certainly provides some clarity here. In 

the attritionist view of firepower-oriented warfare, one quantified 

success by numbers of enemy killed in action—the familiar body 

count. Kill enough people, and the enemy will give up. In maneuver warfare, success can be quantified by the number of enemy 

prisoners of war. Prisoners are the result of mental and moral 

dislocations caused by disorder, confusion, and menace, with the 

result that individual units can no longer operate as part of a cohesive whole, and in their sense of fear and isolation, surrender. 

While firepower is still employed and casualties still generated, the 

object is not to stack bodies but to break apart the things that let 

the enemy operate harmoniously.23 This fits well with Boyd’s comments, which hinted several times that the capture of prisoners 

of war was a natural outcome of the mental/moral dislocation 

caused by maneuver warfare. However, he never explicitly tied the 

two together, and so the maneuverists were left with the rather 

more abstract metrics of success that he outlined in his brief.24

However, many maneuverists agreed that maneuver warfare 

did not exclude firepower and physical destruction entirely but 

rather used them to achieve effects at the mental and moral levels. 

Captain Gary I. Wilson—one of the original maneuverist true 

believers, who enthusiastically helped General Alfred Gray implement it in the 2d Marine Division—noted that artillery was 

particularly crucial to the ground commander operating at the 

tempo required by maneuver warfare, as mobile artillery could 

move with the commander and did not require good weather, 

23 Capt Daniel R. Grazier, “Manoeuvre Warfare,” PowerPoint slides, email to author, 5 January 2017, slides 24, 27. 

24 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 1, 76, 78, 81.
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as aviation did.25 Wyly amended his earlier phrasing of the situation to make clear his belief that “firepower is essential to the 

successful waging of war.” His objection, echoed by Grazier, was 

to the Vietnam-era focus on making the quantity of destruction 

the sole metric of victory. The objective should not be numbers 

of people killed or tanks destroyed; but Wyly acknowledged that 

the enemy will not “throw up his hands by mere token of being 

outmaneuvered.” Maneuver warfare was not bloodless; the killing 

game remained part of it. For Wyly, “Our threat to him has to be 

made real through the deadliness of our fire.”26 The maneuverist’s 

argument was that the killing game was not the endgame.

While these arguments seem like semantic exercises, they illustrated the second- and third-order effects of not having direct 

access to Boyd, and the corollary problem that Boyd never formally published his ideas, either as rebuttal articles or otherwise. For 

Boyd had, in fact, touched on this very issue. In his oral history, 

Boyd directly addressed the relationship between firepower and 

maneuver, saying that some people “maneuver in order to fire and 

blow people away. My fire is to open things up so that I can get the 

opportunity to maneuver even though I may fire again.” For Boyd, 

firepower and its effects were not objects in themselves but rather 

an avenue to the enemy’s mind: “In other words, I am trying to 

put the shock on him by always having things happen very fast. 

So, my plan would lean more in the direction of fire in order to 

maneuver.”27 Boyd’s concept of firepower did not seek long lists of 

tanks destroyed or people killed but instead created opportunities 

for dislocating the enemy. Such dislocation might well be physical; 

but, as Boyd discussed throughout “Patterns of Conflict,” mental 

and moral dislocation caused greater disorder within the enemy’s 

system.

25 Wilson, “Maneuver/Fluid Warfare,” 59. 

26 LtCol Michael D. Wyly, “War Without Firepower?,” Marine Corps Gazette 67, no. 

3 (March 1983): 17–18. 

27 Boyd Air Force oral history, 225–26.
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MANEUVER FOR ALL

Maneuverists also reassured skeptics that maneuver warfare was 

eminently adaptable to amphibious operations.28 But Marines 

should not get so wrapped up in the landing phase of an operation that they overlooked the need to fight successfully once 

ashore.29 As the conversation continued, others pointed out instances in which the Marine Corps had employed maneuver warfare, albeit unconsciously, in historical amphibious operations.30

One interesting development as the debate matured came from 

critics who did not question the tenets of the OODA loop or maneuver warfare, although they felt that particular military functional areas had been overlooked and deserved consideration as 

enablers of the maneuver concept. From armor to artillery, from 

aviation to command and control, from logistics to the realm of 

simulation, and even within the Navy, members of each community believed that this new philosophy offered them something 

useful. Thus, as proponents and critics engaged over the topic, 

the intellectual terrain expanded with the realization that maneuver warfare’s mental framework was not restricted for use by 

frontline units.31 Boyd was far more capable of clarifying all these 

28 Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” 51; Wilson, “Maneuver/

Fluid Warfare,” 61; Brown, “Maneuver Warfare Roadmap—Part I,” 42–47; and 

Col Bruce G. Brown (Ret), “Maneuver Warfare Roadmap—Part II: Concepts 

of Employment and Tactical Applications,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 5 (May 

1982): 80–85.

29 Wilson and Woods, “Defending Maneuver Concepts,” 34; and LtCol Michael 

D. Wyly, “Thinking Beyond the Beachhead,” Marine Corps Gazette 67, no. 1 (January 1983): 34–38.

30 Maj R. J. Brown, USMCR, “Maneuver Warfare at Tinian—1944,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 68, no. 7 (July 1984): 51–55. 31 Williams, “More Mobility for Today’s Threat,” 35; Wilson, “Maneuver/Fluid 

Warfare,” 59; Capt G. R. Wright, “TWSEAS and Maneuver Warfare,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 66, no. 3 (March 1982): 22–23; Capt M. C. Chisum, “Combined 

Arms Properly Understood,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 11 (November 1982): 

27–30; 1stLt D. H. Berger, “A Traveling Command Post,” Marine Corps Gazette

68, no. 6 (June 1984): 52; William S. Lind, “Maneuver Warfare and Marine Aviation,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 5 (May 1989): 57–64; Maj John B. Saxman, 

USAF, “The Role of Marine Aviation in Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 8 (August 1989): 58–63; Maj Steven B. Donnell, “The ACE as a 
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points in person, but they were often watered down by others.

As the firepower argument indicated, maneuver warfare and 

enabling concepts such as the OODA loop were not universally 

embraced. Detractors leveled a wide array of criticisms at both 

the theories and the men who advocated them. These criticisms 

fell into four categories: maneuver warfare’s inapplicability to current and future Marine Corps operations; flaws in the German 

model often used by maneuverists; shortcomings of the OODA 

loop; and the polarizing personalities of advocates like Lind. The 

debate instigated by the veterans of Vietnam provided answers to 

their questions while creating new ones over which others argued.

The Limits of Maneuver Warfare

Some critics argued that the Corps did not have the mobile assets, 

command and control capability, or sealift necessary to fight this 

type of war.32 Others believed maneuver philosophy was not applicable to the low-intensity conflicts the Corps would most likely 

face. Lieutenant Colonel Gary Anderson, a Marine infantry officer, detailed the failures of other high-tech nations in low-intensity 

theaters, such as Afghanistan and Lebanon, and then observed,

The Marine Corps has adopted maneuver warfare as its 

Maneuver Element,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 8 (August 1989): 64–66; Capt 

Richard A. Menton, “Airpower on the Maneuver Battlefield,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 8 (August 1989): 67–69; Capt Peter R. Violette, “Critical Parts for 

Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 74, no. 2 (February 1990): 26–27; LtCdr 

Terry C. Pierce, USN, “Maneuver Warfare: The ’Gators Play Too,” Proceedings 

(U.S. Naval Institute) 115, no. 11 (November 1989): 50–52; Col John R. Moore, 

“Communications and Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 74, no. 3 (March 

1990): 29–30; Col Kent O. Steen, “Artillery in Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 74, no. 7 (July 1990): 31–32; and LtCdr Terry C. Pierce, USN, “The 

Tactical Strategic Link,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) 116, no. 9 (September 

1990): 66–69.

32 LtCol R. H. Voigt, “Comments on Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette

66, no. 3 (March 1982): 20; LtCol Gordon D. Batcheller, “Reexamining Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 4 (April 1982): 22–23; Maj J. D. Burke, 

“Maneuver Warfare and the MAGTF,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 9 (September 

1982): 67–71; and Maj Edward J. Robeson IV, “MAGTFs and the Tactical Defense,” Marine Corps Gazette 67, no. 4 (April 1983): 24.
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doctrine, but it is also currently advertising that its most 

likely scenarios for employment in the next 10 years will 

be in low-intensity conflicts. On the surface, this appears 

to place the Marine Corps in the position of having adopted a doctrine not applicable to its most likely form of 

employment.33

Lieutenant Colonel H. T. Hayden, a logistician with extensive 

counterinsurgency experience in Vietnam and Central America, 

agreed with Anderson, arguing that “the basic tenets of maneuver 

warfare . . . have no place in most forms of low-intensity conflict.” 

He believed that the American military made counterinsurgency 

operations harder than they had to be because “we do not understand the enemy. We do not understand his doctrine, his tactics 

and techniques, his basic organizations, nor do we understand how 

he organizes his assets to fight his kind of warfare.”34 Here again 

came the fallout from not having direct access to Boyd for, as previously demonstrated, Boyd commented specifically and extensively on operations later termed low intensity. Furthermore, Boyd 

even agreed with Hayden’s perspective on failing to understand 

the insurgent, specifically calling out that failure in Vietnam. But 

Hayden missed Boyd’s point on orientation as the crucial counter 

to such misunderstanding, for a proper orientation drove one to 

assess precisely those aspects of an adversary Hayden outlined to 

successfully attack the linkages that allowed the enemy to operate 

cohesively.

Copying the Losers

The German military, particularly the Wehrmacht of the Second 

World War, was regularly held up as the maneuver warfare ideal. With appropriate caveats, the Wehrmacht model was potentially 

quite useful, as Boyd regularly referenced Wehrmacht operational 

33 Anderson, “When Maneuver Fails,” 57.

34 LtCol H. T. Hayden, “ ‘A Marine for All Seasons?’: Maneuver Warfare Versus 

Low-Intensity Conflict,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 9 (September 1989): 55–57, 

emphasis in original.
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successes in “Patterns of Conflict.” But the omission by maneuverists of Boyd’s clear caveats on German failures at the moral 

level unnecessarily weakened their overall argument. Lind often 

pointed back to the Germans as true maneuverists; as he put it, 

In the West in this century, Germany was the only country 

to institutionalize maneuver warfare . . . [, and they] endeavored to make every element of their military—their 

education system, officer selection, officer promotion, the 

way their army made its choices and decisions, etc.—supportive of maneuver warfare.35

To his credit, Lind added a few qualifications to this conclusion:

We must not assume German practices were always the 

best . . . we must acknowledge that the practice of maneuver warfare on the battlefield was not uniquely German—only the institutionalization of maneuver warfare 

was . . . we must point out the failures in the German 

system. While the Germans were consistently superior 

to their opponents at the tactical and operational levels, 

German strategy and grand strategy in both World Wars 

were poor. They were sufficiently poor that Germany lost 

both wars.36

Nevertheless, criticism of the German model abounded. Major Lauer, as a Marine student at the Army’s prestigious School of 

Advanced Military Studies, argued that, contrary to the maneuverists’ assertion, the Wehrmacht indeed sought annihilation and 

not disruption of the enemy. He believed that German concepts 

of momentum and tempo focused directly on “the concept of the 

primacy of destruction and the speed of destruction.”37 Some 

noted that the Germans were not as freewheeling as proponents 

claimed, with much tighter control and integration—especially 

35 William S. Lind, “Why the German Example?,” Marine Corps Gazette 66, no. 6 

(June 1982): 60, emphasis in original.

36 Lind, “Why the German Example?,” 63.

37 Lauer, “Maneuver Warfare Theory and the Operational Level of War,” 34. 
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136

with aviation—over their supposedly decentralized forces. Lieutenant Colonel Jack W. Rippy, a Vietnam veteran who assessed 

maneuver warfare ideas while at the Naval War College, cited the 

reports of two former Wehrmacht commanders who appeared to 

highlight the criticality of “a very close liaison” between the air 

and ground elements.38

The Germans also had an unenviable combat record, losing two world wars when their enemies failed to unravel in the 

manner maneuverists predicted they should. Marine lieutenant 

Sean T. Coughlin, a maintenance management officer, argued 

that “despite all its tactical brilliance and strategic initiative . . . 

the Wehrmacht took a bad beating” against Russia in World War 

II.39 The Germans did everything the maneuverists wanted: focusing combat power against weak points, decentralizing command, 

and seeking the tactical and strategic unraveling of the Red Army 

rather than its outright destruction. According to Coughlin, “the 

Germans simply waited for Soviet capitulation, which should have 

been the inevitable result of their brilliant successes in the field 

. . . but the Red Army kept on fighting.” Those pockets of bypassed Soviet resistance should have crumbled psychologically, but 

they simply continued resistance despite the loss of logistics and 

leadership. Coughlin reminded his audience of Sun Tzu’s admonition that surrounded soldiers often fight with even greater fury, 

as they know that death is the only alternative.40

In the Wehrmacht model, the maneuverists’ failure to explain 

Boyd’s moral conflict and its central grand ideal caused unnecessary confusion, representing perhaps the easiest lost opportunity 

to correct. As chapter 4 shows, Boyd devoted a significant portion 

38 LtCol Jack W. Rippy, “The Impact of Maneuver Warfare Strategy/Tactics on 

the U.S. Marine Corps’ Integrated Air/Ground (MAGTF) Doctrine” (master’s 

thesis, Naval War College, 1984), 15–16. 

39 1stLt Sean Coughlin, “Maneuver? Or Victory?,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) 116, no. 9 (September 1990): 70–71. See also LtCol Mark R. Hamilton, 

“ ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Revisited: A Plea for Balance” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army 

War College, 1986), 6. Hamilton noted that advocates of the Wehrmacht model 

always ended their analyses at the Germans’ high-water mark in the summer of 

1943.

40 Coughlin, “Maneuver? Or Victory?,” 70–71.
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of “Patterns of Conflict” to that specific area. Boyd’s discussion 

of the constructive and destructive foci applied across the high 

(mental and moral) and low (physical) levels of war, which illustrated the central flaw in Germany’s method of warfighting. The 

problem lay not in maneuver warfare itself but in Germany’s failure to link maneuver conflict—fundamentally destructive—to a 

powerful grand ideal that offered a constructive vision of the future. The grand ideal was supposed to weaken both an adversary’s 

internal national cohesion and its ties with external allies, while 

giving one’s own allies, unaligned third parties, and even the adversary’s allies a reason to join one’s side. Nazi Germany lacked 

such a grand ideal, with its racial ideology and the brutality with 

which Hitler enacted it functioned as an antigrand ideal, pushing 

existing adversaries farther away and alienating people who might 

otherwise have willingly joined the Axis side. 

Boyd’s thoughts on the self-destructiveness of Nazi ideology 

and brutality were quite clear. He noted several times in “Patterns 

of Conflict” that the initial reaction of many ethnic groups living in western Soviet territory to the German invasion of World 

War II was one of welcome. Joseph Stalin had already caused 

mass suffering there and, through his economic policies, was the 

cause of millions of deaths in the western Soviet states before 

Hitler invaded. As hard as it is to imagine today, German rule 

seemed a relief compared to Stalin’s policies. However, Hitler’s 

brutality quickly eclipsed that of Stalin, to the point where Stalin, though viewed by many Russians as “a son of bitch” (according to Boyd), was preferable because he, at least, was Russian.41

There exists a wide body of evidence for this argument beyond Boyd’s treatment. From the beginning of Hitler’s political 

career to its bitter end, his Germany-centric expansion goals precluded the possibility of virtually all non-Germanic peoples from 

enjoying the benefits of Reich citizenship (such as they were), and 

he sought to erase the national identities of non-Germanic peoples as well. In general, non-Germans were afforded no prospects 

41 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 4, side 2, 141–42; and tape 

5, side 1, 155. 
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for advancement in such a system, which gave them no incentive 

for cooperating with it or helping to defend it. This attitude was 

compounded by the German tendency to expel non-Germans 

from occupied territories in the east to make room for German 

settlers. And this is to say nothing about the mass extermination 

of those peoples who, according to Nazi racial thought, were both 

so inferior and dangerous that even forced resettlement was not 

an option. 

It was this attitude that drove the brutality that German invasion 

forces directed toward Russia. Hitler saw the invasion of Russia as 

a war of annihilation, seeking both the total destruction of Bolshevik ideology and of the inferior Slavic-Asiatic-Jewish races that promoted it. The Nazi dictator relentlessly pursued this policy, despite 

the fact that at the outset of Operation Barbarossa many groups—

from those who had suffered under Stalin’s prewar depredations to 

those living in countries more recently occupied by the Red Army 

after 1939—greeted the Wehrmacht as a liberating army and occasionally even actively attacked the retreating Red Army to speed it 

on its way. Hitler thus managed to deliberately deprive himself of 

a large pool of manpower and resources that might otherwise have 

been directed against Soviet forces on the eastern front; instead, it 

directed itself against a Nazi regime even more vicious than Stalin’s dictatorship. Part of the German failure came not from an 

inadequate implementation of maneuver conflict but the refusal 

to offer a grand ideal to those groups that were primed for it.42

Despite Coughlin’s admonitions, one wonders how well the 

remains of the Red Army, along with those bypassed pockets of 

resistance in occupied Soviet territory, would have continued to 

fight if the German invaders had made even a half-hearted effort 

to win them to their side rather than exterminate them. But Hitler 

and his Nazi cohort made no such effort. America and its western 

European allies offered the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The 

charter, initially signed in August 1941 by President Franklin D. 

42 Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 5, 7–8, 85, 139, 142–43, 149, 157–58; and Timothy 

Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 

160, 162–63, 191–94.
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Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, laid out 

principles that, with some amendment as the war went on, acted as a governing grand ideal for Allied action. These principles 

included forsaking territorial expansion and affirming national 

self-determination, fair trade, and freedom of the seas.43 Stalin, for 

all his past brutality, understood the power of ideas well enough to 

frame the conflict for the Russian masses as a Great Patriotic War 

against ruthless foreign invaders. All Hitler offered was Lebensraum

for his own people and the mass extermination of everyone else.44

Thus tied to a repellent national vision, the Wehrmacht’s excellent 

execution of maneuver warfare at lower levels could only garner 

partial victory, just as those maneuverists whose knowledge of 

Boyd failed to encompass moral conflict only had a partial understanding of his whole concept.

Boyd devoted a large chunk of “Patterns of Conflict” to discussing moral conflict, yet this level of war vanished quickly from 

the maneuver warfare debate. Perhaps this occurred because, as 

more Marines discussed maneuver conflict, they were naturally 

drawn toward the parts of “Patterns of Conflict” that used similar 

terminology. Marines also may have believed that promulgating 

the constructive grand ideal required in moral conflict was the responsibility of national leaders, with the Marine Corps itself only 

responsible for the destructive activities in maneuver conflict. Boyd 

emphatically stated the opposite about high-level national goals: 

“You, as a military person, better understand that, particularly if 

you get caught in a guerrilla operation.”45 It is particularly ironic that, as 

the Marine Corps gravitated toward Boyd’s ideas as a solution to 

the mistakes of Vietnam, this specific point, about which Boyd felt 

strongly, fell by the wayside. Finally, it was possible that the intense 

43 “Atlantic Charter, August 14, 1941,” Avalon Project, Yale Law School Lillian 

Goldman Law Library, accessed 9 March 2017. 

44 German for “living space.” Though the term predated the birth of National 

Socialism, Hitler and the Nazi Party adopted it as a shorthand for their plan to 

depopulate Eastern Europe of non-Aryan, and thus racially “inferior” people, to 

allow for the expansion of the German population and the exploitation of the 

natural resources in Eastern Europe required to sustain them.

45 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 5, side 1, 153, emphasis added.
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and exhausting battle of simply getting the Marine Corps to adopt 

maneuver warfare, fought over the better part of a decade, made 

explaining the further nuances of moral conflict too great a task 

for maneuver proponents. 

Whatever the omission’s cause, the fact that only a fraction 

of the Marine Corps could hear Boyd’s briefs directly was a contributing factor. Maneuverists without the benefit of personally 

attending “Patterns of Conflict” or speaking with Boyd might be 

excused from their inability to counter the criticism leveled against 

the German model; those who did know Boyd personally and had 

attended his briefings, however, held the material required for an 

effective defense in their hands but for some reason never used it. 

The result, to paraphrase Boyd and the aforementioned Manstein, 

was a lost victory in the maneuver debate.46

(Mis)understanding the OODA Loop

A constant in the debate over maneuver warfare was using the 

OODA loop as a shorthand device to simplify the ideas from 

Boyd’s complex repertoire.47 Sometimes this substitution was conscious, sometimes not. General Trainor, for example, did not use 

46 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most 

Brilliant General, trans. Anthony G. Powell (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004). One 

of the German Army’s most senior commanders during World War II, Manstein 

planned both the successful invasion of France in 1940 and several operations 

against the Red Army on the eastern front. He was eventually relieved of command by Hitler in 1944 for disobeying orders to hold all territory to the last man. 

Manstein characterized the Wehrmacht operations he wrote about on the eastern 

front as “lost victories” due to Hitler’s regular interference in military decision 

making, which often forced the Wehrmacht into untenable and self-destructive situations.

47 Wilson, “Maneuver/Fluid Warfare,” 61; Burke, “Maneuver Warfare and the 

MAGTF,” 67–69; Capt C. A. Leader, USMCR, “Maneuver Tactics and the Art 

of War,” Marine Corps Gazette 67, no. 3 (March 1983): 56; Brown, “Maneuver 

Warfare at Tinian—1944,” 53–54; Maj Gary W. Anderson, “Maneuver, Attrition, or the Tactics of Mistake?,” Marine Corps Gazette 69, no. 9 (September 1985): 

73–74; LtCol Gary W. Anderson, “When Maneuver Fails,” Marine Corps Gazette

73, no. 4 (April 1989): 58–59; William S. Lind et al., “The Changing Face of 

War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 10 (October 1989): 

23; Maj Craig A. Tucker, “False Prophets: The Myth of Maneuver Warfare and 
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the term explicitly in his article on maneuver, but his definition of 

the initiative seems to match it: “The principle of the initiative calls 

for staying progressively ahead of an opponent in both thought 

and action.”48 Using the loop in this way proved a two-edged sword 

for proponents in the long run. On the one hand, it served as an 

easy introduction to maneuver warfare, especially for the vast majority of Marines and other interested parties who had neither the 

time nor opportunity to attend Boyd’s lectures at Quantico or see 

it employed in maneuver hotbeds, such as in General Gray’s 2d 

Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. On the other hand, detractors 

often singled out the OODA loop for criticism, misunderstanding its origins and nuances. This problem was exacerbated by the 

fact that many proponents misunderstood and misrepresented the 

loop as well.

 Critics argued that the loop, supposedly derived from single 

fighter air-to-air combat, simply did not translate to a more complex ground environment. The fallacy that it was derived from 

Boyd’s air-to-air combat experience in Korea or from a misreading of history was commonly held, even by people who sat through 

“Patterns of Conflict.” A critique by Jay Luvaas, then a military 

history professor at West Point, claimed that Boyd extrapolated it 

from historical examples of blitzkrieg; Boyd’s handwritten retort 

on the critique is an emphatic “NO.”49 Roger Spiller, a professor at 

the Army’s Combat Studies Institute, believed that the loop came 

from Boyd’s analysis of dogfights between the MiG-15 and F-86 

during the Korean War; yet, as previously mentioned, Boyd made 

clear that it originated in the “anomalies” he saw in the YF-16/17 

the Inadequacies of FMFM-1 Warfighting” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army Command 

and General Staff College, 1995), 24–25; Capt R. S. Moore, “Maneuver Warfare,” Amphibious Warfare Review (July 1983): 35, found in folder “Sep 1983—2D 

MARDIV Maneuver Warfare Readings,” box 39, Alfred M. Gray II Papers; 

“Introduction—2D MARDIV Maneuver Warfare SOP,” folder 9, box 3, Robert 

Coram Papers; and Bill Woods, letter to Robert Coram, folder 3, box 8, Robert 

Coram Papers.

48 Trainor, “New Thoughts on War,” 49. 

49 Jay Luvaas, “Patterns of Conflict in History,” 9 March 1981, folder 7, box 5, 

Col John R. Boyd Papers. 
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flight tests.50 Separation from Boyd tended to intensify the criticism. Infantry officer Major Craig Tucker argued that

despite Boyd’s study of selected land campaigns[,] the 

sterile individual combat between machines maneuvering 

in the unrestricted environs of space does not translate 

well to the practical realities of land warfare . . . there 

is considerable difference between maneuvering a fighter 

and maneuvering an army . . . the “Boyd Theory”—ignoring the moral dimension of war—fails to recognize 

that armies, unlike airplanes, are not dependent on the 

desires of a single individual and may retain a significant 

amount of cohesion and fighting spirit despite being outmaneuvered.51

Army Lieutenant Colonel Mark R. Hamilton, an experienced instructor and administrator, believed that the decision cycle construct was valuable—but only up to a point, and it could not be 

considered the sole cause of victory. Like Tucker, Hamilton argued 

(erroneously) that as a concept derived from air-to-air combat, the 

OODA loop had little applicability to ground warfare:

Air-to-air combat is essentially few-on-few (even with 

a wingman). It is three-dimensional . . . land warfare is 

many-on-many. It is really only two-dimensional even 

with air whose ordinance [sic] is dropped to support 

two dimensional maneuver or positioning. Trafficability 

confines and confounds, slows or denies total freedom 

of movement. Battle tends to be longer than air-to-air; 

within battles, movements are continuous rather than iterative; and disengagement once battle is joined (even at 

the recon level) is very difficult without some damage and 

some expenditure of ammunition.52

50 Spiller, “Critique of John Boyd’s ‘Patterns of Conflict’.”

51 Tucker, “False Prophets,” 25. 

52 Hamilton, “ ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Revisited,” 10–11. See also Barry Scott Zellen, Art of War in an Asymmetric World: Strategy for the Post–Cold War Era (London: 
A KILLING GAME

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These interpretations derived from the problem cited earlier

—lack of direct exposure to Boyd’s presentation; Boyd said a great 

deal about the moral dimension of war and specifically expanded his view of conflict from individual to collective actions, as 

discussed in chapter 4. Boyd clearly believed that even air-to-air 

combat involved more than the individual jousts of World War I: 

“It’s not just one to one air combat up here. It’s what pilots like to 

say, many upon many. In other words, if you’re working over one 

guy, somebody else is going to come in and blindside you.”53 Boyd 

also stated unequivocally that the loop’s origins were not in his 

dogfighting experience in Korea but in his later work on aircraft 

design. 

One problem in the loop’s interpretation was injected by maneuverists who talked about the loop’s speed in an absolute sense, 

as Lind did in the characterization that opens this chapter. Boyd 

never made such an argument; as he put it, “Maneuver warfare 

is not just a bunch of guys going down the highway at a high 

speed.”54 Relative tempo, not time, was the key factor. To remain 

unpredictable, one’s own timing had to vary to prevent an adversary from recognizing a pattern.55 Indeed, tempo could include 

deliberately slowing down one’s own activities, or injecting friction 

into an adversary’s system to slow him down without necessarily 

speeding up oneself. This was similar to football’s no-huddle offense or running out the clock, depending on the scenario. 

Some maneuverists clung to the idea of absolute speed, saying, “You go fast, you go fast.” Boyd responded, “Christ, we’ll all 

drive each other nuts.” Speed for speed’s sake was unnecessary. 

Relative speed was the key, and this could be achieved by degrading 

the adversary: “All I have to do is be faster than my adversary. I 

can be slow as long as I slow [him] down even more.” Boyd argued 

that this is what the Communists had done to the Americans in 

Vietnam: “The guerrillas, in a sense, were in effect operating at a 

Continuum International Publishing, 2012), 82.

53 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 10. 

54 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” 4, side 2, 134.

55 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 235–36. 
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faster tempo than we were. . . . They were operating very slow, but 

Christ, we were blundering all over and couldn’t even operate at 

their pace. We were doing things all disoriented.”56

As with the OODA loop’s origins, Boyd’s concept of execution came from his previous experiences and observations. In 

“Patterns of Conflict,” Boyd linked the contrast between tempo 

and speed back to his insights from the aforementioned YF-16/17 

fly-off. He found that the key performance parameter for a fighter 

was not its ability to simply do everything faster than an adversary, 

but to shift between energy states (fast transients) to give a “choice 

of engagement opportunities over an adversary.” The prevailing 

wisdom in fighter design at the time was “that you either want to 

conserve or gain energy while trying to outmaneuver an adversary. 

But sometimes you may want to dump it overboard very quickly 

if you want to gain leverage on him.” Conversely, “you may want 

to add it very quickly, or maybe not so quickly depending on the 

circumstances.”57

This captured Boyd’s emphasis on tempo as compared to absolute comparative speed. Substitute method of conflict for airplane and 

one sees the essence of Boyd’s theory of conflict and in turn the 

essence of maneuver warfare. Time and tempo were only two of 

many factors used against an opponent to render him incapable 

of activity; one still sought to isolate and neutralize physical and 

nonphysical strengths and moral bonds simultaneously.58 All of 

this was examined during the loop’s critical orientation phase, and 

it was applicable from the grand strategic level down to the tactical level. In sum, Boyd sought many different methods to help 

describe complex ideas in simple ways, and the OODA loop was 

an example of this. The farther removed the explanation was from 

Boyd, the more often his simple explanation of complex ideas was 

reduced to a simple, unnuanced idea in itself. This is what happened with the OODA loop.

56 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 12.

57 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 9. Boyd also touches 

on this idea in his oral history; see Boyd Air Force oral history, 129–30.

58 Osinga, Science, Strategy and War, 236.
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This book has addressed the counterarguments to these criticisms already, but the point bears repeating: critics often misunderstood Boyd, not only from lack of direct exposure but also because 

of incomplete interpretation by his proponents, the most vocal of 

whom was Lind. Major Tucker, who criticized the OODA loop 

in his 1995 master’s thesis, also made extensive references to, and 

critiques of, a selection of Lind’s works. This highlighted the paradox of having Lind as Boyd’s functional spokesman: he reached 

a much wider audience, but he left the nuances of Boyd’s briefings 

behind. Absent the benefit of hearing Boyd’s briefing or accessing 

a Boyd-authored source, Tucker could only interpret Boyd through 

Lind. Similarly, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, writing almost 10 

years prior, did not reference any of Boyd’s original work, whereas 

he used two different works by Lind. The constraints of hearing 

Boyd’s ideas secondhand are clear in both Tucker’s and Hamilton’s theses. Without the nuances of the original presentation, 

Hamilton did not see that time could be used as a dimension when 

considering the dimensional aspects of combat in his discussion 

about the length of time for ground and air engagements. He further confined the contribution of aviation to delivering ordnance, 

overlooking innovations such as vertical envelopment by helicopter that certainly added a third dimension to a land battlefield.

Boyd’s Best and Worst Promoter

Beyond watering down Boyd, Lind was often a focal point of criticism because of his own personal idiosyncrasies. Though his work 

as a political staffer had not required that he inject himself into 

the Marine Corps’ internal reform movement, he participated in 

the debate as a member of the larger defense community. Lind 

first joined the staff of Senator Robert A. Taft Jr. (R-OH) in 1973 

and later moved to Senator Gary W. Hart’s (D-CO) staff; on both, 

Lind aggressively pushed for widespread reform within the Department of Defense.59 He expended great energy on the Marine 

59 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 24; and Gary Hart 

and William S. Lind, “Detailed Outline: Military Reform,” folder “Bill Lind’s 

Visit to the Naval War College,” 1, box 22, Alfred M. Gray II Papers.
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Corps, in particular, finding fertile minds in its ranks that felt stymied by stagnant leadership. 

Lind did not mince words in condemning both people and 

their ideas when he found them wanting. For example, an article 

he wrote for the Washington Post was acidly titled “The Marines’ 

Brass Is Winning Its Battle but Losing the Corps.”60 The article’s 

title set the tone for its acerbic content. Lind chastised Marine 

Corps leaders for not embracing the changes he recommended as 

a maneuverist and military reformer. He accused commanders of 

“glossing over deficiencies . . . and of suppressing arguments for 

reform,” with the result that “the Corps risks future Beiruts, possibly on even larger scales.” Marine leaders also were engaging in 

“an assault on the essence of the Corps as an institution.”61 Lind 

was equally biting in person. Once interrupted during a brief by 

a Marine officer who groused, “Schwerpunkt, bilgepunkt, it’s all the 

same to me,” Lind retorted, “Yes, it is. And, unfortunately, it will 

always be that way for you.”62 Such inflammatory comments illustrate why many critics refused to look past Lind’s caustic temperament and entertain his arguments on maneuver warfare.

Nor did his personal appearance ingratiate him with members 

of an organization who prided themselves on physical toughness. 

As described by Robert Coram, Lind was a “big fleshy man” who 

often attended field exercises wearing “an inverness and a deerstalker,” thus essentially dressing like the traditional depiction of 

Sherlock Holmes.63 Even Lind’s supporters acknowledged the effort required to look past his exterior; in the introduction to Lind’s 

Maneuver Warfare Handbook, Colonel John Studt took a moment to 

note that he had “strong suspicions that [Lind] would have difficulty passing the PFT [physical fitness test].”64

60 William S. Lind and Jeffrey Record, “The Marines’ Brass Is Winning Its Battle 

but Losing the Corps,” Washington Post, 28 July 1985. 61 Lind and Record, “The Marines’ Brass.”

62 Coram, Boyd, 383. Lind reported a similar version of the exchange; see Lind, 

“Why the German Example?,” 60.

63 Coram, Boyd, 383. 64 Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, xi.
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William Lind’s verbal style and overall bearing, therefore, resulted in an antagonistic relationship with the Marine Corps’ senior leaders. General Trainor claimed that “the Marine Corps was 

not hostile to the ideas behind Maneuver Warfare and the Boydian concepts. Bill Lind was the source of friction.” Trainor added 

that Lind had caused this friction because he “publicly criticized 

Marine leadership and ascribed to it a calcified commitment to 

attrition warfare where it did not exist to the degree he claimed.”65

At times, the relationship was so dysfunctional that Lind found 

himself banned from the grounds of Quantico.66 This love/hate 

chemistry had the dual purpose of helping to educate people on 

maneuver warfare—Lind enjoyed a higher level of public visibility than Boyd and, as mentioned above, often acted as the public 

conduit for Boyd’s ideas. As General Van Riper observed, “Lind 

was a salesman. He solicited ideas from a lot of different places. 

He had a good grasp of history. He proselytized the ideas, more 

65 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 225.

66 There is conflicting evidence on precisely when Lind became unwelcome 

aboard Quantico. Lind stated that during the tenure of Commandant Gen Paul 

X. Kelly—no fan of Lind’s—the Quantico base commander forbade inviting 

Lind to lecture at the military schools there; see Lind and Record, “The Marines’ 

Brass,” B1. Terry Pierce cited this particular instance as well; however, he also 

alleged that Gen Charles Krulak later reinstituted that ban, but Pierce provided 

no supporting evidence; see Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies, 91, 94. 

This claim is problematic because, according to Gen Krulak’s own oral history 

interview, Krulak, though disagreeing with Lind on many issues, found him an 

intellectual stimulant and invited Lind back to Quantico after Krulak’s predecessor, Gen Mundy, had Lind barred once again; see Gen Charles C. Krulak (Ret), 

interview with David B. Crist, 12 July 1999–11 May 2001, transcript, session 

XIV (Oral History Division, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA). 

Because Pierce described Krulak as an energetic supporter of maneuver warfare—to the point where, as will be seen in chapter 6, Krulak ordered that Warfighting be revised to keep it relevant—it seems unlikely that Krulak would have 

deprived himself of a resource like Lind. LtGen Van Riper also substantiated the 

charge that Gen Kelly proscribed Lind’s presence at Quantico; see Van Riper 

20 February 2014 interview. At a minimum, it seems fair to say that maneuverist 

Commandants like Gray and Krulak tolerated Lind’s more outrageous statements about the Marine Corps for the sake of fostering intellectual debate about 

maneuver warfare concepts, while nonmaneuverists such as Kelly and Mundy 

found Lind a liability to the institution as a whole and treated him accordingly.
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than anything else.” As with others promoting maneuver warfare, 

Van Riper saw Lind’s role as “bringing Boyd’s ideas to our attention, and sometimes helping to interpret what Boyd was doing.”67

Yet, sales technique aside, Lind remained an influential player in 

the maneuver warfare debate, as the next chapter will show.

CONCLUSION

The maneuver warfare debate was a raucous one. Slowly, but with 

increasing momentum as the decade drew on, maneuver concepts 

spread through the Marine Corps, with the pages of the Marine 

Corps Gazette acting as the grand arena for the discussion. As Boyd’s 

ideas spread, a widening circle of Marines found them a useful 

answer to the problems that their institution faced in the uncertain 

post-Vietnam world. The debate took several courses, from simply 

making maneuver warfare more understandable to demonstrating 

its application to the whole MAGTF.

As with any unfamiliar idea, maneuver conflict took time to 

explain; and, as the above criticism illustrates, the maneuverists’ 

explanations did not satisfy everyone. Criticism came, in part, 

from perceived weaknesses in the ideas themselves, but it also 

came from misunderstanding those ideas. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that Boyd’s brief enjoyed a relatively limited 

direct audience, and his self-appointed salesmen did not always 

have a full understanding of his ideas in their own rights.

For a time, this debate lacked direction, as virtually anybody 

with an opinion weighed in, and there was no indication from the 

higher echelons of Marine Corps leadership about which aspects, 

if any, the institution supported. But that did not mean the debate 

was without value. It tilled the earth, so to speak, in the minds of 

Marines across the Corps, planting new ideas at a time when veteran Marines were disheartened by the old ways that had reaped 

bitter fruit in Vietnam. As the 1980s came to an end, the seeds 

sown by this debate bore their bounty. Several key individuals had 

absorbed Boyd’s ideas and tried to implement them within their 

own limited spheres of influence. Then, in 1989, they found them67 Van Riper 20 February 2014 interview.
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selves in the unique position of being able to make those ideas 

the very foundation of how the Marine Corps viewed war and 

planned to win it. The final chapter will focus on those individuals 

and how they worked to give Boyd’s concepts the Corps’ official 

imprimatur.
150

CHAPTER SIX

“What Do You Think 

We’re For?”

From Argument to Warfighting

The year 1989 marked a watershed moment in the maneuver warfare debate; that was the year the debate became doctrine. The 

tangle of ideas, people, and institutional search for purpose, having threaded their way through Vietnam’s jungles and across the 

late Cold War years, were finally woven together into a cohesive 

fabric: Warfighting. By 1989, Boyd’s conflict theories were widely 

known (though not always fully understood) throughout the Marine Corps, and those individuals who found in his concept the 

answer to the future’s challenges were finally in positions to institutionalize maneuver warfare. Working from both the highest and 

lowest levels of the Marine Corps, these individuals transformed 

Boyd’s ideas from debate fodder into policy and made them stick. 

The worldview expressed in Warfighting—for which Boyd’s interpretations formed the cornerstone—remains at the heart of how 

Marines understand warfare, despite continued criticism then and 

now. The reader should also consider this chapter in the context 

of the bottom-up model of military innovation discussed in the 

introduction. As we have seen, the lower-level commanders and 

Marines who would actually have to execute maneuver warfare on 

the battlefield generated much of the debate over its nuances. This 
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

151

chapter demonstrates how several of those men, planted firmly in 

the same dirt shared by their warfighters, would push from below 

to adopt a new concept of war that they believed would both grant 

them victory and husband their men’s lives. 

Although it is beyond the scope of this work to identify every 

individual who helped, however incrementally, to cement Boyd’s 

ideas into the Corps’ doctrinal foundations, four deserve a detailed 

discussion. They are the aforementioned William S. Lind, Colonel 

Michael D. Wyly, General Alfred M. Gray Jr., and Captain John 

Schmitt. Each performed a key role in assembling the big picture 

of maneuver warfare. Lind was the promoter; Wyly, the teacher; 

Gray, the doer; and Schmitt, the writer. Lind and Wyly worked 

from the bottom up, and Gray and Schmitt worked from the top 

down, but only after pushing maneuver warfare at the ground level during their earlier time with operational forces. Boyd’s mental 

churn pushed him to perpetually refine his ideas rather than stop 

and commit them to paper, so it fell to these men to write the book 

on maneuver warfare.

THE PROMOTER

Ideas do not become military doctrine without buy-in from the 

senior ranks, but Boyd’s concepts would never have entered the 

equation without voices from below demanding change. Not only 

did Marines clamor for reform after Vietnam but William Lind, 

an outsider, crossed civilian-military lines by supporting those Marines’ voices and bringing Boyd into the process. Though Lind’s 

influence clearly was not always helpful, there is no denying that, 

absent his widespread public access and sheer enthusiasm, Boyd’s 

proponents would likely have had a harder time connecting with 

each other, impeding the cross-pollination of Boyd’s ideas, especially at the lower echelons.

As discussed previously, Lind first gained interest in national 

defense matters as a congressional staffer in the early 1970s. He 

applied his background in history to various reform movements 

within the military and gained a particular following among Marines. In 1977, Lind first met Boyd and sat through the “Patterns 
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152

of Conflict” brief.1 Under the aegis of military reform, Lind had 

already floated some suggestions to Marine Corps Gazette readers 

on modernization and on mechanizing the Marine Corps.2

 Yet 

Boyd’s amassing of historical evidence appealed to Lind. Lind became the promoter. His position in the military reform movement 

allowed him to straddle both civilian and military worlds. The 

publicity (or notoriety, depending on whom one asked) he gained 

from pushing military reform in general and from the particular 

attention he gave the Marine Corps meant he enjoyed greater access to spread his and Boyd’s ideas. 

In 1981, Lind was introduced to then-Major General Gray by 

students of Colonel Wyly; Wyly, as will be discussed shortly, shared 

Lind’s passion for reform. Gray commanded the 2d Marine Division and was implementing his own version of maneuver warfare 

there. Gray convened a Maneuver Warfare Board that same year 

to collect and disseminate maneuver ideas, and he placed Lind’s 

Marine Corps Gazette article, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the 

Marine Corps,” on its reading list. Lind was invited to observe and 

comment on the division’s training exercises at Camp Lejeune.3

The next year, during Gray’s famous Fort Pickett, Virginia, exercises, Gray again invited Lind to observe and offer commentary at 

the end of each training day.4

Beyond influencing Gray’s activities at the 2d Marine Division, 

Lind also helped shape a nascent reform effort that Colonel Wyly 

pursued at the Amphibious Warfare School (AWS) in Quantico. 

Lind connected Wyly with Boyd, and Wyly would later invite Lind 

1

 Hart and Lind, “Detailed Outline: Military Reform,” 1.

2

 Terriff, “ ‘Innovate or Die’,” 491.

3

 “Maneuver Warfare Board at Lejeune,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 10 (October 

1981): 6; and Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps,” 55–58.

4

 John F. Schmitt, interview with LtCol Sean Callahan, 21 February 2013, transcript (Oral History Section, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA), 

hereafter Schmitt interview.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

153

to lecture study groups at AWS.5 Lind also became a member of a 

Washington, DC-based maneuver warfare group, where he actively promoted Boyd’s ideas—particularly the OODA loop. When 

these various study groups wanted more granularity in examining 

maneuver warfare, they turned to Boyd’s concepts through Lind, 

Boyd’s most readily available interpreter. Lind and Wyly eventually collaborated to publish the Maneuver Warfare Handbook in 1985, 

in the opening pages of which Boyd’s influence is clearly seen. 

Though not credited as an author, Wyly allowed Lind to include 

his lecture notes on practical applications of maneuver warfare 

concepts as appendices to the book.6

 Lind would play a key role 

as an editor and interpreter of Boyd’s ideas in the development 

of Warfighting, and he continuously promoted Boyd and maneuver concepts both inside the Marine Corps and in other Service 

branches.7

 As previously mentioned, Lind regularly burned his 

bridges and became persona non grata aboard Marine Corps 

Base Quantico. But his ability to connect key people to each other, combined with the force of his enthusiasm for Boyd’s work, 

extended Boyd’s reach to new and wider audiences. This was particularly important as Boyd continued his intense lecture schedule 

with an ever-expanding repertoire of briefs, and he would later (in 

1989, a key year) be convalescent in Florida and therefore was not 

directly available to the maneuverist group. 

THE TEACHER

It is clear from the pages of the Gazette, and by extension the experiences that shaped the opinions of its authors, that Marines 

5

 Col Michael Wyly, interview with Linda Magleby, 3 July 1991, transcript (Oral 

History Section, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA), hereafter Wyly 

interview with Magleby; Michael Wyly, telephone interview with author, 12 May 

2017, hereafter Wyly telephone interview; and Damian, “The Road to FMFM1,” 35–36.

6

 Damian, “The Road to FMFM-1,” 35; and Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook, 

4–6.

7

 William S. Lind, “The Theory and Practice of Maneuver Warfare,” in Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology, ed. Richard D. Hooker Jr. (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 

1993), 3–18. Lind’s chapter is essentially a repackaging of the main points from 

his Gazette articles and the Maneuver Warfare Handbook. 
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154

were writing and practicing aspects of maneuver warfare before 

it became official doctrine. Michael Wyly is an exemplar of these 

Marines, and his name has permeated this book because of his influence. He proved to be the in-the-trenches teacher that Boyd and 

Lind, as civilians, never could be. He already boasted an impressive military career before entering the maneuver warfare debate. 

Wyly received his commission as a second lieutenant in 1962, ran 

the 1st Marine Division’s Counterguerrilla/Counterinsurgency 

School, deployed to Vietnam in 1965 as a psychological warfare 

officer, and returned to Vietnam in 1966 as a captain and infantry 

company commander.8

 His experience as a company commander 

in Vietnam sparked a desire to preserve the lives of his men by 

finding less wasteful ways of fighting. There, his Company D, 1st 

Battalion, 5th Marines, or “Dying Delta,” often got bloody lessons 

on guerrilla tactics. Turning the tables, he began using guerrilla 

tactics of his own, dispersing his company and then saturating an 

area with aggressive patrols so that it was the enemy, not his own 

men, who was off balance and reactive. One of Wyly’s men paid 

him a high compliment on this radical turnaround, saying, “Skipper, we ain’t the Dying Delta anymore.”9

 Though not conscious 

of it at the time, Wyly had practiced his own brand of maneuver 

warfare, and he observed firsthand the effectiveness of its methods in unraveling an enemy. This knowledge, combined with the 

death of a promising lieutenant under his command, hardened his 

determination to find a way of winning while preserving Marine 

lives.10

Then-Major Wyly’s determination redoubled after returning 

from Vietnam, when he was assigned as an instructor at The Basic School (TBS) in 1973. To train the new lieutenants, he began with the tactics curriculum he was handed. To his dismay, 

however, those in charge of the curriculum showed little desire to 

incorporate any new historical lessons since the Korean stalemate 

8

 “Mike Wyly,” Boyd for Business and Innovation Conference, accessed 15 March 

2017; and Wyly telephone interview.

9

 Coram, Boyd, 375. Michael Wyly confirmed this event in his interview with the 

author; see Wyly telephone interview.

10 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 218.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

155

of 1952–53.11 One particular incident brought this point home 

to Wyly. A lesson on nonilluminated night attacks included a film 

reel; Wyly was warned to be careful handling the film, as it was 

11 Wyly interview with Magleby.

Col Michael D. Wyly, ca. January 1988. Frustrated by stale tactics and doctrine as both an 

infantry commander in Vietnam and an instructor at several Marine Corps schools, Wyly waged 

a long campaign to replace old ways of thinking about war. He found their replacement in Boyd’s 

ideas on maneuver warfare. 

U.S. Marine Corps History Division
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156

very fragile. He soon understood why the film was fragile: it was 

the same one he had been shown when he was a lieutenant at TBS 

more than 10 years prior.12 It seemed that, with formal schools facing the pressures of churning out new officers for the immediate 

fight in Southeast Asia, efforts to glean potentially useful lessons 

from previous operations, even in the not-so-distant past, were neglected.

Wyly left TBS in 1976, frustrated by the training staff’s apparent apathy toward history. Deciding that he, at least, would try to 

learn something from the past, Wyly entered a graduate program 

in history at George Washington University near the end of his 

next tour with 2d Battalion, 4th Marines. In 1979, Wyly was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned as a support officer for 

Major General Bernard Trainor.13 At the time, Trainor directed 

all professional military education in the Marine Corps (1978–

81). Wyly’s historical knowledge and tactical acumen, expressed in 

a paper on Tarawa that he had written for his master’s program, 

impressed Trainor. In August 1979, Trainor decided to make use 

of these skills by sending Wyly to revamp the tactics program at 

AWS. Trainor gave Wyly a simple mandate: “Tactics is a flat tire. 

It’s your job to fix it.”14 Wyly quickly learned the truth of Trainor’s 

assessment. 

As was typical for a Marine moved to a new billet—and as he 

had at TBS—Wyly assessed the materials and procedures left to 

him by his predecessors. He found lesson plans and doctrine dating back to the 1930s, with little effort made to capture the lessons 

learned in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. When Wyly questioned the outgoing instructor about one lesson plan on the Battle 

of Austerlitz during the Napoleonic Wars, it became apparent that 

the instructor knew nothing about the battle beyond the lesson 

plan, which he had inherited unchanged from the man before 

him.15 At AWS, Wyly found the same indifference to absorbing 

12 Wyly telephone interview.

13 Wyly telephone interview.

14 Coram, Boyd, 377. 15 Wyly interview with Magleby.
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the lessons of history that he had found at TBS. Now, however, 

he had the position and authority to make the changes he desired.

Wyly thus entered the demolition phase of his own process 

of destructive creation. He trashed ancient lesson plans and replaced them with combat histories. He worked with Trainor to 

develop a reading list of relevant scholarly books for their students. 

He replaced planning exercises with tactical exercises, forcing students to make decisions rather than writing long orders.16 He replaced lectures with war games, giving students a scenario and 

then placing them in different classrooms with tactical radios to 

induce friction and inject reality.17 Wyly applied himself to fixing 

the “flat tire” but increasingly came to believe that it was the car, 

not simply the wheels, that needed changing. Taking a crowbar 

to old methods and ways of thinking was certainly necessary, but 

Wyly knew that he owed the Marine Corps something new and 

better to replace the wreckage. He understood the shortcomings 

in training and doctrine, and he had seen the deadly results of 

those shortcomings firsthand in Vietnam. He still needed to find 

what came next.

At this time in late 1979, Trainor told Wyly to show a snarky 

civilian—Lind—the changes Wyly was implementing at AWS to 

help “get Lind off the Corps’ back” for a bit.18 Lind found Wyly’s 

methods to be very much in line with what he wanted the Marine 

Corps as a whole to do. For his part, Wyly found that Lind’s articles captured the same institutional problems he had come across 

at TBS and AWS. Though they made an odd couple, Wyly saw 

a kindred spirit in Lind; he recognized that they fought the same 

fight against ossified institutional thinking.19 Wyly told Lind, “I’ve 

read some of your stuff . . . [and] you and I are obviously opposed to the same thing.” Both men wanted to replace the Corps’ 

old ways of thinking and do away with the uncritical acceptance 

of dated tactics and methods that unnecessarily cost lives. Wyly 

16 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 103.

17 Wyly telephone interview.

18 Wyly telephone interview.

19 Wyly telephone interview.
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wanted to provide solutions, not gripes. The remaining question, 

as Wyly phrased it, was: “What do you think we’re for?” Lind replied that he was looking for solutions as well, and he introduced 

Wyly to Boyd’s ideas, explaining that Boyd had built a conceptual 

framework for conflict that might prove to be the answer to Wyly’s 

question.20 Lind gave Michael Wyly John Boyd’s phone number; 

Wyly phoned Boyd, learned about the “Patterns of Conflict” brief, 

and coordinated with Trainor to have Boyd present it at AWS.21

Boyd’s presentation awed the AWS students, but it had a more 

profound impact on Wyly. It codified what he sought as a replacement for the Corps’ stale perspective on conflict.22

Thereafter, and until Wyly’s assignment at AWS ended in 

1982, Boyd became a regular lecturer, and Wyly arranged one of 

the only publication efforts of Boyd’s collected briefing slides.23

Five of Boyd’s presentations previously had been collected in a 

green-covered book by one of Boyd’s friends, Thomas Christie. 

In 1987, Wyly arranged for a reprinting of Boyd’s “Green Book” 

through the Quantico base printer, with the title A Discourse on Winning and Losing. These two editions are the only published versions 

of Boyd’s work. Both Trainor and Wyly moved on to other billets, 

but Wyly remained engaged in the maneuver warfare debate and 

20 Wyly interview with Magleby; and Wyly telephone interview.

21 Coram, Boyd, 378; and Wyly telephone interview. 22 Wyly interview with Coram. Wyly made the point in his interview with the 

author that he takes issue with Coram’s characterization of him as an acolyte, 

and the implication that Boyd gave Wyly’s life a direction that was hitherto lacking; see Wyly telephone interview. The background provided both by Coram 

and Wyly’s interview with the author makes it clear that Wyly was pushing for 

reform on his own well before he became acquainted with Lind and Boyd. Indeed, in a 1993 Gazette article, Wyly explicitly stated that “had there been no 

. . . Lind or John Boyd, we would have continued our fight for a new style of 

fighting anyway”; see Wyly, “Doctrinal Change,” 44. What form that new style 

might ultimately have taken, or the success of that fight absent outside influence, 

Wyly freely admitted was an open question. What those two men provided were 

historical interpretation, a new mental framework and, perhaps most important, contacts with key people outside the Marine Corps who “could bring pressures where we could not, finding ourselves at every turn ‘outranked’ ”; see Wyly, 

“Doctrinal Change,” 44.

23 Coram, Boyd, 381. A handful of the “Green Books” can still be found in the 

Gray Research Center in Quantico, VA.
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promoted Boyd’s ideas in the pages of the Gazette.

24 By decade’s 

end, Wyly had another opportunity to bring Boyd, maneuver warfare, and the Marine Corps together under the aegis of the next 

figure in this discussion.

THE DOER

Alfred M. Gray Jr. used maneuver techniques long before Boyd 

synthesized his OODA loop. Already a dedicated student of history, two decades of service and combat experience in the Far East 

brought him to embrace the outlook on war defined by Sun Tzu.25

In 1965, as a major in Vietnam, Gray applied this outlook by 

fighting Communist mobility with that of his own. Gray recalled 

that his unit “came up with a concept that every night I would 

move the whole unit. . . . I always believed that we could move 

as well at night as [the North Vietnamese] could.” At one base, 

Gray was ordered to remain inside the wire, which turned his unit 

into a static target for incoming artillery. Without violating the letter of his orders, Gray nevertheless sent out mobile, mechanized 

detachments to “move around disrupting things . . . and setting 

up and continuing to fire all these counter-battery missions and 

counter-artillery missions.” Although the North Vietnamese did 

not cease all shelling, Gray’s unit severely disrupted their accuracy 

and drastically reduced the number of casualties inflicted on his 

unit by the Communists.26

Following his tour in Vietnam and after completing several 

other assignments, Gray was assigned as a brigadier general in 

1976 to the 4th MAB, where he continued applying tenets of maneuver warfare—surprise, deception, speed, and mobility—in the 

context of more conventional NATO operations. Before Gray’s 

tenure, Marine participation in NATO exercises was unremarkable. The MAB’s relative lack of mobility and firepower meant its 

influence on the opposing force was negligible. Gray changed this 

24 For examples, see Wilson et al., “The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” 49–54; 

Wyly, “Those Confusing Ms,” 30; Wyly, “War Without Firepower?,” 17–18; and 

Wyly, “Thinking Beyond the Beachhead,” 34–38.

25 Gray et al. interview. 

26 Piscitelli, “The United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 38. 
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by adding more trucks, amphibious assault vehicles, and tanks to 

the MAB. These changes became apparent in the next exercise, 

where 4th MAB counterattacked and defeated a much larger armored force and then advanced deep into the enemy rear.27 Gray 

added deception in other NATO exercises. During one exercise, 

he placed his howitzers close to the front line, so that the opposing 

German force, assuming it had reached the Marines’ front line, 

deployed prematurely. Well short of the actual front, the Germans 

were delayed 24 hours while they regrouped. In another exercise, 

small groups of three to four Marines with radios were inserted 

across the training area by Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicop27 Col Gerald H. Turley, USMCR (Ret), The Journey of a Warrior: The Twenty-ninth 

Commandant of the Marine Corps (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2012), 17–19.

Alfred M. Gray Jr. (foreground) as a lieutenant general and commander of Fleet Marine Force 

Atlantic, ca. March 1987. Gray had practiced maneuver warfare techniques and applied them 

at each level of command, including his participation here in the NATO exercise Operation Cold 

Winter, which occurred in Norway. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
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ters and instructed to simulate the radio traffic of a full battalion. 

In a Caribbean exercise, Gray used tactical surprise by executing 

a nighttime helicopter-borne assault in an era when Marine helicopters did not generally fly at night.28 The end of Gray’s tenure 

at the 4th MAB coincided with Boyd’s first iterations of “Patterns 

of Conflict,” and he became one of the few people willing to sit 

through Boyd’s five-hour extravaganza multiple times.29

Combined with his own operational experiences and tendencies, Gray now had Boyd’s ideas as a framework along with the maneuver mind-set that he had developed as his career progressed. In 

1981, Gray, now a major general, was assigned as commander of 

the 2d Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. One of his first acts was 

turning what had been an informal study group into a Maneuver 

Warfare Board and ordering it to secure Boyd as a lecturer.30 Within six months of assuming command, Gray convened a collection 

of 250 officers then aboard Camp Lejeune to hear Boyd present 

“Patterns of Conflict.” When Gray made maneuver warfare the 

division’s official doctrine, his standard operating procedures listed 

Boyd’s OODA loop as the first concept requiring mastery.31 When 

Gray requested a talking point paper to be used while briefing 

journalists and other interested parties about his work inculcating a maneuver mind-set within the division, Boyd’s theories were 

the focal point.32 Moreover, during the division’s free-play exercises 

at Fort Pickett, Gray arranged for surprise events—a paratroop 

drop by the 82d Airborne Division during one exercise, a chemical 

28 Gray et al. interview.

29 Burton, Pentagon Wars, 48. See also box 22, Col John R. Boyd Papers. Boyd’s 

1980 monthly date keeper shows one briefing he gave to Gen Gray on 28 November 1980. Boyd briefed him again 11–12 January 1982. Boyd briefed other 

Commandants, such as Gens Robert Barrow and P. X. Kelly, though his influence on Gray proved greatest. See Burton, Pentagon Wars, 48–49; and box 22, Col 

John R. Boyd Papers. 

30 Coram, Boyd, 382–83. See also “2d MarDiv Maneuver Warfare Study,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 66, no. 3 (March 1982): 8. 31 “Introduction—2D MARDIV Maneuver Warfare SOP,” folder 9, box 3, Robert Coram Papers.

32 “Talking Paper for Use by MGen A. M. Gray,” folder “Sep 1983—2D 

MARDIV Maneuver Warfare Readings,” box 39, Alfred M. Gray II Papers.
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weapons attack during another—to inject unpredictability.33 Gray 

did not care whether his Marines came up with the right answers at 

these events. He wanted to see how well his Marines could apply 

maneuver warfare and adapt on the fly against thinking opponents. 

Gray’s activities in the 2d Marine Division were not replicated elsewhere. But, as with his work at the 4th MAB, he and 

33 Schmitt interview; and Coram, Boyd, 384. The term free play refers to a type of 

military exercise conducted under wartime or contingency conditions in which 

the only constraints are necessary safety measures. Both sides are free to make 

decisions and pursue them without conforming to a training script that artificially forces a desired action. Perhaps most important, the designated adversary or 

“red” force enjoys the freedom of action and resources to defeat the friendly or 

“blue” force.

U.S. Marines from the 6th MAB check a map as they play the role of aggressors during Combined Arms Operation 1-82, Fort Pickett, VA, ca. April 1982. This exercise, conducted by the 

2d Marine Division while commanded by Gen Gray, was an example of the free play training 

Gray encouraged to help his Marines practice and refine their own maneuver warfare proficiency. 

Gray wanted Marines to have the experience of fighting an independent, thinking human opponent. Adding to the realism, these aggressors are armed and dressed as the Soviet naval infantry 

that a Marine force could expect to encounter in a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. 

Defense Imagery Management Operations Center
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his Marines showed that maneuver concepts were teachable and, 

more importantly, enabled them to win. The history of his work 

in both units supports this author’s concept (proposed in the introduction) of Gray as a transitional innovator. His rank placed him 

in an ideal position to hear proponents of grassroots change and 

to implement some of their ideas in his own limited capacity, and 

with each promotion he earned, he was able to further spread the 

emerging doctrine of maneuver warfare. Gray also demonstrated 

that he was not afraid to impose controversial ideas from the top 

down when he believed they were the right things to do. He proved 

this during his commandancy in 1989, when he used his authority 

to make the maneuver philosophy based on Boyd the cornerstone 

of Marine Corps combat doctrine. This was a culmination of his 

many years spent urging Marines to “fight smarter.”34 Wyly, Lind, 

and a young captain named John Schmitt assisted him.

THE WRITER

John Schmitt received his Marine Corps commission in the early 

1980s, just as the maneuver warfare debate took off. As it happened, his first assignment was to the 2d Marine Division in 1982, 

shortly after Gray took command.35 While TBS still struggled with 

the historical apathy Wyly had encountered years earlier, Schmitt, 

already an avid student of history, consumed the staples of Marine Corps lore on his own during his time there.36 He arrived at 

Camp Lejeune to find Gray’s maneuver warfare reforms underway. Although an anti-intellectual current prevailed in parts of the 

officer corps—little reading and “a lot of chewing of Red Man 

[tobacco]”—others took maneuver warfare very seriously. Among 

these were Vietnam-era veterans who saw it as a potential fix for 

that war’s dysfunctional mind-set.37 Schmitt and his fellow junior 

officers found maneuver warfare, with its emphasis on lower-level 

initiative, empowering. As platoon leaders during the Fort Pickett 

34 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 633. 35 Gray et al. interview.

36 Schmitt interview.

37 Schmitt interview. 
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free play exercises, their decisions could directly influence the mission’s outcome.38

Schmitt only interacted once with Gray during this time, in 

an after action discussion following one of the free play exercises. 

Schmitt had commanded a heavy machine gun platoon mounted on jeeps, and because of his unit’s mobility he was tasked to 

conduct reconnaissance through an area marked as contaminated 

from a simulated chemical attack. His platoon discovered a lane 

with minimal contamination, which his company drove through 

to successfully complete its mission. Gray learned of this success 

from Schmitt’s battalion commander and called on him to explain 

what he did during the after action discussion. Despite the natural 

distance between the lieutenant and the general, Schmitt nevertheless found the concepts stimulating and became one of maneuver warfare’s true believers.39 He extended his stay with the 2d 

Marine Division to help form one of the first LAV battalions.

Like Wyly and Gray, Schmitt’s experience and ability to think 

innovatively caused him to gravitate toward billets in which he 

could study the deeper issues of how Marines viewed conflict. 

When the time came to move to a new duty station in 1985, 

Schmitt was sent to the Doctrine Center in Quantico to draft LAV 

doctrine. Schmitt quickly discovered a problem: he could not build 

LAV doctrine from the Marine Corps’ overall ground operations 

doctrine because no doctrine existed. Or rather, the Corps’ operational doctrine depended on which manual one consulted: three 

different manuals gave him three different doctrinal flavors. He 

complained enough about this shortcoming to his superiors that 

he was finally told to write the ground operations manual himself. 

This was an unenviable task, as several previous attempts to write 

the manual had petered out.40 However, it also presented Schmitt 

with the opportunity to inject his maneuver warfare concepts into 

official doctrine. His superiors rebuffed these attempts until the 

38 Schmitt interview. Schmitt noted that Lind, despite his provocative nature 

when interacting with senior leaders, developed a following among junior Marines because of his willingness to talk with them and encourage their initiative.

39 Schmitt interview. 

40 Schmitt interview.
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last minute, when General Gray was tapped to assume the role 

of Commandant in 1987. Schmitt suddenly got the green light to 

make maneuver warfare a part of the ground operations manual. 

He did his best, presenting Boyd’s mandate to “focus on the enemy, not on terrain objectives” and emphasizing the use of tempo 

to overwhelm an adversary: “Act more quickly than the enemy 

can react. Maneuver warfare is as much a mental approach to 

warfare as it is a physical one. The essence of maneuver warfare 

is to make and implement operational and tactical decisions more 

quickly than the enemy.” The commander who does this “seizes 

the initiative and dictates the course of battle until the enemy is 

overcome by events and his cohesion and ability to influence the 

situation are destroyed.”41

Inevitably, the last-minute decision to include maneuver warfare references in the manual resulted in an uneven doctrinal 

publication, with no effort made by the Doctrine Center to link 

Schmitt’s maneuver warfare chapter to the rest of the book. In 

a Marine Corps Gazette article, Wyly reviewed the final product—

released as Ground Combat Operations, Operational Handbook (OH) 

6-1—and acerbically noted “that OH 6-1 was done by committee is evident.”42 He approved of Schmitt’s chapter, calling it “a 

description of the art of war that should be read and reread by 

everyone”; he found everything else wanting.43 Schmitt was keenly 

aware of Ground Combat Operations’ flaws at the time, noting, “we 

shoehorned [maneuver warfare] in to the front of the book. It 

[had] nothing to do with anything else that’s in the book, it just 

[stood] out like a sore thumb.”44 But this proved only a temporary 

setback; when General Gray decided that he wanted a new doc41 Schmitt interview. See also “Fundamentals of Maneuver Warfare: Extracts 

from OH 6-1,” Marine Corps Gazette 72, no. 4 (April 1988): 50. This short article 

highlighted the maneuver warfare portion of Ground Combat Operations, OH 6-1. 

The focus on the mental dimension of war, and the goal of unraveling an adversary, relate back to the details of “Patterns of Conflict” discussed in chapter 

4. The emphasis on rapid decision making clearly draws from the OODA loop.

42 Col Michael D. Wyly, “Operational Handbook 6-1, Ground Combat Operations,” Marine Corps Gazette 72, no. 7 (July 1988): 30–31. 43 Wyly, “Operational Handbook 6-1,” 30–31.

44 Schmitt interview.
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trinal manual based on maneuver warfare, Schmitt and the rest of 

the key players were in place.

WEAVING THE THREADS TOGETHER

In 1988, the many threads and personalities of the maneuver 

warfare debate finally merged and reached critical mass. General 

Gray was Commandant and had grand plans to make an immediate institutional impact. This included the creation of the Marine 

Corps University and codification of maneuver warfare doctrine. 

Michael Wyly had just returned to Quantico with a mandate 

from Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper to turn Gray’s newly 

founded Marine Corps University into “the kind of institution 

. . . Gray wants to make it.”45 Lind remained a congressional gadfly in Washington, DC. At the Doctrine Center, Schmitt’s superior, 

Colonel Robert J. Mastrion, was ordered by Gray’s office to provide an author for the new capstone book, Warfighting, from which 

all other Marine Corps doctrine would derive. Schmitt was the 

only man available, and he soon found himself briefing Gray on 

his contribution to Ground Combat Operations in what was actually 

an audition for writing Warfighting. Schmitt, as a true believer in 

maneuver warfare, momentarily forgot the gulf in rank between 

them and began lecturing Gray on the importance of giving it 

more than lip service. He told Gray that unless the Commandant 

took other requisite steps, such as changing training methods and 

unit organization, Gray might as well throw the maneuver aspects 

of Ground Combat Operations in the trash. Realizing that he may 

have crossed the line from passion to presumptuousness with the 

Marine Corps’ top leader, Schmitt braced for a rebuff; Gray only 

raised an eyebrow. Schmitt believed that this fervor ultimately won 

him the authorship role.46

The informality of this interview belied its historic nature, 

for it marked a climax in the years of intellectual dynamism that 

gripped the Marine Corps after the end of the Vietnam War. The 

maneuver warfare movement began under an institutional culture 

45 Van Riper 20 February 2014 interview.

46 Gray et al. interview.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

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that had long pushed its members to seek new ways of keeping 

the organization relevant and useful, though the formal organs of 

that culture—such as senior leaders and training schools—had 

struggled to sustain that effort in the aftermath of Vietnam. Thus, 

it fell to individuals who had nevertheless absorbed that tradition 

to move the ball forward. Maneuver warfare came from Marines’ 

dissatisfaction with the stagnant views on warfare held by those 

formal organs; coalesced with John Boyd’s ideas, which gave maneuver warfare historical grounding and intellectual heft; and accelerated thanks to advocates like Lind and practitioners such as 

Gray. Now, in 1988, the maneuverists finally had a friend at the 

highest level of the institution. The bottom-up push for innovation had come full circle. What remained was for a singular mind 

to take a four-star general’s mandate, combined with Boyd’s new 

conception of war, and render it into something understandable 

by the young Marines that a Lieutenant Miller or a Colonel Wyly 

might lead. This was now Schmitt’s daunting but vital duty. 

Writing with Mission-Type Orders

Gray gave Captain Schmitt one hard rule for writing the book: 

“You have to satisfy me and nobody else. You don’t answer to anybody except for me. If anybody tries to unduly influence what 

you’re saying or you’re writing, you tell me about it and I’ll take 

care of it.”47 Despite Schmitt’s repeated requests, the Commandant refused to give him any other specific instructions. Schmitt 

only met with Gray twice during the development of Warfighting; 

both times, Gray sidestepped detailed guidance and instead talked 

in a stream-of-consciousness monologue about his views on war. 

Schmitt would ask a question or seek feedback on a specific section 

of the book; Gray would respond with a sea story. Schmitt soon 

realized just how free a rein he was being given when he told Gray 

that he planned to open the first chapter by reviewing the principles 

of war. This was a standard editorial device in writing doctrinal 

publications. “Which principles are those?” Gray asked. Schmitt 

was stunned; those principles were among the first things learned 

47 Schmitt interview.
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by new lieutenants at TBS. “You know, sir, MOOSEMUSS,” replied Schmitt, referring to the acronym employed as a memory 

device.48 Gray grinned, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Oh, those 

principles of war.” Schmitt then realized Gray’s point: despite 

the fact that those principles dated back to 1919 and had been 

an unquestioned component of American military doctrine ever 

since, neither they, nor any other traditional idea, were sacrosanct. 

Schmitt was free to start from scratch, destroying and creating 

ideas as he saw fit.49 

Gray’s rejection of the rigid adherence to dogmatic principles 

of war may reveal another subtle example of Boyd’s influence on 

him: it bore a striking resemblance to Boyd’s treatment of the same 

subject in the epilogue to “Patterns of Conflict.” Boyd viewed the 

reduction of war’s principles to a short list as the same kind of 

intellectual laziness or checklist mentality he had fought against 

since the early days of the Aerial Attack Study. This attitude bothered 

Boyd sufficiently that he devoted several slides on this seemingly 

unrelated topic at the very end of “Patterns of Conflict.” 

Boyd first laid out the list of principles from four different 

countries so that the audience could clearly see that the “concrete” 

principles of war varied from nation to nation and through time. 

He then noted that “scientific laws and principles are the same 

for all countries and tend to change little over time. On the other 

hand, we note that the Principles of War are different for different 

countries and change more dramatically over time.” In the audio, 

Boyd observed sarcastically: “So the question is, you know, will the 

real principle stand up? . . . Newton’s second law of motion is not 

different for different countries, it either fits or the goddamn thing 

doesn’t fit.” He also pointed out that even scientific principles were 

48 The principles summarized by MOOSEMUSS are: mass, objective, offensive, 

security, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, surprise, and simplicity. These principles remain enshrined in Marine Corps doctrine today, though 

not, it should be noted, in Warfighting, MCDP-1. See Marine Corps Operations, 

MCDP 1-0 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 2011), A-1–A-4; and Schmitt interview. See also Maj John F. Schmitt, 

“FMFM-1 Warfighting Discussion” (lecture, Expeditionary Warfare School, Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, ca. 1996).

49 Schmitt interview. See also Schmitt, “FMFM-1 Warfighting Discussion.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

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amended, and sometimes discarded, over time. If the laws of science were not rigid, one could not reduce the inherently more 

chaotic realm of war to a few inflexible principles.50

Boyd further criticized the lists of principles for making no 

distinction between inputs and outputs (i.e., actions taken by oneself compared to the desired impact of an action on an enemy): 

“Surprise is what you’re getting the other guy, concentration [or 

mass] is what you do . . . [surprise is] what you’re trying to get 

out of your adversary. Mobility, that’s you.” Boyd concluded the 

epilogue by stating that if one absolutely required statements on 

enduring elements of conflict, then those statements should “reflect at least the conflict dynamics” he had covered throughout his 

brief, connect with each other as per his destructive-constructive 

framework, and clearly show what one was trying to do to the enemy and what one wanted to achieve for oneself. He ended with 

several such statements that he did not call “principles,” but rather 

“appropriate bits and pieces” (see slides 180–84 in appendix A).51

Unfortunately, there is no direct evidence proving that Gray’s 

attitude came from his exposure to “Patterns of Conflict.” But 

if Gray developed this perspective on his own prior to meeting 

Boyd—a reasonable assumption, given Gray’s long habit of selfstudy, which predated his first encounter with the former Air Force 

colonel—one sees how Boyd’s similar outlook on the principles of 

war made his other ideas attractive to Gray.

The Writer Writes

From its inception, the writing of Warfighting was an exercise in 

the trust and fingerspitzengefühl inherent in maneuver warfare. 

Schmitt’s interactions with Gray should also correct the common, 

but erroneous, view that Warfighting was a distillation of Gray’s 

personal operational philosophy.52 Though Schmitt had certainly 

seen Gray’s own take on maneuver warfare firsthand at the 2d 

50 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 179–84; and Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and 

Losing,” tape 5, side 2, 171–74.

51 Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” 179–84; and Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and 

Losing,” tape 5, side 2, 171–74.

52 For example, see Millett, Semper Fidelis, 644.
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Marine Division, his accounts of meeting with Gray made clear 

that Schmitt was not simply ghostwriting for Gray in Warfighting. 

Schmitt distilled Boyd’s concepts, along with those of Clausewitz 

and Sun Tzu, not Gray’s. It is also worth offering another small 

corrective to the omission of Schmitt’s name in popular history; 

as the record makes clear, Schmitt, not Boyd, synthesized the theories that appeared in Warfighting. In Coram’s biography of Boyd, 

Schmitt is never mentioned by name; he is referred to only as “a 

young captain who already had the job of writing a new manual 

but who had become bogged down.”53 Lieutenant General Van 

Riper—who, as president of Marine Corps University and a consultant to Schmitt, was in a position to know—declared this characterization “absolutely, positively false. John [Schmitt] was the 

intellectual brain behind all this and was synthesizing people.”54

Schmitt was free to talk with whomever he wanted and use 

the ideas of any theorists he desired. As he wrote and rewrote the 

document, Schmitt consulted with Lind, Wyly, and others.55 As 

has been seen, Lind and Wyly were intimately familiar with Boyd’s 

work and regarded his theories as central to the maneuver warfare 

concept. Boyd was convalescing in Florida, but Schmitt had Boyd’s 

53 Coram, Boyd, 391. 54 Van Riper 20 February 2014 interview. Schmitt’s lecture and interview, Van 

Riper’s interview, and the 2015 interview of Schmitt, Van Riper, and Gray (Gray 

et al.), make clear that Schmitt’s role was pivotal and not that of a mere scribe.

55 Schmitt interview. LtGen Van Riper was one such asset Schmitt consulted; 

see Van Riper 20 February 2014 interview. Van Riper’s role up to this point was 

minimal; he did not meet Boyd until Gray appointed him as president of Marine Corps University (MCU). However, Van Riper had a keen academic mind, 

particularly in the study of history; see LtGen Paul K. Van Riper (Ret), interview 

with LtCol Sean P. Callahan, 11 February 2014, transcript (Oral History Section, 

Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA). In his position at MCU, he gave 

Wyly a free hand, which allowed Wyly to continue pushing maneuver warfare 

in the school’s classrooms. Van Riper’s interactions with Lind and Wyly brought 

him to Boyd, who he enjoyed talking with and found to be a challenging intellect. 

Following Warfighting’s publication, Van Riper brought Boyd in to help the university properly craft the curriculum by which the book’s tenets would be taught. 

Recognizing the value of Boyd’s works, Van Riper helped institutionalize them 

where he could. Since his retirement, he has taught elective courses at Marine 

Corps Command and Staff College about Boyd and maneuver warfare.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

171

slides in hand and regularly talked to Boyd on the phone.56 By the 

end of the process, Boyd’s name was suddenly ranked among the 

august company of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. Both Schmitt and 

those he consulted made it clear that Boyd’s thought was a key 

ingredient in the final product.57

After five months of drafting, Schmitt produced a short but 

eminently readable work. Among the structural decisions made in 

writing the book was guidance from Colonel Mastrion, Schmitt’s 

superior, to make the book a “two crapper”; that is, short enough 

that a Marine could read it during two trips to the bathroom in an 

afternoon. Marines were busy people who could not spend weeks 

reading Clausewitz, Boyd, or Sun Tzu; Schmitt had to distill the 

essence of these masters while making it understandable to Marines, from privates to generals.58

The final draft of Warfighting specifically cited Boyd several 

times, and Boyd’s ideas underpinned many other paragraphs.59 Insights on the disorder of war and of generating disorder in an opponent echoed Boyd’s comments on entropy and noncooperative 

centers of gravity from “Destruction and Creation” and “Patterns 

of Conflict.”60 So too did the repeated emphasis on the primacy 

of the human mind in war as well as warnings against overreliance 

on technology.61 Schmitt’s description of drills and free play exercises showed that the objective of both was to develop the ability 

to rapidly act and decide, using a repertoire of knowledge and 

experience under different conditions. This distilled and simplified 

56 Schmitt interview; and Schmitt, “FMFM–1 Warfighting Discussion.”

57 Schmitt interview; Schmitt, “FMFM–1 Warfighting Discussion”; and LtGen 

Paul K. Van Riper (Ret), interview with LtCol Sean P. Callahan, 12 May 2014, 

transcript (Oral History Section, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA). 

In his lecture ca. 1996 at EWS, Schmitt said that he drew from the body of 

maneuver warfare literature written up to that point, as well as works on and by 

many of the great battlefield commanders of history.

58 Schmitt, “FMFM–1 Warfighting Discussion.” 

59 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” 50–51, 56–57, 69, 76. See also Hammond, The Mind 

of War, 195–96. Hammond identifies several passages where Boyd is not specifically cited but where the ideas in “Patterns of Conflict” are clearly reflected.

60 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” 40. 61 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” 41, 63, 64.
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172

Boyd’s discussion of fingerspitzengefühl.62 The book’s section on 

decision making was a brilliant synthesis of Boyd’s key points in 

“Destruction and Creation”—breaking down old ideas to build better ones—with orientation as the key component of the decisionmaking process.63

When Schmitt presented his completed draft to General Gray 

for comment, Gray read it, and, as a testament to how well he believed Schmitt had captured his intent, made only two changes in 

the whole document. Both were in the foreword and emphasized 

the book’s broad scope. Where Schmitt had written, “I charge 

every officer to read this book,” Gray added, “and reread.”64 In 

the final sentence of the foreword, Gray added that the maneuver 

warfare philosophy applied “in the field and in the rear.”65 This 

made it clear that maneuver warfare was not simply a battlefield 

TTP but a framework for solving challenges of every kind. 

After a long and winding path, the Marine Corps finally had 

the grabby concept that would guide its efforts on future battlefields: maneuver warfare doctrine, officially codified in Warfighting,

with the ideas of John Boyd as one of its central pillars. Henceforth, Marines would fight according to Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, 

and an Air Force colonel with a penchant for profanity. Filtering 

from the bottom up (Lind and Wyly) and the top down (Gray and 

Schmitt), and thanks to heightened visibility in the pages of the 

Marine Corps Gazette and elsewhere, Boyd’s ideas gave the Corps its 

long-sought way of staying useful against the myriad threats of the 

modern world.

WARFIGHTING AND ITS CRITICS

Officially published in March 1989, Warfighting garnered widespread—though by no means universal—acclaim. Colonel John 

Greenwood, then editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, stated, “Not 

since 1934, when the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations began to 

62 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” 48. 63 “FMFM–1 Warfighting,” 72. 64 Schmitt interview. 

65 Wyly telephone interview.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

173

guide the newly established Fleet Marine Force, has a single doctrinal publication been so widely heralded within the U.S. Marine 

Corps.”66 As editor of the Gazette during the 1980s and throughout 

the most crucial era of the maneuver warfare debate, Greenwood 

believed that maneuver warfare had already started an intellectual renaissance in which Warfighting stood “as a major milestone.” 

Although he offered a few critiques of the manual, he also cautioned that they should not be allowed to obscure its value. It was 

a “starting point” for thinking and gaining new insights, just as 

the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations was the catalyst for a new 

amphibious mind-set in its day.67

Schmitt quickly countered perceived shortcomings of Warfighting after its publication. Though certainly not an impartial observer, he addressed the charge that Warfighting “contains nothing 

new.”68 To a certain extent, he agreed: “War is one of the oldest of 

the endeavors of man; I suspect we ran out of truly original ideas 

on the subject a long time ago.” The difference was “that, for perhaps the first time, Warfighting manages to weave [timeless] ideas 

into a cohesive doctrine, and . . . [make] that doctrine official.” 

Going further, Schmitt agreed that to a “Great Captain,” Warfighting had nothing to offer. But great captains were rare specimens, 

and for the less-gifted masses, “the maneuver warfare advocates 

are simply trying to give the rest of us the same opportunity for 

success by formalizing what the geniuses have known all along.” 

Nevertheless, Schmitt welcomed constructive criticism, and he 

seemingly felt there was not enough of it: “People have recognized 

that they’re supposed to love FMFM–1, and they do. But I wish 

they’d take more shots at it.”69

Some Marine officers lauded Schmitt’s effort while taking shots 

at its perceived shortcomings. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Lloyd, a 

66 Col John E. Greenwood (Ret), “FMFM–1: The Line of Departure,” Proceedings

(U.S. Naval Institute) 116, no. 5 (May 1990): 155–56. 67 Greenwood, “FMFM–1,” 155–56.

68 Capt John F. Schmitt, “The Great FMFM 1 Debate: Is There Anything New 

Here?,” Marine Corps Gazette 73, no. 11 (November 1989): 25–26. 69 Philip Gold, “A Thinking Man’s Corps,” Insight on the News (September 1989): 

15, box 10, Alfred M. Gray II Papers.
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174

Vietnam-era infantry officer, commended Warfighting for its “succinct, readable style” and “brevity and clarity,” but countered that 

these achievements came at the cost of “serious omissions.” Chief 

among these was that the word “amphibious” appeared nowhere 

in a doctrinal publication claiming to codify the Corps’ combat 

philosophy.70 Yet, this criticism missed a few key points. As noted in chapter 2, the mission of the Marine Corps has not always 

been amphibious warfare as defined by World War II’s golden 

age. The Marine Corps is expeditionary by nature, but that does 

not always equate to amphibious operations. General Gray drove 

this point home by renaming all Marine deployed units as expeditionary, rather than amphibious.71 Therefore, the Corps’ capstone 

doctrine needed to be broad enough so that Marines could apply 

it to the full range of possible contingencies. And, as outlined in 

chapter 4, Boyd often argued that one should not conflate terrain 

with the key focus of war. “Terrain does not fight wars,” he had 

said. “People do it and they use their minds.”72 Maneuver warfare 

doctrine was directed against the human adversary Marines could 

expect to face on any battlefield, amphibious or otherwise.

Other critiques echoed those leveled earlier at maneuver warfare in general. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Robeson feared that 

Warfighting was a “dazzle ’em ’til they drop” idea that underplayed 

the necessity of actual combat. He repeated the erroneous claim 

that the OODA loop was a derivative of aerial dogfighting and as 

such could not “transfer to land combat where ‘flying by the seat 

of your pants’ is likely to be a fatal experience.” Though Robeson’s 

comments were more stylistic than substantial, they nevertheless 

revealed the lingering impacts of mischaracterizations of Boyd often found in the maneuver warfare debate.73 Unsurprisingly—at 

70 LtCol Jeffrey J. Lloyd, USMCR, “Our Warfighting Philosophy,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 73, no. 11 (November 1989): 24–25. 71 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 633. It was also noted in chapter 2 that the amphibious

moniker was a fig leaf applied to Marine units in Vietnam to reduce Vietnamese 

sensitivity, rubbed raw by French expeditionary units, to the presence of foreign 

military personnel.

72 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 1, side 1, 3.

73 LtCol Edward J. Robeson IV, “Critique of FMFM 1, Warfighting,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 73, no. 11 (November 1989): 27–29.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE FOR?”

175

least, for those who knew him well—one of the primary critics 

was Boyd himself. Boyd called Schmitt after the book’s release to 

tell him that he liked it; and then proceeded to inundate Schmitt 

with a litany of comments for improving it.74 Even in victory, the 

process of destroying and creating new mental worlds could not 

be allowed to stop.

As it happened, Boyd’s contribution to the Corps’ capstone 

doctrine continued eight years later when a different Commandant, General Charles Krulak, asked Schmitt to revise Warfighting as part of a cross-institutional publication realignment. Even 

though Boyd’s health had deteriorated since 1989, he was well 

enough to comment directly on the revised drafts when Schmitt 

updated Warfighting, FMFM-1, to Warfighting, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1.75 Schmitt credited three-quarters of 

the changes in the final Warfighting to Boyd’s direct involvement.76

Sadly, this marked the last time Boyd influenced the Marine Corps 

in person. He died on 9 March 1997, four months before the publication of Warfighting, MCDP-1.77

CONCLUSION

The 1989 publication of Warfighting had capped a remarkable 

intellectual journey by the Marine Corps. In the years following 

Vietnam, many Marines and sympathetic civilians had sought a 

new perspective for fighting and winning wars that would both 

allow the Corps to remain useful in the post–Vietnam War world 

and prevent the mistakes brought on by old perspectives and their 

focus on physical markers of victory. At the same time, John Boyd 

was developing a mental framework that, when presented to the 

Marine Corps thinkers identified here as well as many other interested parties, seemed to fulfill precisely those two needs. Thanks 

to the key individuals discussed in this chapter, Boyd’s ideas were 

disseminated widely enough that by the time Lind, Wyly, Gray, 

74 Schmitt interview.

75 Schmitt, “FMFM–1 Warfighting Discussion.”

76 Schmitt interview.

77 Hammond, The Mind of War, 2.
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176

and Schmitt were in positions to effect real change, “Patterns of 

Conflict” had laid a strong foundation upon which to build a formal theory of maneuver warfare and codify it as doctrine. And 

while that doctrine—undergirded by the unconventional notions 

of an Air Force fighter pilot—has been challenged many times 

throughout the intervening years, both in theory and in practice, 

it remains the lodestar by which the Marine Corps strives to fight 

its wars.
177

Epilogue

With the official promulgation of Warfighting in 1989, the debate 

about whether the Marine Corps should adopt maneuver warfare as its combat doctrine, if it did not end entirely, certainly 

receded into the background.1

 Yet the apparent settling of that 

one question immediately generated others, which are argued to 

this day. Two interrelated questions rapidly gained prominence: 1) 

Did maneuver warfare actually prove useful when applied on the 

battlefield?; and 2) Had the Marine Corps followed through on 

the subsequent changes necessary to make it an organization truly 

based on maneuver warfare? That such questions are even asked 

today implies that Boyd’s ideas, as he presented them, have yet to 

be absorbed institutionally. Yet, it is also telling that the debate is 

one of degree rather than of kind. Maneuver warfare, derived 

1

 Some questioned whether this closure was actually a good thing. Nathan Packard observes that it “brought to a close what had been one of the most intellectually vibrant periods in the Corps’ history.” Packard notes further that Gen 

Gray tied himself personally to the doctrine—in Warfighting’s introduction, Gray 

called it “my” philosophy on fighting war—and this meant that to criticize maneuver warfare was to criticize Gray. Such a paradigm “unintentionally stifled 

further study and doctrinal innovation.” See Packard, “The Marine Corps’ Long 

March,” 368–69.
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178

from Boyd’s conflict framework, is the unquestioned standard to 

which the Marine Corps holds itself when it comes to preparing 

for and fighting wars. The issue is how well the Corps cleaves to 

that standard. And answering the second question informs the answer for the first. The evidence argues that, yes, maneuver warfare 

has been useful when Marines have employed it, but a better understanding of Boyd’s ideas could make it even more potent.

Operation Desert Storm became the first data point for those 

who answered the two questions in the affirmative and those who 

dissented. For the first group, the Gulf War was evidence of the 

utility of maneuver warfare and its successful permeation throughout the Corps’ institutional culture. Shortly after Warfighting’s release, the United States faced an adversary pulled straight from 

the pages of its Cold War threat assessments. Saddam Hussein’s 

Iraq, with the world’s fourth largest army—one heavily mechanized and armored to boot—blitzed its way through Kuwait in 

August 1990. The details of the subsequent campaign to eject the 

Iraqis from Kuwait are less important than the fact that, both at 

the time and after, many in the defense community believed it to 

be modeled on and executed in accordance with Boyd’s theories.2

2

 Hammond, The Mind of War, 123, 194; Coram, Boyd, 422–26; Burton, Pentagon 

Wars, 3; Piscitelli, United States Marine Corps Way of War, 80–84; LtCol G. I. Wilson, “The Gulf War, Maneuver Warfare, and the Operational Art,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 75, no. 6 (June 1991): 23–24; LtCol G. I. Wilson, “New Doctrine or Slipping into the Past?,” Marine Corps Gazette 77, no. 10 (October 1993): 44–45; and 

Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies, 100–1. Pierce quotes an assessment 

by Lind, who claimed the Marine forces engaged got it half right; the 1st MarDiv 

had a maneuver warfare–type performance, but the 2d MarDiv did not. Several 

of the official Marine Corps histories of Desert Storm also highlight where maneuver warfare doctrine was integrated into the planning and execution of the 

Marine portion of the campaign. See Col Charles J. Quilter II, USMCR, U.S. 

Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Desert 

Shield and Desert Storm (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1993), 35–36, 62; LtCol Dennis P. Mroczkowski, USMCR, U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With the 2d Marine Division in Desert 

Shield and Desert Storm (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1993), 3, 75–77; LtCol Ronald J. Brown, USMCR (Ret), 

U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With Marine Forces Afloat in Desert Shield 

and Desert Storm (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1998), 73, 112, 129; and Paul W. Westermeyer with Alexander 
EPILOGUE

179

The success of the American-led Coalition in driving Hussein’s 

forces from Kuwait in a few days of ground combat seemed a 

testament to the power of maneuver warfare.

Dissenters on the two questions drew different lessons from 

Desert Storm. Contrary to the claim that the rout of Hussein’s 

military was a perfect archetype of maneuver warfare’s efficacy, 

newly promoted Major John Schmitt cautioned against learning the wrong lessons from a war in which one side was virtually 

comatose. Noting that war was an interactive exercise, Schmitt 

argues that, on a fundamental level, the Gulf War was not interactive. Hussein gave the Coalition six months to build up its forces 

and gather intelligence while doing nothing to interfere: 

He let us take all our time to build up logistics and rehearse, and then sat there inert while we executed it. He 

didn’t do anything to screw the plan up and it worked 

great. It better have worked great, because we had six 

months to prepare and the enemy basically let us do what 

we wanted to do. This was not a real interactive experience, there was not this other independent hostile will 

trying to impose itself on us. We were the only side with 

initiative.3

In the pages of the Gazette, retired infantry Colonel J. J. Edson 

agrees that “it would be a serious mistake to believe that DESERT 

STORM merely tested and validated the concepts set forth in 

FMFM 1.”4

 The Coalition’s unchallenged air superiority and 

weeks of preparatory air strikes meant that when the ground war 

started, “the initiative passed entirely to coalition forces.” Colonel 

Edson believed that, if anything, Desert Storm had demonstrated 

a “revolution in firepower.”5

 While Edson still thought maneuver 

warfare was a valuable doctrine, two years later Major Richard 

N. Hinman, eds., Desert Voices: An Oral History Anthology of Marines in the Gulf War, 

1990–1991 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps History Division, 2016), 94, 108, 168. 3

 Schmitt, “FMFM–1 Warfighting Discussion.” 

4

 Col J. J. Edson (Ret), “A Perspective on Desert Storm,” Marine Corps Gazette 75, 

no. 6 (June 1991): 25.

5

 Edson, “A Perspective on Desert Storm,” 25.
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Hooker—a paratrooper with combat experience in Grenada—

reiterated Edson’s unconscious argument that the Gulf War 

proved the American military was still wedded to “victory through 

superior firepower.”6

 Hooker believed that, while Coalition forces 

successfully practiced maneuver warfare at the operational level 

by selecting targets that would “stun or paralyze” the Iraqi military’s ability to control its forces and respond effectively to allied 

actions, at the tactical level decision making remained “rigidly 

centralized,” maneuver was tightly controlled, and there existed a 

clear preference for halting upon enemy contact to blast away at 

him. Hooker also agreed with Schmitt that Hussein’s army was a 

“passive enemy.”7

For proponents, Desert Storm proved that maneuver warfare 

could pass the litmus test of combat. In the years following, they 

believed that the Commandants who followed Gray sustained his 

impact on doctrine and took pains to plant maneuver warfare 

deep within institutional culture. This is highlighted in the doctoral work of Anthony J. Piscitelli, an adjunct professor at State 

University of New York–Maritime College, completed at the 

University of Glasgow. In his study, Piscitelli provided a wealth 

of firsthand perspectives from key active-duty Marines across the 

maneuver warfare debate period. General Carl E. Mundy, Gray’s 

immediate successor, sought to expand the application of maneuver warfare to the naval domain; General Krulak, as already 

mentioned, brought in Schmitt to revise Warfighting as part of a 

doctrinal realignment; and in 2001, General James L. Jones published Marine Corps Operations, MCDP 1-0, to describe maneuver 

warfare applied operationally by a MAGTF.8

 Articles in the Marine 

Corps Gazette throughout the 1990s embraced and defended these 

and other efforts, while cautioning against proposed changes to 

doctrine and training that might undermine nascent maneuver 

warfare practices.9

6

 Maj Richard D. Hooker Jr., “The Mythology Surrounding Maneuver Warfare,” Parameters 23, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 28. 7

 Hooker, “The Mythology Surrounding Maneuver Warfare,” 35–36.

8

 Piscitelli, “United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 85–90. 9

 Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., “On the Verge of a New Era: The Marine Corps 
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The early years of the twenty-first century provided further test 

cases for maneuver warfare doctrine. In response to the terrorist 

attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11), the Marine Corps deployed 

to Afghanistan and later back to Iraq to depose Hussein in 2003. 

It would operate under a new capstone concept called Expeditionary 

Maneuver Warfare—in development before 9/11 but released shortly thereafter—that reemphasized maneuver warfare as the Corps’ 

guiding philosophy and placed it in the context of the contemporary threat environment.10 According to Marines who both commanded and fought in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi 

Freedom, executing the maneuver warfare philosophy is precisely 

what Marine invasion forces did. Piscitelli’s dissertation contained 

interviews with Marine Generals James Mattis, John Kelly, and 

James Conway; all expressed the conviction that maneuver warfare was consciously employed both during the initial invasions and 

follow-on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bing West, the Marine and former assistant defense secretary mentioned in chapter 

2, embedded himself with the 1st Marine Division when it pushed 

from Kuwait to Baghdad, where he noted the use of maneuver warfare tenets such as surprise, unexpected axes of advance, missiontype orders, and low-level decision making. Evan Wright, a 

correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine, was embedded with the 

1st Reconnaissance Battalion in Iraq. Although Wright’s book has 

been criticized for its accuracy in depicting certain people and 

events, the repeated references to maneuver warfare throughout 

his book are remarkable. It seems clear that the Marines of the 

1st Reconnaissance Battalion believed they were executing maneuver warfare in Iraqi Freedom and believed it with sufficient 

and Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 77, no. 7 (July 1993): 63–67; Wilson, “New Doctrine or Slipping into the Past?,” 45; William S. Lind, “Regression,” Marine Corps Gazette 77, no. 10 (October 1993): 45; Col Mark F. Cancian, 

USMCR, “FMFM 3-1 Command and Staff Action: A Prescription for Failure,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 79, no. 10 (October 1995): 44–54; and Capt Jeffrey W. 

Prowse, “CAX: A Primer for Maneuverists and Over-the-Horizon Guys,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 83, no. 10 (October 1999): 42–45. 10 Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 

Department of the Navy, 2001).
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enthusiasm that it impacted Wright’s narrative.11 Even though the 

shift from conventional to counterinsurgency operations in both 

conflicts required a corresponding mental shift by Marine Corps 

forces that did not always go smoothly, senior leaders were convinced that the agility inherent in maneuver warfare was what saw 

their forces through.

Among the dissenters, the critique that the Marine Corps was 

failing to fight under maneuver warfare principles became increasingly bitter as the twin ground conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq 

wore on. First Lieutenant Mauro Mujica, an infantry officer with 

experience fighting insurgents in al-Ramadi, Iraq, believed that 

while maneuver warfare was still discussed and taught in classroom settings, on the battlefield “we have in fact been practicing 

the opposite of maneuver warfare.” He indicted American forces 

for becoming predictable and allowing insurgents to “completely control the tempo of the fight.”12 Captain William Birdzell, a 

member of the Foreign Military Training Unit, argued that the 

Marine Corps was becoming less effective in its use of combined 

arms, long considered an institutional core competency and featured in Warfighting as a key enabler for maneuver warfare. He 

condemned the contemporary predeployment training program 

known as Mojave Viper for “no longer [achieving] our doctrinal 

goals” as laid out in Warfighting.

13

Perhaps the most stinging appraisals on the state of maneuver 

warfare came in a series of “Attritionist Letters” published anon11 Piscitelli, “United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 156–215; F. J. Bing West, 

“Maneuver Warfare: It Worked in Iraq,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) 130, no. 

2 (February 2004): 36–38; Evan Wright, Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain 

America, and the New Face of American War (New York: Berkley Caliber, 2008), 11–

13, 49, 348; Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies, 101; Bing West and Maj

Gen Ray L. Smith (Ret), The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division 

(New York: Bantam Dell, 2003), 222; Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making 

of a Marine Officer (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 37; and Col Nicholas E. 

Reynolds, U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond (Washington, DC: 

Marine Corps History Division, 2007), 162.

12 1stLt Mauro Mujica III, “On the Conduct of War,” Marine Corps Gazette 91, no. 

4 (April 2007): 33.

13 Capt William Birdzell, “Overcoming Enemy Counters to Combined Arms,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 91, no. 8 (August 2007): 25.
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183

ymously in the Marine Corps Gazette from May 2010 through April 

2016. These articles mirrored the literary style of C. S. Lewis, 

whose darkly satirical Screwtape Letters detailed ways to undermine 

religious faith. Instead of the Devil writing to his demon nephew, 

these letters featured an attritionist general-grade officer highlighting the many areas—doctrine, training and education, command 

and control, force structure, and promotions—in which the Marine Corps had utterly failed to apply the maneuver warfare philosophy that the institution still proclaimed was its guiding light.14

The “Attritionist Letters” generated a number of responses, in 

which the authors vigorously disagreed with the assertion that the 

Marine Corps had fallen so far away from its central doctrine.15

Yet there were an almost equal number of voices who found much 

14 Anonymous, “The Attritionist Letters (#1),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 5 (May 

2010): 14–16; “The Attritionist Letters (#2),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 6 (June 

2010): 10–11; “The Attritionist Letters (#3),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 7 (July 

2010): 11–13; “The Attritionist Letters (#4),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 8 (August 2010): 10–15; “The Attritionist Letters (#5),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, no. 9 

(September 2010): 10–11; “The Attritionist Letters (#6),” Marine Corps Gazette 94, 

no. 10 (October 2010): 12–14; “The Attritionist Letters (#7),” Marine Corps Gazette 

94, no. 11 (November 2010): 18–20; “The Attritionist Letters (#8),” Marine Corps 

Gazette 94, no. 12 (December 2010): 10–12; “The Attritionist Letters (#9),” Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 1 (January 2011): 10–11; “The Attritionist Letters (#10),” 

Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 2 (February 2011): 10–13; “The Attritionist Letters 

(#11),” Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 3 (March 2011): 10–12; “The Attritionist Letters (#12),” Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 4 (April 2011): 12–13; “The Attritionist 

Letters (#13),” Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 5 (May 2011): 18–19; “The Attritionist 

Letters (#14),” Marine Corps Gazette 97, no. 6 (June 2013): 18; “The Attritionist 

Letters (#15),” Marine Corps Gazette 97, no. 7 (July 2013): 18; “Attritionist Letter 

#16,” Marine Corps Gazette 97, no. 12 (December 2013): 26; “Attritionist Letter 

#22,” Marine Corps Gazette 99, no. 12 (December 2015): 82; and “Attritionist Letter #23,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 4 (April 2016): 79. The gaps in numbering 

sequence are not errors; the author spoke with Col John A. Keenan, editor of 

the Gazette at the time, and confirmed that other letters were submitted but not 

published for editorial reasons. See Col John A. Keenan, telephone interview 

with author, 24 May 2017.

15 Maj Mark Elfers, “Regarding the Attritionist Letters,” Marine Corps Gazette 95, 

no. 2 (February 2011): 14–18; Col C. R. McCarthy, letter to the editor, Marine 

Corps Gazette 95, no. 4 (April 2011): 10; Capt Matt Kralovec, letter to the editor, 

Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 4 (April 2011): 10; and LtGen Robert B. Neller, letter 

to the editor, Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 6 (June 2011): 8.
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truth in the acerbic analyses of letter author General Screwtape.16

While not universally shared, a number of Marines harbored the 

belief that there existed a disconnect between what the Marine 

Corps preached and what it practiced when it came to maneuver 

warfare. Curiously, this split roughly followed rank, with the senior “preachers” evincing a rather different outlook from the lower-grade “practitioners,” who argued that the rank and file were 

denied the opportunity to use maneuver warfare in the field.17

In an effort to roll back this perceived institutional regression, 

some critics have worked to identify how the Corps found itself 

in this position after exerting significant effort to make maneuver 

warfare the law of the land. Captain Daniel Grazier and William 

Lind recently identified several contributing factors:

Over the past decade, the bulk of intellectual energy 

has been expended studying counterinsurgency theory 

and practice. This, combined with constant deployment 

preparation and theater-specific training, has left little 

room for attempting to change fundamental doctrine. Today’s Marines are a generation removed from people like 

Col John Boyd, USAF (Ret), and Col Michael D. Wyly, 

who initiated the maneuver warfare movement in the late 

1970s in response to America’s defeat in Vietnam. The 

military reform movement of the 1980s is unknown to 

most serving Marine officers.18

16 Maj Peter J. Munson, letter to the editor, Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 4 (April 

2011): 10; Col William F. Mullen, “Attritionist Letter (#10): A Response,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 95, no. 6 (June 2011): 36–37; Capt J. P. Steinfels, letter to the editor, 

Marine Corps Gazette 95, no. 8 (August 2011): 8; and Capt B. A. Friedman, “Maneuver Warfare: A Defense,” Marine Corps Gazette 98, no. 12 (December 2014): 

26–29.

17 A brief comparison of the people cited in this chapter appears to bear this out. 

Generals like Mattis, Kelly, Conway, and Neller believed that the Marine Corps 

did indeed practice maneuver warfare on the battlefield and at home and found 

much of Anonymous’s criticism unwarranted. Those who found the institutionalization of maneuver warfare wanting were generally field-grade officers and 

below.

18 Capt Daniel R. Grazier and William S. Lind, “Maneuver Warfare,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 99, no. 4 (April 2015): 24.
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185

Grazier and Lind here come tantalizingly close to seeing a 

real truth: that the gulf of time separating modern Marines from 

Boyd himself and the maneuver warfare movement as a whole 

contributed to a loss of passion for, and understanding of, maneuver warfare—and, most critically, its applicability to the very 

counterinsurgency campaign the Corps long struggled to master. 

This truth, as well as some of its causes, will be discussed shortly. Yet Lind and Grazier did not explore this connection, instead 

identifying the main culprit as “the U.S. military’s natural tendency toward attrition.”19 Harkening back to the comments of Edson 

and Hooker concerning Desert Storm, Lind and Grazier implied 

that, in the Marine Corps, the attritionist/firepower/checklist tendencies never really went away. 

This belief, along with the existence of the disconnect between modern Marines and Boyd, continues to this day and is 

still regularly lamented by authors in the Gazette.

20 Most recently, 

a workshop with the theme “Reinvigorating Maneuver Warfare,” 

hosted by the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, 

released a report demonstrating that the perceived failure of the 

institution to practice its central doctrine remains a deeply and 

passionately felt disappointment:

To what degree has the Marine Corps 

institutionalized maneuver warfare?

Not surprisingly, participants felt that the Marine Corps 

has not institutionalized maneuver warfare. What was 

surprising was the degree to which the Marine Corps was 

perceived to have fallen short and how that belief was unanimous, or nearly so, among workshop participants. This is 

not a small problem; what was evident was a level of cyn19 Capt Daniel R. Grazier, “A Manoeuvre Renaissance,” Marine Corps Gazette 99, 

no. 6 (June 2015): 57–60.

20 Grazier, “A Manoeuvre Renaissance”; Capt Jason Topshe, “Evolving the Marine Corps for Irregular Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 1 (January 2016): 

79–83; 2dLt Jacob W. Foster, “Complex Military Environment,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 2 (February 2016): 52–54; The Ellis Group, “21st Century Maneuver Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 11 (November 2016): 37; and Col Phil 

Smith, letter to the editor, Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 12 (December 2016): 6.
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icism, particularly among the young officers, i.e., “MCDP 

1 is great doctrine, but we don’t do it.” No one disagreed 

when one participant stated in a plenary discussion, “The 

Marine Corps can talk about maneuver warfare but has 

not institutionalized an ability to do maneuver warfare.”

Another major theme was that while some commanders succeeded in practicing maneuver warfare, they did 

so in spite of the system, not because of it. There was 

considerable frustration with institutional barriers (e.g. 

manpower policies and service culture among others) and 

how intractable they are. Where a commander succeeds, 

he creates what was termed an “island of success” that 

disappears when he departs unless his successor is equally talented, courageous and committed. More commonly, 

when a maneuverist commander is replaced by one less 

aggressive and committed, the result is what one participant called the “sine wave of mediocrity.”21

The report went on to identify five key metrics by which one 

could recognize an organization that had institutionalized maneuver warfare; the Marine Corps did not fulfill any one of the five. 

It is hard to envision a more damning indictment of an institution 

fallen short of its ideals. And these were not the conclusions of 

uninformed outsiders looking in. Workshop participants covered a 

broad range, from active-duty Marine staff noncommissioned officers to company- and field-grade officers to retired Marines and 

civilians. All had experience in either the operating forces or in 

supporting establishments such as the training and education organizations responsible for inculcating a maneuver warfare ethos. 

The more junior participants had only been in the Marine Corps 

a few years, though long enough to get combat deployments under 

their belts. Older ones, such as Schmitt and Lind, had been part of 

21 Deputy Director, G-3/5/7, Training and Education Command, to Commanding General, Training and Education Command, “TECOM Workshop 

2017-01/Reinvigorating Maneuver Warfare Through Training and Education/

Post-Workshop Report,” 5 January 2017, emphasis in original.
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the maneuver warfare movement from its inception. What united 

them was a deep belief in the importance of maneuver warfare as 

vital to the Marine Corps’ success as a warfighting organization; 

a majority had reached the bitter conclusion that on those two 

crucial questions—applying maneuver warfare on the battlefield 

and institutionalizing its tenets to create a true maneuver warfare body—the Corps and its leadership had thoroughly failed.

Was the maneuver warfare debate for naught? Were Boyd’s 

ideas ever truly tested on the battlefield? Did the institutionalization of maneuver warfare start and end with General Gray’s signature on Warfighting? As stated at the outset, that the question is 

even asked today seems an answer in itself. A number of Marines, 

both active duty and retired, along with a few interested civilians, 

see an organization that has failed to follow its self-proclaimed 

philosophy. Even if these were not the most vocal critics, this still 

seems evidence enough that maneuver warfare is not preached or 

practiced universally within the Marine Corps. But perhaps this 

standard of universality is unfair. Indeed, it is challenging to think 

of any large organization—from churches and businesses to legislatures and sports teams—in which every member measures up to 

the lofty goals held by the organization. The better questions are 

whether the organization itself proclaims to value its own goals 

and whether its members actively strive to achieve them. From 

this perspective comes a more accurate assessment: while today’s 

Marine Corps has not institutionalized maneuver warfare across 

the board, the maneuver warfare concept derived from Boyd remains the gold standard for how Marines view conflict. Marines 

are exposed to it enough in their training that many individuals 

seek to implement maneuver warfare on their own, where they 

can; and while many bureaucratic impediments to completing the 

institutionalization still exist, the Marine Corps is flexible and maneuverist enough that both preachers and practitioners can make 

an impact on and off the battlefield.

Warfighting is still the capstone combat doctrine of the Marine Corps; this fact is significant in itself. General Krulak was the 

only Commandant to revise it. He did so under tightly controlled 

conditions, bringing in the original author, Schmitt, to do the re-
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visions; Schmitt, in turn, worked directly with Boyd on many of 

the edits shortly before Boyd’s death. Those revisions only clarified 

certain ideas in the document in response to constructive criticism 

in the years between 1989 and 1997. Since then, no Commandant 

has touched it or professed the existence of a superior combat 

philosophy. Subordinate capstone concepts have been released 

since 1997, but in general, these consciously rooted themselves 

in maneuver warfare, seeking only to find new applications for 

it in changing threat environments. Indeed, under Commandant 

General Robert B. Neller, the Marine Corps’ newest operating 

concept—Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an Expeditionary Force 

Operates in the 21st Century—explicitly reiterates that “this warfighting philosophy [maneuver warfare] was, is, and will remain our 

foundation.” Maneuver warfare is referenced and unreservedly 

applied throughout this publication, in domains from information operations to logistics to the training of the individual Marine. This stands in stark contrast to the Marine Corps’ previous 

capstone concept known as Expeditionary Force 21, which made no 

reference, explicit or otherwise, to the Corps’ purported combat 

philosophy within its 47 pages.22 While several Marines have recently expressed a need for further revisions to Warfighting, these 

authors sought changes to incorporate lessons and ideas from the 

last two wars and today’s operating environment, rather than any 

rejection of the doctrine itself.23 In sum, despite disagreements as 

to the level of institutionalization of maneuver warfare, the concept itself remains the unquestioned standard by which the Marine Corps strives to operate.

When that standard is applied to the battlefield, the evidence 

22 Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century

(Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, Department of the Navy, 2016), 

8; and Expeditionary Force 21—Forward and Ready: Now and in the Future (Washington, 

DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, Department of the Navy, 2014). When compared with other concepts like those expressed in Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare, it 

is clear that such documents as Expeditionary Force 21, with their failure to connect 

themselves to maneuver warfare, are outliers in the Corps’ recent history.

23 Friedman, “Maneuver Warfare: A Defense,” 26–29; Ellis Group, “21st Century Maneuver Warfare,” 34–41; and Maj Ian T. Brown, “Warfighting 3.0,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 100, no. 8 (August 2016): 65–72.
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points to a Marine Corps that does indeed fight with a maneuver 

warfare philosophy, with two important caveats: it does so when 

it is afforded the appropriate latitude by higher command echelons and when the battlefield appears to fit its understanding of 

maneuver warfare. It is under the latter caveat that some of the 

greatest confusion exists, as will be discussed shortly.

Operation Desert Storm left a mixed legacy on the implementation of maneuver warfare; the Marine units involved clearly 

believed they had followed Boyd’s precepts, though to characterize the full Coalition performance as an exemplar of maneuver 

warfare goes too far, especially as the Army’s devotion to synchronization arguably allowed a large chunk of Saddam Hussein’s 

Republican Guard to escape intact to fight another day.24 Synchronization was one of the four key tenets of the Army’s “AirLand 

Battle” doctrine, promulgated by Operations, Field Manual (FM) 

100-5, in 1986 and supposedly that branch’s answer to maneuver 

warfare.25 Yet, Boyd believed this tenet was a “disaster”; in a “war 

of confusion” fought by human beings, synchronization was an 

artificial and mechanistic constraint that undermined the other 

human factors—such as agility and initiative, which Boyd had no 

problem with—in Operations.26 Boyd believed that synchronization 

applied to strictly technical matters, such as coordinating the timing of an artillery barrage. But for the larger question of units 

performing all of their actions together, Boyd preferred the idea 

of harmony. Harmony meant that units acted together under a 

common perspective or understanding that linked their movement 

24 James Burton laid out a highly critical account of the failure of the U.S. Army’s 

VII Corps to “close the gate” on the Iraqi Republican Guard following the lightning 

advance of I MEF into Kuwait; see Burton, Pentagon Wars, 243–51. Michael Gordon and Gen Bernard Trainor offered a more sober and detailed account; see 

Michael R. Gordon and Gen Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War (New York: 

Little, Brown, 1995), 362–432, 473. Yet both agree that the decisions made by 

the corps commander, Gen Frederick M. Franks, to proceed at the pace of his 

slowest unit, halt his entire corps at night, and prioritize keeping his divisions 

together, rather than push against the Republican Guard with all possible speed, 

allowed the Republican Guard, which protected Hussein’s regime, to escape. 25 U.S. Army, Operations, 17–18. 26 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 2, side 1, 36.
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and activity to the commander’s intent, but this did not mean units 

were obliged to follow the stopwatch precision of everyone moving 

at exactly the same time and speed. Synchronization turned one’s 

focus inward on internal processes rather than outward against 

one’s adversary. Or, to put it another way, synchronization fought 

the plan, not the enemy. It promoted rigid thinking rather than 

adaptability. 

As part of the Coalition force, Marine units had to synchronize their movements with everyone else, denying them full freedom to roam the battlefield and fully exploit opportunities as 

they arose. The Marine invasion of Kuwait proved unexpectedly rapid and successful, leaving them in a position to potentially 

drive farther north into Iraq and deliver more destruction against 

Hussein’s forces. Yet, they received no order to advance, as the Coalition focus switched to getting the adjacent Army units to move 

more quickly to match the Marines’ success.27 The tight control of 

supporting fires by higher command echelons also artificially limited the flexibility and operational tempo of Marine units. In all, 

Marine expeditionary forces in Kuwait and Iraq tried to operate 

as maneuverists where they could, but they lacked the autonomy 

to enact maneuver warfare to the extent they might have liked.

Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom tell a different story, though a key dividing line exists, explaining the apparently divergent views between those Marines who believed 

maneuver warfare was practiced in both conflicts and those who 

did not. That line falls between the initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent occupations. In the invasions of 

both, and particularly Iraq, commanders and participants noted 

the deliberate application of speed, tempo, and unexpected movement as part of maneuver warfare–driven operations designed to 

keep their adversaries off balance. Marines also enjoyed the freedom to operate as they desired on their parts of the battlefields. 

The rapid collapse of the Taliban and Hussein regimes in the absence of months of preparatory firepower seemed a testament to 

the effectiveness of maneuver warfare when its practitioners had 

27 Westermeyer and Hinman, Desert Voices, 23.
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liberty to use it. However, something happened in the aftermath 

that convinced critics that maneuver warfare had still not taken 

hold within the Marine Corps.

In surveying the timeline of the diverging perspectives on 

Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, the split becomes clearer. 

Those Marines who were adamant that they employed maneuver 

warfare generally took part in the initial invasions, while many 

of the critics who argued that the Corps had fallen away from it 

were those who deployed and wrote during the later counterinsurgency phases. There were a handful of exceptions to this. Major 

General William F. Mullen, as a battalion commander in 2007 in 

Fallujah, Iraq, believed his use of maneuver warfare tenets directly 

contributed to the pacification of that city; Major P. J. Tremblay, 

commanding an infantry company in Afghanistan, planned and 

conducted operations against the Taliban in specific accordance 

with Boyd’s ideas.28 These experiences appeared as isolated islands 

in a sea of censure about the later struggles of counterinsurgency. 

Thus, the argument is not one of rank, per se—as implied by 

some of the “Attritionist Letters” and subsequent letters to the editor on the broken perspective of the senior preachers—but one of 

timing. On-the-ground leaders, such as Mattis and Kelly, said that 

during the initial invasions they used maneuver warfare and expected their troops to do so. This was their verdict as military professionals, and there is no reason to question either the sincerity 

of their belief that they had truly operated under maneuver war28 Mullen does not mention maneuver warfare by name in the book that describes 

his operations in Fallujah, but its influence can be seen throughout; see Daniel R. Green and William F. Mullen, Fallujah Redux: The Anbar Awakening and the 

Struggle with Al-Qaeda (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014), 39–40, 70, 74–76, 

122, 124, 126. Moreover, he confirmed to the author that he consciously applied 

maneuver warfare in crafting and executing the pacification campaign; see Maj

Gen William F. Mullen III, email message to author, 16 August 2017. Franklin Spinney briefly mentions Maj Tremblay’s operation in Franklin C. Spinney, 

“Introduction to the Strategic Theories of John Boyd,” Blaster (blog), 29 April 

2015. The details of that operation are not publicly available; however, during 

the maneuver warfare workshop previously cited this author spoke at length with 

Maj Tremblay about the mission and confirmed the direct influence of Boyd and 

maneuver warfare on its planning and conduct.
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fare nor the accuracy of how they assessed the execution of their 

own operations. But as those leaders departed and the mission 

simultaneously became one of occupation rather than invasion, 

the dynamic changed. The maneuver warfare of highways and 

deserts did not seem applicable in close-quarters urban combat 

with faceless insurgents. And so, along with their Army brethren, 

many Marines who were engaged in occupation duties struggled 

during a long and dangerous period of adapting to what seemed a 

different warfighting style.

As this book has shown, Boyd never looked at counterinsurgency as a style of war removed from the concepts he discussed in 

“Patterns of Conflict.” He viewed both blitzkrieg and insurgency 

through the same lens, aimed at the same objective—the adversary’s mind—and implemented with the same tenets of orientation, tempo, ambiguity, deception, and asymmetric application 

of strength against weakness. This part of Boyd’s framework was 

poorly understood at the time even by his proponents, who made 

little effort to incorporate it into the maneuver warfare debate. 

Thus here, if anywhere, lay the great failure of institutionalization: maneuverists put so much emphasis on the conventional—

and more easily understood—aspects of Boyd’s ideas during the 

debate that maneuver warfare became unconsciously associated 

with conventional military operations. Moreover, the records of 

Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom indicate 

that Marines indeed internalized this application. It was when 

operations transitioned from conventional to unconventional that 

the bill came due for failing to understand and teach Boyd holistically. Marines searched painfully for ways to view and fight this 

other kind of war, when the mental framework necessary to do 

so already existed. It was in Boyd’s work, where he had devoted 

considerable time and effort to analyzing the insurgent under the 

maneuver warfare umbrella. 

Given the broad scope of this failure, it is unjust to lay the 

blame at the feet of generals, politicians, or the ever-popular whipping boy—the lethargic bureaucrat. This failure began even as 

the maneuver warfare debate intensified in the 1980s; it lay uncorrected when Warfighting was signed; and it lingered unmentioned 
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under the surface throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first 

century, until the brutal reality of two irregular wars forced a reappraisal. Indeed, one must have sympathy for the generation that 

came into the Marine Corps after Boyd’s death, not knowing that 

Boyd had already outlined a framework for answering the questions they would shortly face in the deserts and mountains of the 

Middle East. Critics have held them to the impossible standard 

of not institutionalizing in toto the philosophy, key parts of which 

the new generation was not even aware existed. Again, such criticism is unjust, especially when some of the critics knew Boyd, 

were present in his briefs, and yet in their advocacy omitted much 

material that Boyd believed of the utmost importance. 

While apportioning blame certainly generates a measure of 

satisfaction, a better use of critical energies might be acknowledging those foundations where maneuver warfare has taken hold 

within the Marine Corps and building on them. This chapter 

has already discussed the combat record since Gray first signed 

Warfighting, and while Marines may not always have fought using 

maneuver warfare tenets, many times they have. This realization 

should drive another: that while imperfectly taught and trained, 

enough Marines are exposed to maneuver warfare that it influences their actions where it matters, in combat. That maneuver 

warfare is still taught and trained—again, not perfectly, but to 

the extent that its presence is still felt—is a testament to the continued ability of Boyd’s ideas to inspire those who come in contact with them, and the importance that the institutional Marine 

Corps ascribes to them. Not every Marine today writes or thinks 

about Boyd’s concepts but some do.29 Few Marines understand the 

29 Besides those works already mentioned in this and preceding chapters, see Maj 

Paul Tremblay Jr., “Shaping and Adapting: Unlocking the Power of Colonel 

John Boyd’s OODA Loop” (master’s thesis, Marine Corps Command and Staff 

College, 2015); Capt Brett A. Friedman, “Institutional Innovation,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 98, no. 1 (January 2014): 82–85; Capt Daniel A. O’Hara, “The Re(al)

awakening,” Marine Corps Gazette 98, no. 5 (May 2014): 47–50; Maj Ian T. Brown, 

“Opening the Loop,” Marine Corps Gazette 99, no. 6 (June 2015): 52–56; Maj Ian 

T. Brown, “The ‘Grand Ideal’,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 2 (February 2016): 

55–58; and Maj Ian T. Brown, “Sprinting to Fight the Last War,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 100, no. 4 (April 2016): 80–83.
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cross-domain applicability of maneuver warfare beyond the conventional realm, but as shown in How an Expeditionary Force Operates 

in the 21st Century, today’s leadership wants to make that applicability clearer. While not every Marine thinks as a maneuverist, the 

vocabulary of maneuver is the vocabulary of the Marine Corps, 

and language has a strong ability to ultimately shape thought.30

Perhaps the institutionalization of maneuver warfare exists 

only on islands of success, but those islands are there. Indeed, they 

are a testament to the Marine Corps’ institutional culture, which 

allowed for its long tradition of adaptability and innovation, even 

when specific subcomponents of the institution made innovation 

harder or blocked it altogether. Between the two world wars, the 

development of amphibious warfare doctrine was an all-hands effort; maneuver warfare, however, was built on the shoulders of individuals who were still inspired by the institution and its traditions 

but who found the institution’s official schools uninterested or actively working against them. But, as with Sun Tzu’s observation of 

water flowing with the terrain to bypass strong points, the Corps’ 

culture inspired the drivers of change to move around those obstacles thrown up throughout the institution’s history.31 Maneuver 

warfare’s ability to influence and inspire derives from that tradition. Its influence first grew from the efforts of individuals until the 

institution officially embraced it; now, its inspiration again rests on 

the shoulders of individual Marines. These Marines have founded 

the islands of success; such islands either can be used for self-imposed exile or as a basis upon which to build.

Former Marine infantry officer Bruce Gudmundsson offers a 

valuable perspective on the state of maneuver warfare: “I’m not 

looking for 100 [percent] maneuver warfare purity. I’m happy 

with the 80 percent solution.”32 One can argue about what percentage of “purity” the Marine Corps has achieved, but it is certainly not zero. Gudmundsson further notes that the maneuver 

30 Piscitelli, “United States Marine Corps Way of War,” 120. 31 Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” in The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, trans. 

Ralph D. Sawyer (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 168.

32 Piscitelli, United States Marine Corps Way of War, 119.
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warfare standard was never meant to be static: “The point of the 

maneuver warfare movement was not to create a pure ideal and 

then judge the Marine Corps against it. The point . . . was to take 

a tradition and build upon it.”33 This attitude is entirely in line 

with Boyd’s admonition in “Patterns of Conflict,” through which 

he warned about the dangers of locking oneself into an unchanging concept: “I don’t want you to have a rigid recipe. Because if 

you start getting rigid recipes, then the guy’s going to find out what 

that is. You would in a sense become predictable, and he’s going 

to pull your pants down.”34 Or take Boyd’s reaction to Warfighting, 

as John Schmitt paraphrased: it’s great, now you have to change 

it.35 Indeed, this perspective goes beyond Boyd, encompassing the 

institutional history of the Marine Corps as discussed in chapters 

2 and 3. As an organization, the Corps never froze its thinking at 

an arbitrary moment in time. It constantly built and rebuilt itself, 

adopting and discarding roles and missions while keeping sight 

of its one true purpose: winning whatever war it was called upon 

to fight. The common thread here goes to the point Boyd made 

about taking Clausewitz as a template: one’s mental model cannot be allowed to stagnate. Boyd said that one must constantly 

update mental models for problem solving; falling back on an old 

model deliberately deprived oneself of new and potentially useful 

material for the model. Those critics who reach back to 1989 as 

the ultimate model for maneuver warfare make the same mistake, 

refusing to update their mental model by incorporating all the 

lessons and new developments of intervening years. The goal of 

the Marine Corps is the continued national survival of the United States. What matters in aid of that is not the self-satisfaction 

derived from achieving the perfect recipe and then clinging to it 

throughout the ages, but the mental flexibility to constantly adapt 

a model of conflict to ensure that the model—and the institution 

using it—remains useful for national survival.

The maneuver warfare tradition was established in 1989, and 

33 Piscitelli, United States Marine Corps Way of War, 121. 34 Boyd, “Discourse on Winning and Losing,” tape 3, side 2, 104.

35 Schmitt interview.
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the building of this tradition has been a work in progress ever 

since, as men like Boyd, Gray, Krulak, and many others intended. 

One cannot hold up the standard from 1989 and say that the Marine Corps has failed to reach it. Since 1989, much in the world, 

including the Marine Corps, has changed. This should not be a 

problem for maneuverists, because maneuver warfare was meant, 

at heart, to be adaptable to the changes wrought by the future as 

they occurred. The intervening years have seen the Marine Corps 

fight three major wars and engage in countless smaller operations. 

The old generation of maneuverists continued thinking and writing about maneuver warfare following Warfighting’s release, and a 

new generation of maneuverists has taken inspiration from the 

old to reexamine Boyd’s work and find ways to apply it today. The 

Marine Corps should institutionalize the implications of these 

changes into its maneuver warfare philosophy, even as it continually seeks to spread and ingrain that philosophy in its Marines.

That is what this book is intended to aid, in its own small way: 

to contribute to the modern understanding and application of 

maneuver warfare by shining more light on its past. Some of the 

gaps in understanding and institutionalization come not from malice or laziness but from ignorance in the truest sense of the word. 

John Boyd provided the intellectual foundation for maneuver warfare, a warfighting philosophy that has shaped the Marine Corps’ 

worldview for almost three decades. Yet much of that foundation 

remains hidden. This was partly caused by Boyd’s limited ability, 

in the predigital era, to reach audiences beyond those people seated directly in front of him. It was caused, in part, by misconceptions about Boyd’s ideas at the time, and both his proponents and 

critics alike spread these distortions. Finally, the natural separation 

of time also contributes to the lack of knowledge about Boyd’s 

ideas. Boyd died in 1997; since then, an entirely new generation 

has been born, grown up, and joined the Corps—without directly 

experiencing Boyd’s teachings. The author hopes that this book 

bridges the gap of time, reintroducing readers to the salient points 

of Boyd’s life, career, and thought; illuminating words spoken and 

written by Boyd himself that have not been published elsewhere; 

and correcting some of the fallacies that for decades have clouded 
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a deeper understanding of maneuver warfare. Boyd’s new conception of war remains a gift that keeps giving; with any luck, 

this book will help pass it on to current and future Marines, so 

that the Corps continues to be a useful tool against this nation’s 

adversaries.

199

APPENDIX A

“Patterns of Conflict” 

Transcript Excerpts

The following excerpts come from the full transcript of the audio recording of Boyd’s “Patterns of Conflict” held by the Marine Corps History Division’s Archives Branch at Marine Corps 

Base Quantico, Virginia. John Boyd presented this version at the 

Marine Corps Command and Staff College during three days: 25 

April and 2–3 May 1989. Aside from Colonel Michael Wyly, the 

author was unable to identify the name or Service branches of the 

other audience members, as no class roster is included in the archival material. Individual speakers are identified as “Audience,” with 

a number if more than one speaker at a time is engaging Boyd. 

Brief explanatory footnotes are included for the various people 

and books Boyd cited throughout the presentation. To aid in further reference, there are time stamps at the beginning and end of 

each excerpt for the associated tape, and at five-minute intervals 

throughout. Relevant slides from the presentation are interspersed 

with the excerpts, as well.1

1

 Minor revisions were made to the text to improve readability and based on 

current standards for style, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Readers can find 

complete versions of Boyd’s slideshows at several online sources, including the 

Defense and the National Interest John Boyd Compendium and a newly published collection from Air University Press.
APPENDIX A

200

INTRODUCTION/BUILDING 

NEW MENTAL FRAMEWORKS

Tape 1, Side 1

[02:42] Boyd: We’re going to go through this whole presentation—“Patterns of Conflict”—going back in history that I’ve laid 

out here in the outline we’re going to go through. And we’re going 

to pull things apart, put them back together, pull things apart, put 

them back together all the way through. Now, why in hell are we 

going to do that for? Should drive you batty. The very simple reason, and what you’re trying to find out if we’re going to talk about 

conflict, you want to reach back, you want to find out those things 

we call the invariants, the constancies, or what the physicists like to 

call the symmetries. Where you can look at things from different 

points of view, and you keep seeing the same thing popping out. 

Example: let’s assume you people here in this room—and it’s 

an idiotic example but it makes my point—were taught all your 

life, or you only had the opportunity to see pyramids from the 

side. Only from the side. You’d go through life thinking pyramids 

are triangles. Now let’s say we got another group, different from 

our group here, and they only got to see pyramids from the top. 

They’d think there were rectangles with intersecting diagonals. A 

square. So now let’s say this group then interacts with the other 

group, and they start talking about pyramids, and say “these guys 

are goddamn idiots.” And it’s you he’s talking about and he thinks 

you’re an idiot. But you’re both talking about the same thing from 

what? A different point of view. You’re both correct, partially. But 

from a different point of view.

And so what you want to do is, you want to examine these 

things from these different angles or points of view, and find those 

things that tend to keep holding up. You’ve got a goddamn gem 

that you find. They’re hard to find. You’ve got a gem, an invariant, 

a constancy, what the physicists call symmetry. Symmetry is the 

ability to find those same things that hold up, that don’t change 

when you look at it from different points of view. Any physicists 

in here, anybody study physics? Ever heard that term symmetry? 

Well I ask you, what’s pure or perfect symmetry? Give me an object, an example of perfect symmetry, where you examine from 
“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

201

different points of view, a physical object. Doesn’t change no matter how you examine it.

Audience: Sir, a sphere? 

Boyd: That’s right a sphere. Not a circle, a circle you don’t [unintelligible]. [05:00] A sphere, no matter how you examine it from 

different angles, perfect symmetry. Unfortunately that’s a physical 

object; now we’re going to look at moral, mental, and physical. 

When you go off the physical, you start looking at mental, it gets a 

little bit more difficult. So we’re going to go through, and basically 

we’re trying to find those invariants. 

We’re going to go from Sun Tzu to the present, what kind of 

things still hold together? And that’s why you don’t just take Sun 

Tzu and say “kkkkkkk,” template him today, you’re going to do 

that, or you take Clausewitz and you’re going to template him 

today, or Jomini or who else [unintelligible] you’re going to make 

a horrible mistake if you do that. But there are certain things they 

said that still hold true, if we uncover them. The answer is there. 

And you’re going to see how that’s done. So we’re not going to 

start with the answer. We’re going to start with a confusing bunch 

of goddamn data and we’re going to try to pull it together. 

We’re going to do both. Breakdown, which is the analysis, 

pulling it back together with synthesis, pull that apart, breakdown, 

bring it back together and pull it apart; always feeding in more 

and more stuff and rejecting more and more stuff as we go along. 

To find those things that hold true, whether in the past, today, and 

also in the future. For those people [who] study Clausewitz, think 

that we’re just going to use Clausewitz as the lens filter to look at 

the problem, you’re going to make a horrible mistake. It’s a disaster. Because all you’ve told me is your thinking hasn’t proceeded 

beyond 1832, and a lot of things have happened since 1832. [unintelligible] 

So I can’t overemphasize it. Now, I want to talk about one 

other thing before I hop into the presentation. One thing I want to 

point out, and I’m going to make it again and again. Terrain does 
APPENDIX A

202

not fight wars. Machines don’t fight wars. People do it and they 

use their minds. So you better understand the people, because if 

you don’t understand them, you ain’t going to make it, period. 

Now it doesn’t mean you don’t pay attention to terrain, you don’t 

pay attention to machines, but person, the human being, and the 

people are what counts. Top and foremost priority. The terrain 

is just the means through which you operate. The machines are 

just tools that you use. All they are. Of course, you can use them 

badly, or use them well. But the point is, that’s all it is. I want to 

drive that home. I’ll show you, when you make that mistake, when 

you begin to think that terrain is the most important thing, you’re 

going make some very serious mistakes. [07:36]

FINGERSPITZENGEFÜHL

Tape 2, Side 2

[00:00] Boyd: . . . concept, and then you’ve got to get them 

hands on, get them out in the field to practice those concepts. Not 

only that, be fair to yourself. Remember, because you laid out a 

concept, doesn’t mean you have it all right the first time. You may 

think it through. So, if you see things happen, you say okay, now 

we’ve got to take the practice and go back to concept and revise 

the concept. You go back and forth until it works after you do a 

number of cases. So then they get that— Now they’re getting to 

fingerspitzengefühl the Germans talk about, because they’re getting 

the practice. 

Audience: That I can grasp. I think what we tend to do in the 

military is, we want— Once we understand the concept, we want 

some sort of a tool, prescriptive tool to make it work, and that’s 

when you begin to get in trouble. 

Boyd: That’s right. And what I’m saying is, when you have a concept, let the guys try it under different circumstances out there, 

and don’t let the officers or the leaders interfere too much. Just 

give them the task and let the other guy do it. If he’s going to screw 

it up, let him screw it up so you can learn what the screwup is, and 
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then have your critique afterward. That’s how you learn. Instead, 

everybody sets it up so nobody screws up. F——k them. I want to 

see a lot of screwups. 

Audience: It’s got to be force on force. 

Boyd: That’s right. You want to see a lot of screwups, because 

you’re not sure what are going to be screwups and what aren’t, because all you’ve got is a concept. It might turn out some are good, 

some are bad. That’s part of the thing. So that’s how you get that 

fingerspitzengefühl. 

Audience: So stay away from the prescription? 

Boyd: I would. 

Audience: And academia, we can only go so far, sir. You’ve got 

to get out there—

Boyd: Let me give you a good example in air-to-air combat. 

Here’s a fighter pilot back there, okay. We go through a long ritual, 

which we started at Nellis [Air Force Base] many years ago. Before 

then they had a favorite maneuver. We taught them all these fundamental maneuvers: high speed yo-yos, low speed yo-yos, barrel 

roll attacks, diving spirals— What do you call it? Pirouettes. Christ, 

I can’t even remember them all, and I was so deeply involved in 

them. And a guy’s trying— I said, “Don’t try to remember that 

stuff, for Christ’s sakes. Don’t even think of it.” When you try to 

remember it, you know it’s like, “Am I going to steer the wheel this 

much in a car?” Do you know how far you’re going to turn the 

wheel? You don’t even think about it. Or how far you’re going to 

push the accelerator down or how far you’re— I said, “What you 

have to do is, we’re going to go out there and we’re going to teach 

you that so after a while it becomes part of your fingerspitzengefühl.” 

We teach them maneuvers, what you do, and why you do it. 

Then we take them out and work it over again and again and 
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again. Pretty soon, he doesn’t even have to think about it. So, you 

don’t have to worry about the goddamn manual. You just do it. 

That’s why I’m saying if you teach the concept and you don’t give 

them the hands on, they’re never going to get the fingerspitzengefühl. So even though we didn’t know the term at the time, what we 

were teaching the fighter pilots was fingerspitzengefühl. So they 

could do those things. They could do the chops, the counterchops, 

the maneuvers, the countermaneuvers, the yo-yos when they had 

to, the low speed, the high speed, the scissors, the vertical rolling 

scissors, etcetera. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve been 

through it all. They’ve got to have those fundamentals. If they 

don’t have it, they’re going to be dog meat for everybody else. A 

guy’s going to go, “What should I do?” [smacking sound] He’s out. 

So it’s got to be right there. He can’t think about what page number is that on, what manual or so and so, and get the checklist out. 

That’s bulls——t. He either has it now or he doesn’t have it, period. So you’ve got to get him out there again and again, and give 

him that practice. Pretty soon they get— I’ll tell you, these guys get 

good. They’re not even sure how they get good but they get good. 

Audience: I think our dilemma is [that] within the school environment we’re limited in the way we can accomplish that: war 

games, map exercises—

Boyd: I understand that. 

Audience: And that actual, for the hands-on has got to take place 

somewhere— 

Boyd: Yeah, but when you get out to your unit, you should do that 

all the time. When you get out to your units— I mean, I agree. 

You’re going through a school. You don’t have the— We didn’t 

have the time to teach them all that in Fighter Weapons School 

at Nellis. We gave it to them, we sent them back to the unit, and 

tell them keep cycling through again and again. We’ll get guys out 

there, and so pretty soon they start getting what we now call fingerspitzengefühl. That’s what you want to have your officers and 
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your men to get. So when they get out there they’ve just got that 

goddamn—boom [smacking sound] they can take those son of a 

b——s out.

But if you’re just treating a concept like here on a chart? 

Bulls——t. Burn the goddamn thing. You’ve got to practice, and 

you’ve got to— Not only that. Do it every different way you can 

think of. And you should not grade a guy because he does it a 

different way. Say, “Bulls——t. That wasn’t the school solution. F. 

You’re out.” I don’t care what’s different. If you realize his tactic 

works out good, say, “Hey that’s good. I wonder why that worked.” 

If he can explain it, fine. That’s another option. You want to keep 

widening that repertoire. You want to make that repertoire as wide 

as possible, because you become more unpredictable. The wider 

your repertoire, that means you’ve got a wide-angle lens and the 

other guy’s got the narrow-angle lens. You’ve got the wide band. 

He’s looking at things through the narrow band. You’ve got the 

wide band filter. You want him to have the narrow band filter. 

Audience: One of the things that you hit on, and that here at 

the school in answer to the colonel’s question is, is it training as 

repetition, and the more that you do something and the more that 

you’re exposed to something, whether it’s a map exercise where 

you’re going to have to make a decision and you have to have 

input in. You have experience; therefore, you’re going to generate 

output. So in the academic environment, the more that you can 

expose yourself to that kind of rapidity, and quickness, and speed 

of effort—

Boyd: But remember, you’ve got to be very careful— 

Audience: —you’re better off than you are otherwise.

Boyd: No, you’re very good, except for one thing you’ve got to 

keep in mind, which I— I have another part in another one of my 

lectures. [05:00] Whenever you do that, you always want to do it 

so they have a variety of different circumstances when you’re doing it. If you don’t do that, then pretty soon you’re choreograph-
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ing things. You have a narrow repertoire, and you’re going to get 

cleaned out when you’re thrown in another environment. There’s 

a very big danger of people like to look good, so they have this 

narrow repertoire. You want to throw different things at them, as 

many as you can, so they’re developing a rep— I mean a fingerspitzengefühl across a wide spectrum. Really, I can’t overemphasize that. This is crucial, because this is what makes you adaptable 

and unpredictable. Remember, I keep using those words. Those 

are two key words, be adaptable and unpredictable. And then 

you’ll gain leverage. Because the moment you start becoming rigid 

or non-adaptable and predictable, you know the game’s over. The 

game’s over. And that’s the danger of doing it with very narrow 

repertoire, because you want to look good and the commander 

to be all— Practices is goddamned thrilled. Well, you choreographed it. 

Audience: Let me come from the top of an academic department. Concepts—

Boyd: Well, you can’t do an academic but you can give them at 

least the basic stuff so they can go out and do it themselves. We 

should be looking at doing this— You see what I’m saying? 

Audience: I think we probably give it to them in the sense in 

terms of map drills.

Boyd: Fair enough. 

Audience: With the concept of some very, very general tools. 

Boyd: That’s right.

Audience: Academic exercise. 

Boyd: That’s right. And map drills are good, but then you want 

to set up the map drills many different ways, too. Then in the end, 

they’ve still got to connect it up with the actual operation when 
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they get out in their own unit. That’s what I’m trying to say. So 

they can actually develop that fingerspitzengefühl. I can’t overemphasize that. Let the other guy not have the fingerspitzengefühl. 

That feels good. You’re cleaning his clock and he can’t even figure 

out why. Maybe you can’t either but you know you’re doing it. 

Audience: You’re saying— What you mean, colonel, you’re going to expose us.

Boyd: That’s right. 

Audience 1: You’re giving us exposure. You’re not going to teach 

us; you’re going to expose us to why. 

[Cross talk] 

Audience 2: Educate. 

Audience 1: We made a mistake because we spent a hell of a lot 

of time on staff planning. If we loosen up the staff planning some 

and do more—add some more exercises. 

Audience 2: Well you know, we’ve only done staff planning once 

and that’s at the first part of the year. 

Audience 1: I think instead of throwing so many different models at you, we throw you one simple model.

Audience 2: Yes, sir. 

Audience 1: You get through three or four different models. 

Audience 2: One thing I think, I think [at] Command and Staff 

College, you’re exposed to an awful lot of material. I don’t think we 

were taught very much. I just think we had the exposure, we had 

the references to go to. The other thing I think, I think training—

military training and military education are two different things. 
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Audience 1: Oh yeah. 

Audience 2: They’re not one and the same. Then I think the 

problem with having hands-on time is time itself. 

Boyd: Heck yeah. That’s how you get the feel. You’ve got to get— 

Because then, what you’re doing is you’re taking your concepts, 

your ideas, and your training and you’re putting it all together to 

get that fingerspitzengefühl. That’s what you want to get.

Audience: But the time— We fight time. Time is our enemy. 

Boyd: I understand that. He can’t do everything, but at least he 

can expose you to these things in the end when you go on the field. 

We couldn’t do everything at the Fighter Weapons School, but 

we gave them exposure, said now you guys have got to practice 

yourselves. We can’t do that for you. We can only give you so many 

different combinations. [08:14] 

[10:58] Audience: I continually relate this to the athletic field of 

endeavors, and my limited successes on those fields. As I look back 

in retrospect, I wasn’t thinking. Once I started thinking, I started 

reacting to the situation and it became a reactive role. That goes 

back to the field. That’s hard to acquire, though. 

Boyd: Oh, oh, I didn’t say it was easy. No way. That’s right, it 

takes time. But that’s why you want a variety, do it different, and 

do it different ways. So in the end, you know you’re doing something that just feels right. And it’s because you’ve accumulated all 

this experience, you say, “This is right.” You don’t even know why. 

You’re making all these connections in your brain many different 

ways. Not only if it doesn’t work out right— Even if it didn’t work 

out, you’ve got about five or six options. You start shifting gears. 

Fighter pilots do that naturally. Boy, they start shifting gears real 

quick if they’re any good. They really do. They’re pretty good at it.

Audience: They are maneuvering one piece of gear— 
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Boyd: I understand that. Land combat is more difficult. I’ll agree 

with that. On the other hand, you made it a little bit too simple. 

They may maneuver one piece of gear. Remember, there are a 

lot of guys out there, and they’ve got to work with their buddies, 

as well as try to take out the other guy. They all have to work a 

super-fingerspitzengefühl together, so they build that harmony so 

they can do that. In the end, though, your job is tougher. I’ll agree 

with that. There’s no way I wouldn’t agree with that. Yours is 

tougher. In a sense, they have more— It is easier for them to operate. You’re on the ground. Many of the things you’ve got problems 

with— It’s a tougher job. But some of those things they learned in 

a simple situation, you could take advantage and take aspects of it, 

and use it in a more complicated situation, like in land warfare or 

ground combat. The Germans did it. They use the word. Rommel 

used it, finger— It’s amazing how they all used it, want to get that 

sure feel. [13:13]

CLAUSEWITZ/CENTER 

OF GRAVITY/VULNERABILITIES

Tape 2, Side 1

[18:56] Now let’s go on to the philosopher of war, Clausewitz. 

He made that famous statement where he talked about the character, act of policy, to use violence to impose one’s will upon another. 

Later on, he made the statement, not only war is politics by other 

means. We’ve all heard him say war’s an instrument of policy. 

Anybody see anything wrong with that? The military’s an 

instrument of policy. When you say something’s an instrument, 

what are you really inferring? You’ve got control over it. In other 

words, you’ve got— You know, a tool or an instrument, you’ve got 

control of it. But you can’t control war. You might be able to control the military as an instrument. Maybe not too much but [unintelligible]. You can never say it’s an instrument of policy, an act 

of policy, already you went too far. It’s not an instrument of policy. 

That presumes you can decide what’s going to happen during it. 

You can’t. 

Maybe that was our problem. We wanted to make an instrument— We wanted to make the Vietnam War an instrument of 
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policy. I’m sure that the idea wasn’t to go in there and get kicked 

out. 

Another statement he made which is good, duel or act of human interaction directed against an animate object that reacts. 

[20:00] The idea is you’re not sure how he’s going to react. And 

since you’re unsure how he’s going to react, that builds up the idea 

of uncertainty among other things, uncertainty of information 

acts as an impediment to vigorous activity. 

Then he brings in very strongly the importance of psychological and moral forces and effects, since we’re talking about animate 

objects. Danger being one of them. Intelligence. Here, he’s talking 

about not an intelligence service but mental intelligence and emotional factors. Emotional factors, courage, confidence. Fear, anxiety, alienation, being the negative ones. Courage, confidence, and 

esprit being the positive ones. They can go either way, either impede or stimulate, in fact, depending upon the circumstances. 

And then he does a very interesting thing. He takes all the 

interaction of all these things and lumps them under the notion 

of friction. The interaction of many of these factors, including all 

those above. And because that’s all very complex, that tends to, 

what, impede activity. Overall, it impedes activity. 

Anybody remember his famous statement? “Friction is the 

only concept”—I’m quoting him now—“is the only concept that 

more or less corresponds with those factors that distinguish real 

war from war on paper.” 

The point is, if you haven’t accounted for friction, you’re not 

talking about real war. And he’s quite right, if you think about it. 

Because the way he looks at friction, you read it very carefully. He 

treats it almost the same way we treat the modern— The way we 

look at the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy. We talk about 

[how] all natural processes generate entropy in the second law. He 

doesn’t treat it in a physics sense. 

The way he’s looking at friction is the way we almost look at 

the way we use entropy today in the second law. So in a sense, his 

ideas were a precursor to the second law. And that’s laced throughout his book. And the fact that a commander has to overcome that 

friction. In fact, in a dialectic sense, he used genius as the opposite 
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of friction to overcome that friction. The idea that genius at war, 

harmonious balance of mind and temperament that permit one 

to overcome that friction. And excel at that complex activity. 

While they can’t change the character and nature of war, they 

can change the nature and magnify the scope of operations. And 

then strategy, his strategy, exhaust them to influence and increase 

the expenditure of effort, he brings it up over and over again. 

And then, seek out those centers of gravity upon which all 

power and movement depend and if possible trace them back to 

a single one. Look at all those powers and see if you can ideally 

take it back to one. Then he squeezed it one more time. He said in 

that effort, compress all effort against those centers into the fewest 

possible actions. Still not satisfied, he gives it another squeeze. He 

says, subordinate all minor and secondary actions as much as possible in all this activity. 

So by doing all these things, in a sense, he’s in harmony with 

his idea of friction. What he’s trying to do is overcome his own 

internal friction. See what I’m saying? So he can deal with that. 

And move with the utmost speed. We already talked about that. 

And seek out the major battles that will promise decisive victory. 

His aim is quite simple; render your enemy powerless, with 

emphasis on the destruction of his armed force. Not only the 

armed force, but that was his emphasis. He also talked about capturing a city or taking a province or something like that, also to try 

to destroy your enemy’s will. But he says, this precedes or dominates the others. That’s how you prevail, destruction of his armed 

forces. 

Okay. Let’s critique Clausewitz. 

Clausewitz overemphasized the decisive battle and underemphasized strategic maneuver. And the reason why is he came up 

with strategic maneuver only through eighteenth century on. In 

other words, he was reacting against that kind of war and overplayed [unintelligible]. 

Also, he emphasized method and routine at the tactical level. Why did he do it? His own words, to reduce his own internal 

friction. Is there anything wrong with that? He wasn’t looking outward. He was always looking at things in an absolute sense. 
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Clausewitz is concerned with trying to overcome or reduce 

friction and uncertainty. He failed to address if you want to try 

to magnify [an] adversary’s friction and uncertainty. The point 

is, if you have routine in your own services and become predictable, you’ve also lowered your adversary’s friction relative to you. 

You’ve got to think of it both ways. 

Not only that, I had earlier on there, move with the utmost 

speed. Well, what good does that do you, the utmost speed? Why 

do you want to move with the utmost speed? I’m talking about 

[unintelligible]. Just to get there first? He should’ve said he wanted 

to move faster than the adversary. What’s utmost? The other guy’s 

moving with utmost [speed], he might be faster than you. So he’s 

looking at things in an absolute sense. Remember, he looked at the 

absolute nature of war and then the reality. He didn’t look at it in 

terms of a relational thing. [25:00] He was concerned with trying 

HISTORICAL PATTERN

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ - ON WAR - 1832

Why?

Clausewitz was concerned with 

trying to overcome, or reduce, 

friction/uncertainty. He failed to 

address the idea of magnifying 

adversary's friction/uncertainty.

Clausewitz was concerned with 

trying to exhaust adversary by 

influencing him to increase his 

expenditure of effort. He failed to 

address, or develop, the idea of 

trying to paralyze adversary by 

denying him the opportunity to 

expend effort.

Clausewitz incorrectly stated: “a 

center of gravity is always found 

where the mass is concentrated most 

densely--" then argued that this is 

the place where the blows must be 

aimed and where the decision should 

be reached. He failed to develop 

idea of generating many noncooperative centers of gravity by striking 

at those vulnerable, yet critical, 

tendons, connections, and activities that permit a larger center of 

gravity to exist.

Critique

Clausewitz overemphasized Decisive 

Battle and underemphasized 

strategic Maneuver.

Clausewitz emphasized method and 

routine at the tactical level. } { Raises Question

What does all this mean?

}

SLIDE 41
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to exhaust his adversary by causing him to increase his expenditure of effort. 

Why not turn the argument around? Why not develop the 

idea of trying to paralyze your adversary by denying him even the 

opportunity to expend any effort? Not that the first is wrong, but 

he’s not looking at it broadly enough. 

And he incorrectly stated, “a center of gravity”—quoting 

him—“is always found where the mass is concentrated most 

densely.” That’s not always true. In a donut, the center of gravity, 

well, there is no mass. In a hollow steel ball, it’s where the steel 

isn’t. In a dumbbell, it’s in the connection between the mass. You 

can come up with counterexample after counterexample. It’s not 

correct.

And then argued this is the place where the blow must be 

aimed, the decision should be reached. And then he talked about 

centers of gravity, the army, the capital, and public opinion. Followed up the army and capital, didn’t really follow up the public 

opinion. If you aim at the public opinion, here’s what happens 

then. You fail to develop the idea of generating many noncooperative centers by striking at those tendons, connections that permit a 

larger— That says longer, but it should be larger center of gravity 

exists.

In other words, you want to generate many noncooperative 

centers of gravity so the guy can’t function as an organic whole. 

What kind of people do that to us today? What about the guerrillas? Didn’t they do that to the U.S.? We had many noncooperative 

centers of gravity in this country. As a result, what happened? We 

had to come home. 

And I might add that, everybody said, hell, we won all the 

battles. No, we didn’t win all the battles. I don’t care if they said 

so. I know one battle we didn’t win. What battle was that? They 

say we won all the battles, I said no. If you’re going to use battle as 

a measure of merit, you better be sure that it’s not a narrow lens. 

It’s got to be as broad as possible lens, if you use that as a measure 

of merit for success. We lost the battle in the home front. When I 

bring that up, they only think of the physical battle. 

If you’re talking about battles, you’ve got to talk about the 
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moral, the mental, and the physical. They were thinking body 

count, attrition. That’s what they were thinking. I know exactly 

what they were thinking. 

In fact, Harry Summers said we won all the battles.2

 I said, 

“Bulls——t, Harry. We didn’t win all the battles.” He says, “Well, 

I know we did. I did all the investigations.” Bulls——t. You didn’t. 

I know you didn’t. And I didn’t do all your investigation. Did you 

win the battle on the home front? Of course, he’d never lie and he 

said no. I said okay. There was the most important battle. It cost 

us the war. 

And what dimension was that played in? Physical? No. In the 

moral dimension, which bears to what Napoleon said. The moral 

is the physical as three is to one. If you get a chance to hear my 

strategy, I go into that deeper. [unintelligible] 

Audience: [unintelligible] the same point in [unintelligible]. 

Boyd: Say again. [unintelligible] 

Audience: You said what Napoleon said and what you just said— 

Boyd: Yeah. 

Audience: —moral is to the physical as three is to one. I’m just 

trying to relate— 

Boyd: You see, I’m looking at that pyramid from another angle, is 

all I’m saying. That’s what I’m trying to bring out. We didn’t win. 

We didn’t win all the battles. We lost the moral battle. But see, the 

guys only want to define the physical sense. Nah, it’s too weak. 

That’s not true. But see, attrition warfare is easy. Christ, you just 

go out there and just slug off artillery and machine gun rounds and 

2

 Boyd is likely referring to Harry G. Summers Jr., who served in the U.S. Army 

during both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Summers wrote an analysis of American operations in Vietnam through a Clausewitzian framework, entitled On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, 2d ed. (New York: Presidio Press, 1995). 
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all that bulls——t. You don’t even have to think. Just pound away. 

When you lead troops, your first concern, your first duty is to your 

troops. You don’t want to goddamn run up a goddamn hill and 

clean out your company and say well, sh——t, we tried, when you 

could’ve come in the back door. 

That’s what I told you [George S.] Patton said, hold them by 

the nose and kick them in the ass. That’s what he’s talking about. 

You get them to concentrate one way and you kick the sh——t 

out of them in a different direction. Then we ain’t [unintelligible]. 

In fact, you’ve got a good statement in your new warfighting 

manual.3

 That thing by Slim is beautiful. Your warfighting book 

that does—in your conduct of war. Remember that little quote 

by Slim at the end?4

 He said, bulls——t on the principles of war. 

Here’s all you’ve got to remember. It’s a beautiful statement. He 

had it exactly right. He was a smart guy too. He’s in the wrong 

theater, so he didn’t get much credit. 

Okay. So what does all this mean? So to attack this, let’s go in 

reverse order. Let’s assume we can generate many noncooperative 

centers of gravity. If we can do that, what do we do? We deny the 

opportunity to generate— We impede vigorous activity. If we impede vigorous activity, what does that mean? We maximize friction 

and uncertainty. That’s exactly right. 

So very often when you turn the argument around, you see 

what’s going to happen. Because it can’t function as an organic 

whole. And so there’s the message then. 

Did not see that many noncooperative conflicting centers of 

gravity paralyze adversary by denying him the opportunity to operate in a directed fashion, hence impede vigorous activity and magnify friction. [30:00] That’s the game the guerrillas play to the hilt. 

3 Warfighting, FMFM-1 (Washinton, DC: Department of the Navy, 1989). 4

 Boyd is referring to the following quote by Sir William J. Slim from Warfighting: 

“Many years ago, as a cadet hoping some day to be an officer, I was poring 

over the ‘Principles of War,’ listed in the old Field Service Regulations, when the 

Sergeant-Major came up to me. He surveyed me with kindly amusement. ‘Don’t 

bother your head about all them things, me lad,’ he said. ‘There’s only one principle of war and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, and as hard 

as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’!” See Warfighting, 55. 
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SLIDE 42

Audience: Does that mean divide and conquer? 

Boyd: Yes, same thing. But there’s many divisions, you know what 

I mean, multiple. That’s exactly right. It’s just another way to divide and conquer. But not just in a physical sense, what, in a moral 

sense, in a mental sense. You understand what I’m saying? 

They think of divide and conquer as split this force off. I’m 

talking about a moral and mental sense as well. And so since he did 

not see it, the likely result’s not too surprising, ergo World War I. 

Now let’s look at Jomini— 

Audience: Can we go back a second? I’m puzzled on how we, the 

friendly side, create the many centers of gravity simply by aiming 

at the decisive points with the one center of gravity and [unintelligible]. 

Boyd: Well, you want to know your adversary— First of all, you 

got to go back to understanding your adversary. What are those 

things that you can concentrate on that’s going— You can divide 

HISTORICAL PATTERN

CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ - ON WAR - 1832

Message

Clausewitz did not see that many noncooperative, or 

conflicting, centers of gravity paralyze adversary by 

denying him the opportunity to operate in a directed 

fashion, hence they impede vigorous activity and magnify 

friction.

Likely Result

Operations end in a "bloodbath" via the well-regulated, 

stereotyped tactics and unimaginative battles of 

attrition suggested by Clausewitz.
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217

SLIDE 43

him up so he can’t function as a whole, not just physically but morally and mentally as well? 

Colonel Michael Wyly: So would your multiple thrusts be one 

example? 

Boyd: Multiple thrusts, that’s—that’s one example. You know, we 

talked about that earlier. Yeah, that’s, a lot of it’s a physical sense, 

but it’s done physically on the other— Well, you think multiple 

thrusts as— You can have multiple thrusts moral, mental, and 

physical too. 

If you think of the battlefield, you tend to think of the physical. But you’ll also get moral and mental implications that flow out 

of that, even though it’s physical. 

Audience: Is there such a thing as a center of gravity? 

Boyd: Oh, that’s a good question. It’s hard. You’re talking about 

center of gravity. See, I think— You’ve heard people say— You’ve 

got a good question, colonel, because I don’t like the term, perHISTORICAL PATTERN

JOMINI - 1861

Secret of Success

“. . . the narratives of Frederick the Great commenced to 

initiate me into the secret which had caused him to gain 

the miraculous victory of Leuthen. I perceived that this 

secret consisted in the very simple maneuver of carrying 

the bulk of his forces upon a single wing of the hostile 

army. . . . I found again, afterward, the same cause in 

the first successes of Napoleon in Italy, which gave me 

the idea that by applying, through strategy, to the whole 

chess table of a war this same principle which Frederick 

had applied to battles, we should have the key to all the 

science of war.”
APPENDIX A

218

sonally. And the reason why, people say we’re going to go after our 

adversary’s strategic center of gravity. I say, what the hell is that? 

We didn’t know our adversary. We didn’t know ourselves where 

we could find our strategic center of gravity. I find that a very 

interesting phrase. 

And they say, they went after ours. I say, that’s not quite true. 

I say I agree that as a result the American society became divided, 

and that turned out to be our strategic center of gravity. But they 

didn’t know that ahead of time. They found out about it after the 

fact, and they levered it. They didn’t start out that way. 

I’m talking about [Vo Nguyen] Giap and his boys during Vietnam. 

Audience: So John Schmitt’s warfighting manual, when he talks 

about vulnerabilities, we’re onto something better than the center 

of gravity. 

Boyd: Yes, in fact I think that’s a much better term. 

Audience: But also we don’t— 

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: Remember, as a matter of fact, Sun Tzu said it. Remember 

what he said? In fact, I got it in my— What manual do I have? 

This one [unintelligible] don’t know where I put the son of a gun. 

It’s in my strategy kit.

Remember what he said, seize that which is the vulnerability, 

seize that which your adversary holds dear or values most highly. 

Then he will conform to your desires. That’s a vulnerability. He 

said that, Sun Tzu back [in] 400, 500 [BC]. Seize that which your 

adversary holds dear and values most highly. Then he will conform to your desires. 

Audience: John qualifies that by saying critical, for example, his 

PX [post exchange] may be vulnerable, but it’s sure as hell not 

critical. 
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219

Boyd: That’s right. 

Audience: So you’ve got to look to what’s vulnerable and to 

what’s critical. 

Boyd: That’s right. But no, no, Sun Tzu said it. Seize that which 

your adversary holds dear or values most highly. That is critical. 

Audience: But what if it’s not vulnerable?

Boyd: Well, it may not be. But I’m talking about— But he’s always talking about strength against weakness. He doesn’t say directly try to do that. 

Wyly: You’re kind of feeling your way as—

Boyd: He’s feeling your way. See, he recognizes it. 

Wyly: In fact, every vulnerability, essentially you get onto something.

Boyd: And you may not know that at the time, exactly what that 

[vulnerability] is. 

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: Let’s say you’re going to penetrate a front— You want to 

go after your adversary’s weakness, strength against weakness. You 

may not know that exactly. One way of finding out, though, is 

multiple thrusts. Because some are going to get hung up. Some will 

leak through. The ones that are leaking through, you know they’re 

doing it. So then you can shift your schwerpunkt [main effort] and 

ram it home through those. 

In other words, you’re adapting to circumstances. You see 

what I’m getting at?

Audience: I’m trying to put it all— 
APPENDIX A

220

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: You see what I’m saying? In other words, you’re— You say 

okay, they’ve outsmarted me here. But in the meantime, you ram 

some of them in there, see. And some are leaking through. The 

other ones are being hung up.

Okay. The ones that are hung up, you don’t reinforce those. 

They just have to sort of hold the position and keep the other 

guy tied up and reinforce or resupport those guys that are going 

through and ram that home real deep into the guy. 

Audience: I’m not getting the connection between the successful 

thrusts and the vulnerability. 

Boyd: I know what you’re saying. You have a— Let’s differentiate 

between weakness and vulnerability. A weakness may not be real. 

A guy [may] not be vulnerable because he’s weak. And that’s what 

you’re talking about. 

Audience: Yeah, because you’re going through there— 

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: You may find a weakness and go through, but he may 

not be too vulnerable necessarily. But also because you’ve got the 

weakness— Because you act, then you can exploit that weakness. 

Then you can direct that out of that weakness and effort into his 

vulnerability.

[35:00] Audience: Okay, now the $64 question— 

Boyd: If you go after something that’s vulnerable, a critical vulnerability, he probably knows it is too. So therefore, he’s going to 

put a lot of forces there. Now you’ve got strength going against 

strength. In other words, you’ve got Verdun [France] and all those 

battles [unintelligible]. Do you understand what I’m saying? So it’s 
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221

sometimes better to exploit the weakness. As a result, you can get 

to the vulnerability. 

Did you ever read Manstein’s thing on lost victories?5

 Remember, he’s always talking about unhinging the front. You’ll never be 

vulnerable. What he’s trying to do is find a weakness and then start 

getting behind him. They’re going to abandon these areas where 

they’re vulnerable. So he gets at the vulnerability by getting to that 

weakness first. 

Audience: We need to go through the intellectual exercise before 

the battle to think that through.

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: Well, I think what you do, I mean, you don’t want to recipe 

it. I wouldn’t want to recipe it. What you want to do is you want 

to lay out the philosophy so your guys think this way, see. Because 

let’s say he’s a commander, and you give him a task to do something out in front. And he has to decide how to do it. 

He may not know exactly where the guy— He may have sort 

of a feel and some fingerspitzengefühl on where they’re weak. In 

the meantime, he can allocate his forces and go through, and then 

he says okay, these guys are succeeding, so I’m going to support 

that. You other guys hang on. Keep the other guy there and let’s 

ram home. Now I’m going to take advantage of that weakness, 

see.

5

 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most 

Brilliant General, ed. and trans. Anthony G. Powell (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 

2004). One of the German Army’s most senior commanders during World War 

II, Manstein planned both the successful invasion of France in 1940 and several 

operations against the Red Army on the eastern front. He was eventually relieved 

of command by Hitler in 1944 for disobeying Hitler’s orders to hold all territory 

to the last man. While Manstein’s position in the midst of multiple major operations during World War II make his memoir worth reading, his book has also 

been criticized as self-aggrandizing and whitewashing those parts of the Holocaust that occurred in territory over which he had command.
APPENDIX A

222

Audience: If we try to time— 

Boyd: In other words, it’s an opportunistic kind of thing. You see 

what I’m saying? You’re taking advantage of the situation as it 

unfolds. 

Audience: As it unfolds. But I think what we teach is we teach 

identify the critical vulnerability, have the focus of effort towards 

it, and let your commander’s intent spell that out. But that’s kind 

of a neat prescription. 

Boyd: That may cause you some problems, is what I’m saying. 

You may be allocating strength against strength. Do you understand what I’m saying? Because if you see it as a critical vulnerability, he probably does too. So he’s going to defend that son of a 

b——h. 

Audience: We have to do something initially to try to draw him 

away from that. 

Boyd: That’s okay. But what you’re doing, you’ve got to set up 

some kind of operation to exploit some weakness, which may not 

be critical. Then if you can get him to goddamn allocate toward 

that weakness and expose that vulnerability, there’s nothing wrong 

in that. But you’ve got to get the exposure first, otherwise you can’t 

get to it. [37:24]

Tape 2, Side 2

[33:23] Audience: Sir, could you go over your— Explain the 

thing about center of gravity? I got confused on that last night. 

You didn’t like the term, then you started talking about vulnerabilities— 

Boyd: Well, let me go back to the way Clausewitz used it. He 

said— If you go back, I don’t have that chart. I don’t want to dig 

back in here, but if you go back to that chart where Clausewitz 

used it—back to Clausewitz. If you recall, he said it’s where the 
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223

mass is concentrated most densely. That’s just not true. The center 

of gravity is, like I said, in donuts where there is no mass, or the 

hollow steel ball, so, you know, it’s really bad once you accept that. 

Say we accept his definition. Let’s just say whether we believe 

it or not, we’re just going to accept it, period, right now. If you 

accept that, that it’s where mass concentrates most densely, then 

you go after that, then you’ve got strength against strength. That’s 

where the mass is concentrated most densely. We said we’re going 

after that, so you’re going right after the mass, strength against 

strength. It throws you right into that. It doesn’t have to be. It’s 

really that connectivity. Things that hold together. As long as you 

can destroy that connectivity, you can pull it apart. That’s why 

I say public opinion is so important. Like the Vietnam War, it’s 

what pulled us out of Vietnam. You can get the public opinion, 

you get those connections that permit an organic whole to stick 

together. If it flies apart you, many noncooperative centers of 

gravity, the game’s over. If you isolate the constituents, one from 

another. 

So his whole concept of center of gravity, which we use— 

We’re going to go after the guy’s strategic center of gravity. I don’t 

know what the hell people are talking about. I say, “What is that?” 

They say, “Well, you know what it is.” No, I don’t, because I read 

Clausewitz and he’s wrong, and I know you’re using it. [35:00] 

How many people here have taken physics? Anybody? The center 

of gravity is always where the mass is concentrated in the most 

dense region. It can be. 

Audience: It’s not necessarily. 

Boyd: It’s not necessarily. It may be. In a donut, the center of 

gravity is in a hole. In a hollow steel ball, it’s where the steel isn’t. 

So the whole concept is baloney, the way he said it. It could be, 

but because he did that, then he said, “Now we’re going to use 

all our effort to go against that center of gravity.” Christ, that’s 

mass smashing into mass by his definition, which is incorrect, it’s 

unsuitable. It could be but not necessarily. That’s why the center 

of gravity is a lousy concept. We say, “We’re going to go after 
APPENDIX A

224

guy’s strategic center of gravity.” I don’t know what the hell that 

is. What are we talking about? What is that?

So, if you’re going to go after a center of gravity, if you can 

identify the center of gravity, not using Clausewitz’s definition, but 

let’s use a true definition of center of gravity. In other words, those 

things that permit an organic whole to stay together, whatever 

they are: moral, mental, physical. Then you want to find that thing 

that allows them to retain their connectivity. So if I can break 

down those connections and get everything flying off in different 

directions, now you’ve got many what I call noncooperatives. Each 

one’s a little center of gravity not connected up with the other 

one, you’ve got many noncooperative centers of gravity. Then you 

scarf them up. But unfortunately, when you use that strategic center of gravity, they act like they know ahead of time. “We know 

exactly where that strategic center of gravity is.” You know, you’re 

imposing certainty in an inherently uncertain process, is what I’m 

trying to say. 

Audience: Can you go back then, Colonel Boyd, and talk about 

vulnerability in relation to the concept? I think we went through 

that last night— 

Boyd: Now, vulnerability—and I think it’s another way of looking at it. Those kind of things your adversary depends upon, you 

may not know whether one is better than the other. You say, “Well, 

these things look very important.” We’ve assessed it. We got inside 

it. You know, in the words of Sun Tzu, “Know your enemy,” and 

all that sort of stuff. At least, somewhat, we know him. We say, 

okay, you know, he really depends on them. These allow him to 

do what he wants to do, whatever they are. So we should direct 

our activities against those. Once again, you’ve got to be careful. 

He has probably also made an assessment, he’s vulnerable there. 

So he’s going to tend to protect those very heavily. In other words, 

critical vulnerabilities, he’s probably also made that assessment. 

He may not have, but you’ve got to figure he may have. Good 

possibility. So, therefore, you don’t want to go directly after those 

so-called critical vulnerabilities, because that also means strength 
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225

smashing into strength. Instead, you want to exploit the weaknesses, so you can expose those vulnerabilities, so that they become 

unprotected. Then you can take them. 

Audience: What if you don’t have an option? You can’t go— 

Boyd: It’s nice you said there’s no option, because then that’s a 

self-fulfilling prophecy, to say there’s no other option. So you get a 

self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s my viewpoint. There’s all kinds of 

options. 

Audience: Not belaboring the point, in World War II, did we 

have the option in the Pacific campaign other than going straight 

out among the islands— 

Boyd: Yeah, [General Douglas] MacArthur, initially he was going 

to do island hopping. Remember, his initial concept was island 

hopping, one after another. 

Audience: But the island— 

Boyd: Wait a minute. He was going to do island hopping, one 

after another until eventually the idea was to reach Japan. Pretty 

soon, they said, “Hey, this is not such a good idea. This could 

take forever.” So then he started doing leapfrogging and cutting off 

those other things by cutting their lines of communication, so they 

withered on the vine. They couldn’t do it. He went into a leapfrogging campaign. He’s cutting that which they depend upon. In other words, if they can’t get outside nourishment, support, etcetera, 

it’s kind of hard to play the game. 

Audience: Is that a center of gravity then? 

Boyd: If you want to use that. I call it vulnerability. I don’t like 

that word. You see, I’m ducking away from that [term] center of 

gravity. It’s got too much bad baggage with it. It may be “a” center 

of gravity. But see, what they do— They want people— It’s not so 
APPENDIX A

226

bad to recognize there’s more than one center of gravity. In other 

words, there are centers of gravity depending upon subsystems and 

all that kind of stuff, see. Because even when physicists or mathematicians use it, they don’t take the whole universe. They say, this 

thing that we’re going to examine, here’s a center of gravity. There 

might be another one over here, because of other things they examined too. Like I took a donut. I could have put that in a larger 

concept, and it would be a different center of gravity. You know, 

it’s in the hole. See, they’re going to go after “the” strategic center 

of gravity. They might be able to identify that but— Go ahead. 

Audience: Sir, what would you call the will of the people? For 

example, the American aversion to protracted war, would you call 

that a weakness? A vulnerability? Or a center of gravity for the 

enemy to try and get— 

Boyd: It might be a center of gravity but now see, will— Now 

you’re taking something more abstract. [40:00] You’re not taking 

the mass, per se. You’re looking at what permits the people to have 

a center of gravity? What permits that? Since you want to use 

the term, you used it. So now we’re going to use that term. What 

permits a center of gravity for the people? You say, we’re going to 

go after the will of the people, so we are going to infer that that’s 

a center of gravity. What permits that center of gravity to be? If 

you don’t understand what permits that, what are you going to 

do, attack all the people? That doesn’t work. That’s bulls——t. 

So that means you can’t use the center of gravity concept. So if 

you’re going to use that, you can do it. Then what permits that to 

go after that center of gravity? That’s what I’m asking. You have 

to understand. 

Audience: Mass understanding or national understanding. 

Boyd: So what are you going to do, just get on the radio and say, 

“Hey, I’m going after your will. Surrender?” I am going to force 

you to cough it up. 
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227

Audience 1: I would say propaganda. 

Audience 2: There you go, sir. Propaganda. 

Boyd: Propaganda? Just because you’ve got propaganda, doesn’t 

mean you have subverted their will. 

Audience: How would I go about doing that?

Boyd: Yeah, but what is it you’re going after? If you’re going to 

use propaganda— 

Audience: A national consensus, a national agreement— 

Boyd: How are you going to get after that— 

Audience: Well, for example, World War II, did we not have 

more or less national consensus it was the right war, the right time, 

the right places? 

Boyd: That was only to solidify our own center of gravity, if you 

want to use that term. That was for us. But I’m talking about, 

we’re going to try and undermine the adversary’s center of gravity. We’re trying to just solidify our own. How are we going to 

undermine his? The guerrillas do it very well. The guerrillas really 

undermine the centers of gravity very well. They figured it out. 

I’m giving you a hint. 

Audience: Protracted war. 

Boyd: Nah, no, you’re not getting— 

Audience: Through the use of violence. 

Boyd: That’s only part of it. 
APPENDIX A

228

Audience: Well, yes, sir, but it is our troops being put in a position 

where they commit atrocities and then publicized— 

Boyd: But he wanted to go after the peoples’ center of gravity. 

Audience: And then the death that occurs on each side, and 

then the publication of that death. All erodes the national will. 

That goes back to the [U.S.] Constitution, which starts out, “We, 

the people.” It’s the use of violence on both sides, publicized by 

the adversary, which subverts ultimately, over time, the national 

will. 

[Cross talk] 

Audience: The use of violence is not explained in a way that the 

people would accept. 

Boyd: See, now, Mike’s starting to come up with— What you 

want to do is, if you want to subvert or pull apart a guy’s center 

of gravity. Note the words, pulling apart. You want to find out what 

are those bonds, those connections that permit that organic whole 

to exist. You know, people aren’t glued together. There are certain 

bonds or connections or rules of conduct, codes of conduct, standards of behavior. You want to see what they are. Then what you 

do, what the guerrillas do, they do it very cleverly. They say, okay, 

now, let’s look at the leadership and see if they’re abiding by those 

bonds, and then we’ll use your word propaganda, and they show 

the mismatch. The leader says this, but here’s what he’s doing. In 

other words, they’ve got a mismatch between the rhetoric and the 

reality, and they bring it up.

Not only that, they show people scarfing off funds and all that 

kind of stuff. Not only that, he does that in a situation where people are getting screwed. Remember I talked about that last night? 

Under what circumstances can you use ethics against somebody? 

It’s when they feel like they’re getting screwed. They’re going to 

get very interested in ethics because “I’m goddamned getting 

screwed.” So then you can develop as many noncooperative cen-
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229

ters of gravity, so they can’t fight as an organic whole. That’s based 

on what? What is the quickest way you can destroy an organization? Anybody? A Marine should understand this right off the bat. 

What is it? The quickest way you destroy an organization? 

Audience: Destroy the morale. 

Boyd: Go even deeper. How do you destroy morale? Mistrust. 

And when you see these guys playing these dirty games, you’re 

building mistrust inside the organization, and it no longer can 

function as a whole. Mistrust and discord. You build that up and 

Christ, they’re going to come unglued. Now, granted, you use violence as a part of doing that. I’m not saying that, but it’s only part 

of it. See, that’s how they work on it. So what we’re going to do is, 

we’re going to go out and have an attrition campaign and just pile 

up body counts and they’re going to surrender. That’s probably 

going to make them madder than hell and they won’t surrender. 

That’s why your leaders and your people’s leaders or future leaders or lower level leaders, you’ve got to set the example. You can’t 

say one thing and then do another. Because your subordinates are 

observing you and they say, “That dirty b——d. We’ve got to do 

this but he doesn’t have to.” 

So if you’re a leader, you’ve got to set the example. You’ve got 

to be tougher on yourself than you are on your own people, and 

if you’re unwilling to do that, as far as I’m concerned you should 

get the hell out of the Marine Corps or any Service. You should 

be tougher on yourself. Because they’re observing you all the time. 

They’re not going to tell you, because they know you have authority, but they’re observing you. In other words, can they trust you? 

If you do that kind of stuff, you’re going to already sow bonds of 

mistrust— I mean not bonds, but disconnect bonds of trust. You’ll 

be sowing mistrust. That’s what the guerrillas— They play that 

game. Of course, you can exacerbate with terrorism, but if you do 

terrorism wrong, you also can make it go the wrong way, which I’ll 

talk about later on. We’re going to get into some of that. Okay? 

That’s why, if you have a chance, hear my strategy pitch. Because I 

get into that moral stuff very heavily. [45:00] We get into this stuff. 
APPENDIX A

230

I show you different ways you can pull a goddamn organization 

down around its socks. [unintelligible] 

All I know is, it didn’t work out too good. So why was the 

American will subverted, vis-à-vis Vietnam? It’s because our leadership was telling us one thing, and the people were coming back 

and telling something else. We’re winning the war. Goddamn, 

we’re going to win it by this time. Everything is going good. Christ, 

in the meantime, we’ve got Tet ’68 and all this other stuff going 

on and the guys are coming back saying— You know what helped 

exacerbate that? The one-year tour. Because the guys are going 

over there and coming back, and what they’re doing is they’re 

spreading among their friends, so the whole thing just builds up a 

groundswell. So, they found our strategic center of gravity; it was 

the will of the American people. And in a sense, we looked in the 

mirror and did it to ourselves. [46:08]

MAIN EFFORT

Tape 3, Side 2

[23:28] How does schwerpunkt play into this concept? And of 

course, it’s the glue that holds everything together, is what I’m trying to tell you. And I’ve said it different ways. I’ll let you read it. 

And they have a schwerpunkt at all levels, from the theater all 

the way down. Theater, army group, army, corps, division, regiment, schwerpunkt inside schwerpunkt inside schwerpunkt inside 

schwerpunkt, or focus of main effort, or point of main effort. The 

main effort. 

Maneuver of all arms and supporting elements are focused to 

exploit opportunities and maintain tempo of operations. Initiative 

of many subordinates is harmonized within superior intent. So if 

they know what the schwerpunkt is, in that sense then, implicitly 

each guy is cooperating with all the other people. You see what 

I’m saying? 

Now there’s a danger. I notice in some of the Marine documents, you say you designate a unit as being the schwerpunkt or 

focus of effort. You may do that. You may not. Let me show you 

where that might not play. 

You want to be very careful with that. Let’s take, for exam-
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231

SLIDE 78

Schwerpunkt

(Focus of Main Effort)

Message

• Schwerpunkt acts as a center or axis or harmonizing agent that is used to help 

shape commitment and convey or carry-out intent, at all levels from theater to 

platoon, hence an image around which:

- Maneuver of all arms and supporting elements are focused to exploit opportunities and maintain tempo of operations, 

 and

- Initiative of many subordinates is harmonized with superior intent. 

• In this sense Schwerpunkt can be thought of as:

- A focusing agent that naturally produces an unequal distribution of effort as 

a basis to generate superiority in some sectors by thinning-out others, 

 as well as 

- A medium to realize superior intent without impeding initiative of many 

subordinates, hence a medium through which subordinate initiative is 

implicitly connected to superior intent. 

Implication

• Schwerpunkt represents a unifying concept that provides a way to rapidly shape 

focus and direction of effort as well as harmonize support activities with 

combat operations, thereby permit a true decentralization of tactical command 

within centralized strategic guidance--without losing cohesion of overall 

effort.

or put another way

• Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie 

initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to 

diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch 

in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances.

ple, when the Germans decided to go through the Ardennes. I’m 

talking about 1940, not 1945, 1944, when they hit us in December. In 1940, when they went through the Ardennes, initially before that, they were going to have their main effort up north, you 

know, somewhat follow the Schlieffen Plan.6

 Then as a result of 

Manstein getting to Hitler, [25:00] they shifted the schwerpunkt

down to the southern sector. Why did they do that? Anybody? 

Audience: Because there was no resistance there. 

Boyd: Okay. So the schwerpunkt wasn’t set because the unit was 

set, because that sector would give them a weakness they could 

6

 The Schlieffen Plan was a battle plan first proposed in 1905 by Alfred, Graf 

(count) von Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff, that was designed to 

allow Germany to wage a successful two-front war.
APPENDIX A

232

exploit. So the schwerpunkt was set in that sector, and once it’s set 

there, the units then are part of that schwerpunkt.

So don’t just designate a unit. You want to look at the sector 

you’re looking at. And you say, okay. This is the area I want to do 

it because they’re weak here. And then those units become the 

schwerpunkt to go through there. Because otherwise, you’re only 

internally focused. You’ve got to be focused outward, not inward. 

Audience: Could you say that again, sir? 

Boyd: Okay. I’ll say it again. In 1940, so you get the whole idea— 

And they made a mistake later on. I’m going to show you the difference between the two. That’s why I’m drawing this distinction 

right now. 

We’re talking about 1940. And if you people haven’t read it, 

I’ll explain it to you. There was a big argument in the German 

Army where the so-called main effort— In fact, most of them 

thought, until Manstein intervened, that they were going to have 

their main effort come out of the lowlands, Holland and Belgium, 

and sweep around almost like the Schlieffen Plan out of World 

War I, the same kind of idea. 

And Manstein looked at that. He was very gifted. He said, 

that’s bulls——t. So then he got together with [General Heinz W.] 

Guderian and wanted to know, he said we know the French are 

kind of weak here.7

 Can we get those goddamn panzers through 

the Ardennes? Guderian looked, said of course we can. So then 

he drew up the whole plan for going through the Ardennes, and 

make that the main effort.

So the main effort, or the schwerpunkt, was set not by the 

unit but by what? By the area where the other guy wasn’t going 

7

 In German, the term panzer refers to armored divisions. Guderian developed 

many of the tactics used successfully by Germany’s mechanized forces at the outset of World War II. He directly commanded panzer forces during both the invasions of Poland and France. In 1941, following the Wehrmacht’s failed attempt to 

capture Moscow, Guderian was relieved of command for pulling his forces back 

in direct contradiction to Hitler’s orders. Thereafter, he held largely ceremonial 

positions in the German military until the end of the war.
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233

to be. And then, since it’s set there, of course, those units become 

the schwerpunkt, and all the support goes in there, the main support. 

And the northern effort then became a cheng [expected] for 

the chi [unexpected] coming out of the south there. Well, it wasn’t 

really the south. It was through the center there. It was just on the 

northern side of the Maginot Line.8

Audience: It may just be semantically that I’m confused, but I 

don’t see that that’s any different than what we’ve previously talked about. In my opinion, in my mind, the focus of effort or main 

effort or whatever you want to call it, the focus of effort is directed 

at a critical enemy vulnerability. What you just— 

Boyd: Maybe not. Maybe not. We had that argument last night. 

Maybe you might— If it’s a critical vulnerability, he may defend 

it. Then it’s going strength against strength. You don’t want to do 

it. Remember, we went through this argument. 

Audience: Okay. I’ll buy that. 

Boyd: We’ve gone through this. You’ve got to be very careful with 

that. 

Audience: Using the concept of multiple thrusts, though—

Boyd: What you want to do is get him— You want to expose his 

vulnerability. You want to go through the weaknesses so you can 

expose those and get to him. 

Audience: I understand that. Using the idea of the multiple 

thrusts, you may not pick your point of main effort— 

8

 The Maginot Line, named after French minister of war André Maginot, was a 

line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France 

in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany.
APPENDIX A

234

Boyd: Say that again. I was going to do that next. Say it loud. 

Audience: Using the principle of multiple thrusts, you may not 

pick the point of main effort until you’ve actually made contact 

with the enemy and identified the weakness. 

Boyd: Wait a minute. Maybe. You’re on the right track. But who’s 

going to be the main effort? You’ve got 5 or 10 thrusts going. 

You’re going to pick one and everybody— Say it.

Audience: Everybody can be your point of main effort. 

Boyd: That’s right. So focus of effort, and they’re all part of the 

main effort. 

Audience: The point of main effort can be not having one. 

Boyd: But it’s that area, and they’re all part of the focus of main 

effort. That’s why I say you’ve got to be careful. Designate one 

unit and all the other guys, you only get one to a thrust, because if 

you start at theater level and say okay, your army group’s the main 

effort. And then inside that army group, that army’s the main effort. Then you go down and you say, okay, the corps or division in 

front of you got the squads of main effort. Then you got one guy 

out there that’s the main effort for the whole goddamn thing, from 

army group all the way down. That’s bulls——t.

Audience: Well, aren’t you really saying—

Boyd: You see what I’m saying? I took it to a logical extreme, obviously, to show you that it doesn’t work that way. 

Audience: The key to that, it seems to me, is the adaptability on 

your line; in other words, don’t be so rigid you can’t change your 

main effort as the real battle unfolds. 
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235

Boyd: Well, no. But we’re just saying as a starting point. We haven’t even talked about shifting. We want to shift it later on, we 

know. We’re just saying okay, we’ve set the operation up. We’re 

talking about the Ardennes, 1940. 

We haven’t done any operation yet. We’re just saying, okay, 

where are we going to allocate on the first day, regardless of 

whether we shift it the next day. All we’re talking about is how are 

we going to allocate. What’s going to be the big— This unit’s the 

main effort because we like the guy or something? F——k, he goes 

off? No. 

What you’re going to do is, you’re going to look at the front 

there and say look, they have a weakness here. We can exploit that 

weakness. Therefore, the main effort is going to be set because a 

weakness exists here, and then those units become part of that 

main effort because of the situation you’re going against. 

It’s set primarily by your enemy being weak, not by your own 

forces. In other words, it’s an outward orientation, not an inward 

orientation even though the schwerpunkt itself is inward. Am I 

making my point? 

Audience: [unintelligible] definition of focus of effort is—by sector and area. Is that different between this and main attack— 

Boyd: Well, you might sometimes— You already know it’s weak 

all over. You may just say, okay. We’ll just designate this unit. I just 

don’t want you— You want a recipe. I’m trying to talk you out of 

a recipe. You may sometimes set it by unit. You may set it by sector. 

Understand, I use that as an example. 

Audience: My question is— 

Boyd: But in every case, when you set that thing, the thing I’m trying to tell you, in a sense it’s going against the guy’s weakness. So 

that sort of sets it, if you have a sort of philosophy going strength 

against weakness. It’s how you’re going to set that main effort. Go 

ahead. 
APPENDIX A

236

Audience: What’s the difference between focus of effort and 

main attack? 

Boyd: Oh, same thing. People use things— The Germans use 

point of main effort. They talk about— We call it focus of main effort. 

Now the Marines like to call— I think it’s a better word, focus of 

effort or focus of efforts. We’re all saying the same thing. 

[30:00] Wyly: But that main attack word is one where we have to 

be careful— 

Boyd: You have to be careful. 

[Cross talk] 

Wyly: I mean, you talk about terms having a lot of baggage, see. 

And that’s the term the Marine Corps was using. 

Boyd: No, the one thing bad about main attack, Mike’s onto 

something. If it’s a main attack, how do you handle it from a defensive viewpoint? 

Wyly: Exactly.

Boyd: See schwerpunkt can also be defensive. 

Wyly: And also, that’s the term the Marine Corps was using way 

before we even had this focus of effort concept, and so it tends to 

be kind of shallow. I mean, if you’re thinking of main attack the 

way it used to be in our old FMFMs, I’d say forget it.

[audience begins rapid exchanges with each other] 

Audience: I can understand that. But the college, the teaching is 

quite different [unintelligible]. 
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237

Audience: Focus of effort, you all in the college, you’re going to 

get FMFM-1 more— 

Boyd: And it’s focus of effort.

Audience: No more main attack— 

Audience: It’s focus of effort. FMFM-1, if we’d had it when the 

year started, we’d have saved an awful lot of agonizing discussions, 

which we saw. So focus of effort encompasses [unintelligible]. 

Boyd: But you’re going to hear people still want to use the word 

[in] German [for] schwerpunkt. That’s all right. Fine. They’re 

talking about focus of effort or main effort or focus of main effort 

or— And I tend to like the word focus of efforts better, because 

what I want to do with effort, guys think well, we only want one 

thrust. I want the multiple thrusts. So it’s focus of efforts, so you 

have multiple thrusts. So you can pull the guy apart. You’ll see that 

in a few moments. 

But don’t worry about it. What I’m trying to do is, don’t think 

of it as a recipe. That’s what I’m trying to get you out of. It’s not 

always going to be— It’s only because we designate this unit. I’m 

trying to get you out of that. You may do it that way, but there’s 

these other ways. 

The key thing is, what you’re really trying to do is unwind your 

adversary. You’re assigning it internally, but it’s so you can exploit 

your strength against his weakness. It might be because of the terrain situation. It might be because of the way they’ve set their 

units. There’d be a number of reasons why you’re going to do that. 

You see what I’m getting at? Okay. And that’s all I’m trying 

to tell you. I don’t want to take it any— Don’t— What I’m trying 

to do, and you may hate my guts for it, is I don’t want you to have 

a rigid recipe. Because if you start getting rigid recipes, then the 

guy’s going to find out what that is. You would in a sense become 

predictable, and he’s going to pull your pants down. He may not 

know it in the beginning, but after you do it a couple times, hey, 
APPENDIX A

238

I’m getting the picture. So then he’ll play it against you. He’ll use 

it against you. Go ahead. 

Audience: Sir, I see a flaw in this, then. The Germans said they 

want to teach their officers to think the same way. They train them 

the same way, and more importantly, to think the same way. And 

there’s an element of prediction— 

Boyd: There’s a danger. You lay it out. You’re going onto something. Go ahead. 

Audience: What bothers me is, I’m trained the same way my boss 

is. I’m trained to think the same way my boss is. The reason he can 

just say, “Okay, my intent is . . .” and I can take the ball and run 

with it, is because he knows that I’m going to come to the same 

damn conclusion on how to carry out— 

Boyd: Oh, no, no. Not necessarily. 

Audience: Probably. 

Boyd: No, no, no. No, no, no. 

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: If you hear my “Organic Design for Command and Control,” when you train your people, if you train across a narrow repertoire, then you’ll tend to do it the same way he does. But if you 

have a wide repertoire, there’s different combinations you can use. 

And so when you try to build this common mind-set, it’s across a 

large variety of different situations. 

And so even though you have one “how” in mind, he may 

have a different “how” in mind. But you’re still under the same 

framework. 

Audience: Well, I’m limited by my assets and by what I’ve got 

available to do the job with. 
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239

Boyd: So what? I don’t care if we have limited assets. There’s still 

more than one way to skin a cat. 

Audience: Not to me. 

Boyd: If you don’t think— Then what you’ve got, you’ve got a 

self-fulfilling prophesy. 

Audience: What I’m thinking is that— 

Audience: Some can save time though, sir. There’s many ways to 

skin a cat, but some can save time is— 

Boyd: I understand that. 

Audience: And if speed is most important— 

[Cross talk] 

Boyd: See, now you’re looking for an optimum solution. We 

couldn’t even get an optimum solution when— I was laying out 

the equations for goddamn trying to optimize airplane designs, 

and we couldn’t do it. And you’re going to do it with human beings. That’s even tougher. 

Audience: But I’m saying there may be a hundred different ways 

to do it, but there may be one or two or three—

Boyd: There might be a few in there that are better than the others. I agree. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to do it exactly like 

he’s going to do it. 

Wyly: In fact, it doesn’t mean that at all. I mean, we’re saying look 

for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Now, I might find a totally different weakness than you see. I might be able to find one that you 

would never perceive. Or you might be able to see one that I never 

would because we think differently. We’re two different people. 
APPENDIX A

240

Boyd: That’s right. 

Wyly: But we’re both going to be looking for those weaknesses. 

That’s the one thing our common commander knows. 

Boyd: See, you might see a, because your orientation, because 

you said it, you may see a physical weakness on a guy. You understand what I’m saying? So you’re going to allocate, and you’re 

going to set up your focus of effort or your schwerpunkt, whatever 

you want to call it, against that. 

Whereas, what Mike’s saying, he may see, well, the way these 

guys have behaved before in battle, even though they’ve got a lot 

of troops, they’re weak units. And in that sense, it’s a morale problem, so you’re going to direct it against it because he knows they’re 

going to crumble. So he might set it differently than you would. 

[34:30]

MORAL LEVEL OF WAR/GRAND IDEAL

Tape 5, Side 1

[27:41] We want to step up to a higher level. How do we connect 

these notions, or the theme for disintegration and collapse with 

the national goal? Remember that other thing we called theme for 

disintegration and collapse, that alternate view. How do we do that? 

So let’s look at that. And these are the kind of things you should 

be interested in. 

One, it should support the national goal. Two, we should pump 

up— We should set it up so it pumps up our resolve, drains away 

adversary resolve, and attracts the uncommitted. That’s where we 

lost in Vietnam. We lost at the grand strategic level. We pumped 

up their resolve, drained away ours, and they attracted the uncommitted. We had to come home. We lost at the grand strategic level. 

So did Hitler. He had some good tactics. He’d pumped up the 

other adversary’s resolve, drained away— He didn’t really drain 

away his, they held together pretty well. But he did cause—because their operations caused the enemies to attract the uncommitted. He also lost at the grand strategic level. 

And you want to end conflict on favorable terms. Obviously, 
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241

SLIDE 139

SLIDE 138

Raises Question

How do we connect the tactical and strategic notions 

or the theme for disintegration and collapse with the national goal? 

Via a Sensible Grand Strategy that Will: 

• Support national goal.

• Pump up our resolve, drain away adversary resolve, and attract the uncommitted.

• End conflict on favorable terms.

• Ensure that conflict and peace terms do not provide seeds for (unfavorable) 

future conflict.

SLIDE 140

ensure that peace terms do not provide seeds for future conflict, 

or in the event they do, at least not unfavorably towards you. So if 

you paste all that together, you can come up with a basis for grand 

strategy. 

Here’s the basis for you. You better have this basis, because, 

otherwise, you’re not even going to be able to play that game. Sun 

Tzu had two-thirds, remember he said, “Know your enemy, know 

yourself.” You got know your enemy, you know yourself, and also, 

those third parties out there. It’s not just a two-cornered stool, it’s 

a three-cornered stool. 

Audience: Is this the level above us as military people though? 

Grand Strategy

Essence

• Shape pursuit of national goal so that we not only amplify our spirit and 

strength (while undermining and isolating our adversaries) but also influence 

the uncommitted or potential adversaries so that they are drawn toward our 

philosophy and are empathetic toward our success.

Basis

• An appreciation for the underlying self-interests, critical differences of 

opinion, internal contradictions, frictions, obsessions, etc., that we as well 

as the uncommitted and any potential or real adversaries must contend with.
APPENDIX A

242

Boyd: You, as a military person, better understand that, particularly if you get caught in a guerrilla operation. 

Audience: I understand. I understand. But how— 

Boyd: But the politicians better understand this, otherwise, they 

can get us in trouble if they start doing the wrong things. If that’s 

your nature of your question. 

Audience: But once we’re committed, we’re well beyond this, 

and this is out of our hands. 

Boyd: Wait a minute. No, no, no. You get in a guerrilla war, like I 

said, you can get inside the villages, instead of attacking the villages, in a sense, you’re playing this kind of a game. 

Audience: Sorry, this is proactive? You can do this before the 

conflict starts? 

Boyd: Of course.

Audience: —is what we should be doing, before the goddamn 

conflict starts. 

Boyd: Of course. Before, and even afterward, but it gets tougher 

afterward. [30:00] Your point is well taken. It’s harder. But it can 

still be done. It’s got to be done very delicately. But, you know, 

you can’t think of running a couple hundred tanks in there and 

blowing away villages, because all you’re going to do is alienate— You’re, pretty soon, it’s “that dirty son of a b——h,” they’re 

against you then. 

Audience: But we should be doing this before the conflict starts, 

to begin with. 

Boyd: Exactly. You know when we should be doing it? Right now. 
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243

Audience: Right now. 

Boyd: Right now. The answer to your question, absolutely. Right 

now we should be doing it. 

Audience: Not waiting for the conflict to start, when we have— 

Boyd: Yeah, you want to get on top of it. Get that leverage. Not 

only that, you build up friends. Not only that, you’re not hosing 

a lot of people, except the guys you’re trying to beat—[Crosstalk]—getting beat. 

Audience: Maybe I was getting too much down into the weeds. 

By the time they send me in, I don’t have the opportunity to go 

into Grenada prior to, and try to make friends, try to get into the 

village to work with them. 

Boyd: That could happen. When you’re sent in that kind of operation, you’ve already been given the order to do it. But you can’t 

disobey the order. 

Audience: Very true. 

Boyd: But then, what that is, that’s a screwup on their part because we got pushed into that position to do something like that. 

In other words, now we’re attacking the village, instead of trying 

to get inside the village. And you can’t say, “I’m not going to do it,” 

because they’re going to court-martial you. But it’s still a screwup. 

You understand what I’m saying? 

Audience: Yes, sir. 

Boyd: It’s still a screwup. And we got to recognize it. We don’t 

recognize it, we’re going to continue to make more and more 

screwups. That’s all I’m trying to say. And so, it’s not only know 

your enemy and know yourself, but also, the third parties out there. 
APPENDIX A

244

And understand their culture in all those different countries, so 

then you can play this game. 

And like the gentleman back there—what’s your name? If 

you’re not prepared to play that game, you know what my recommendation is? Stay the hell out, because you’re only going to muck 

it up and embarrass yourself before your country and everybody 

else. Which was your point, the other night. You’re going to screw 

it up, that’s all. And the people lose confidence in you, like right 

now, Christ, we’re having a hard time running that Third World 

operation, because every time you try to think of something like 

that, when we’re trying to help people out, “Vietnam,” right away 

they raise the flag. The very thing you’re talking about. They raise 

the goddamn Vietnam flag, then they all— Everybody starts trembling. “Well, we can’t do that.” Even though you’re right. Okay? 

So we paste all that together, now we invert again. Remember, 

I went from bottom up. Tactics, grand tactics. So now we’re going 

top down. Your national goal. Of course, you already know what 

SLIDE 141

Pattern

National Goal

• Improve our fitness, as an organic whole, to shape and cope with an everchanging environment. 

Grand Strategy

• Shape pursuit of national goal so that we not only amplify our spirit and strength (while 

undermining and isolating our adversaries) but also influence the uncommitted or potential 

adversaries so that they are drawn toward our philosophy and are empathetic toward our 

success.

Strategic Aim

• Diminish adversary's capacity while improving our capacity to adapt as an organic whole, so 

that our adversary cannot cope, while we can cope, with events/efforts as they unfold.

Strategy

• Penetrate adversary's moral-mental-physical being to dissolve his moral fiber, disorient 

his mental images, disrupt his operations, and overload his system, as well as subvert or 

seize those moral-mental-physical bastions, connections, or activities that he depends 

upon, in order to destroy internal harmony, produce paralysis, and collapse adversary's 

will to resist.

Grand Tactics

• Operate inside adversary's observation-orientation-decision-action loops, or get inside his 

mind-time-space, to create tangles of threatening and/or nonthreatening events/efforts as 

well as repeatedly generate mismatches between those events/efforts adversary observes, or 

imagines, and those be must react to, to survive; 

thereby

• Enmesh adversary in an amorphous, menacing, and unpredictable world of uncertainty, doubt, 

mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos . . . and/or fold adversary back inside 

himself;

thereby

• Maneuver adversary beyond his moral-mental-physical capacity to adapt or endure so that he 

can neither divine our intentions nor focus his efforts to cope with the unfolding 

strategic design or related decisive strokes as they penetrate, splinter, isolate or 

envelop, and overwhelm him.

Tactics

• Observe-orient-decide-act more inconspicuously, more quickly, and with more irregularity as 

basis to keep or gain initiative as well as shape and shift main effort: to repeatedly and 

unexpectedly penetrate vulnerabilities and weaknesses exposed by that effort or other 

effort(s) that tie up, divert, or drain away adversary attention (and strength) elsewhere.
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245

SLIDE 142

Insight

On one hand, as shown on the previous chart, the national goal and grand strategy 

tend to be constructive in nature. On the other hand, the strategic aim, strategy, 

grand tactics, and tactics are destructive in nature and operate over a shorter 

time frame. In this sense, the upper two and the latter four notions, as expressed, 

appear to be in disharmony with one another. Yet, application of these latter four 

strategic and tactical notions permit real leadership to avoid high attrition, 

avoid widespread destruction, and gain a quick victory. This, combined with 

shattered cohesion, paralysis, and rapid collapse demonstrated by the existing 

adversary regime, makes it appear corrupt, incompetent, and unfit to govern. Under 

these circumstances, leaders and statesmen offering generous terms can form the 

basis for a viable peace. In this sense, the first two and the latter four notions 

can be in harmony with one another. 

I’m going to say: we got national goal, grand strategy, strategic 

aim, strategy, grand tactics, and all these groups. So you don’t have 

to read them all. 

The point I’m trying to bring out here, if you look at these, 

the upper two tend to be constructive in nature, yet they operate 

over a longer timeframe. Whereas, the bottom four, which is—

he was sort of alluding to—tend to be destructive in nature, but 

they operate over a shorter timeframe. So the question is, how 

do you harmonize these two things that sort of have opposing 

tendencies? Short term versus long term and constructive versus 

destructive? You sort of have to— You know, that’s the way the 

world is. You’re going to have to face up. How do you deal with 

that kind of stuff? 

And so this little note here, this message under this insight 

here, is a way of thinking about it. I’ll let you read it in a formal 

sense, and I’ll deal with it even more simply after you read it. I’ll 

let you read it first. 

[Long pause as audience reads slide] 

Boyd: What am I really saying here? Anybody? What am I really 

saying? What I’m saying is very simple. That if you go in there, 

and not only get a quick victory, but behave afterward, the people 

are going to tend to be on your side. Why? Because here, if they 

spent money over a number of years, building up their defense 

establishment, and the whole thing collapses away in no time, 
APPENDIX A

246

they’re going to think they’re a bunch of corrupt b——ds. So you 

got that working for you. 

But if you go in there and come down heavy-handed, you 

lose it all. You lose it all. Think about it. Remember, let’s say our 

country got invaded and here we spent years, billions of dollars 

for defense, and somebody came in here and took us over very 

fast. You’d say, “Those dirty b——ds. They didn’t even know how 

to do it.” But then if a guy comes down hard, then you reunify 

them. In a sense, that’s what happened with Hitler against Russia. 

Remember, they were welcomed in, but then, Hitler came down 

harder than they— Stalin, they said, “Well, we’re going to have a 

dictator, we’re going to have our own.” [35:00] So it’s very delicate. You’ve got to be very careful. Okay. 

Now, let’s have a further elaboration. Let’s build up to a higher 

level. Build up a philosophy. Pull it apart, and put it back together 

again in a different sense. Working up to a higher level. I’ll let you 

read that. In other words, what we’re talking about here is what I 

like to call a unifying vision, or a unifying theme for all this stuff. 

You can think of tactics, you think of grand tactics, or strategies, 

goals, but also you want to work a big, huge unifying theme. 

[Long pause as audience reads slide]

Okay? 

SLIDE 143

Further Elaboration

Up to this point--by repeatedly adding, stripping away, and recombining many 

different, yet similar, ideas and thoughts--we have examined the nature of 

conflict, survival, and conquest in many different ways. A review and further 

manipulation of the ideas and thoughts that make up these different ways suggests 

that, for success over the long haul and under the most difficult conditions, one 

needs some unifying vision that can be used to attract the uncommitted as well as 

pump up friendly resolve and drive and drain away or subvert adversary resolve and 

drive. In other words, what is needed is a vision rooted in human nature so noble, 

so attractive that it not only attracts the uncommitted and magnifies the spirit 

and strength of its adherents, but also undermines the dedication and determination 

of any competitors or adversaries. Moreover, such a unifying notion should be so 

compelling that it acts as a catalyst or beacon around which to evolve those 

qualities that permit a collective entity or organic whole to improve its stature 

in the scheme of things. Put another way, we are suggesting a need for a supraorientation or center of gravity that permits leaders, and other authorities, to 

inspire their followers and members to enthusiastically take action toward 

confronting and conquering all obstacles that stand in the way. Such a scheme can 

be portrayed as follows: 
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247

SLIDE 144

Theme for Vitality and Growth

Ingredients needed to pursue vision

Insight

Ability to peer into and discern 

the inner nature or workings of 

things.

Initiative

Internal drive to think and take 

action without being urged. 

Adaptability

Power to adjust or change in order 

to cope with new or unforeseen 

circumstances. 

Harmony

Power to perceive or create 

interaction of apparently disconnected events or entities in a 

connected way. 

Unifying vision

A grand ideal, overarching theme, 

or noble philosophy that represents 

a coherent paradigm within which 

individuals as well as societies 

can shape and adapt to unfolding 

circumstances--yet offers a way to 

expose flaws of competing or 

adversary systems. } {

Aim

Improve fitness as an organic whole to shape and expand influence 

or power over the course of events in the world. 

}

And this I call a theme for vitality and growth. Remember, we had 

the theme for disintegration and collapse. Now we got a theme for—

juxtaposing it, for vitality and growth. Unifying vision. This kind 

of a thing. Now the Marxist stuff, they had one there for a while, 

but since then, their system’s been tested and it’s not holding up. 

And that was the theme that the world was going to march to. A 

unifying vision. They were trying to show the flaws in the other 

systems. You develop that, you better be sure you have that looked 

at pretty carefully. In other words, you’re trying to really build up a 

super-organic whole. On the other hand, you got to be very careful. You make it too rigid, then you lose these things. 

Well, here’s the ingredients needed to pursue that vision. Insight, initiative, adaptability, harmony. Those kind of ingredients. 

Now too often, when people build a unifying vision, they lose this. 

In the U.S., we’re the other way. We tend to have this [references 

left side of slide, “unifying vision”], and not this [references right 

side of slide, “ingredients”]. They’re sort of opposite—they’re sort 

of in tension with one another. You go one way, you tend to lose 
APPENDIX A

248

the other. You go the other way, you tend to lose the other. So there 

might be some times you’re like, this is more important, you might 

lose a little bit. And other times, you want to play this. This is less 

important. So you’re always trying to work that balance. It’s an 

endless game, always trying to work that balance. 

Now there was one time when we sort of had the good balance. When was that? I mean, talking about a time of real crisis. 

World War II, because we had Hitler out there, you see. So we got 

everybody unified, we can use him as the basis, he’s the evil, and 

therefore, we can still have these two things together. Go ahead. 

Audience: That’s easy to understand, because we were threatened. We were hit at Pearl Harbor and things like that. But when 

you take a look at Vietnam, or even the present situation— 

Boyd: Note what you just said. No, wait, let’s stop. I’m going to 

let you pick it up. What’d you just say? Go back up what you just 

said. Very important what you just said. 

Audience: When we were directly threatened. 

Boyd: You were hit at Pearl Harbor. 

Audience: Yes. 

Boyd: So what happened? 

Audience: Well, we hit back. 

Boyd: We used that as a basis to unify. In other words, these guys 

doing that. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s why you 

got to be very careful about being heavy-handed. So if you do 

something like that, you can unify your adversary. And that’s particularly important in guerrilla war. That’s why I said, note what 

you just said. The Japanese unified us. Before that happened, we 

had “America First” units, we had the German-American Bund, 
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249

SLIDE 175

SLIDE 174

Wrap-Up

Message

• He who is willing and able to take the initiative to exploit variety, rapidity, 

and harmony--as basis to create as well as adapt to the more indistinct--more 

irregular--quicker changes of rhythm and pattern, yet shape focus and direction 

of effort--survives and dominates 

or contrariwise 

• He who is unwilling or unable to take the initiative to exploit variety, 

rapidity, and harmony . . . goes under or survives to be dominated. 

Wrap-Up

Game

• Create tangles of threatening and/or nonthreatening events/efforts as well as 

repeatedly generate mismatches between those events/efforts adversary observes or 

imagines (Cheng/Nebenpunkte) and those he must react to (Ch’i/Schwerpunkt)

as basis to

• Penetrate adversary organism to sever his moral bonds, disorient his mental 

images, disrupt his operations, and overload his system, as well as subvert or 

seize those moral-mental-physical bastions, connections, or activities that he 

depends upon

thereby

• Pull adversary apart, produce paralysis, and collapse his will to resist.

How

• Get inside adversary observation-orientation-decision-action loops (at all 

levels) by being more subtle, more indistinct, more irregular, and quicker, yet 

appear to be otherwise. 

that—all that stuff.9 If you look back in history, I was a young kid 

at that time and I remember that. And as soon as they did that, the 

whole country unified. Goddamn it, if they’re going to play that 

kind of game, we’re going to kick them in the a——s and win this 

thing. [38:46]

WRAP-UP/FINAL MESSAGE

Tape 5, Side 2

9

 The German-American Bund (1933–35), or Friends of the New Germany, was 

an American pro-Nazi, quasimilitary organization most active in the years immediately preceding the United States’ entry into World War II.
APPENDIX A

250

SLIDE 176

[22:44] Here’s the message, so I’m giving you a little wrap-up 

here. 

I’ll just summarize what we’ve done here in about 10 minutes, 

and then— 

[long pause as audience reads slide] 

You want— My point is, do you want to be [the] hoser or the 

hosee? 

In continuing that then, here’s the game we’re sort of playing. 

Use that as a basis to do this, thereby you can realize that, and 

how you do it. Quite simple when you put it all up. Note that word 

again, penetrate, to sever his moral— And see what I’m saying? 

Probably should have underlined it, but I don’t like underlining all 

the time. Without the penetration, you can’t get there from here, is 

what I’m trying to tell you. Well, you know, one thing we ought to 

keep, we obviously got to be more indistinct, and more irregular. 

Why did we go to camouflage uniforms, why do we not wear, 

you know, red coats and white trousers, and all that? Because, you 

Wrap-Up

Implications

• In a tactical sense, these multidimensional interactions suggest a spontaneous, 

synthetic/creative, and flowing action/counteraction operation, rather than a 

step-by-step, analytical/logical, and discrete move/countermove game.

- In accepting this idea, we must admit that increased unit complexity (with 

magnified mental and physical task loadings) does not enhance the spontaneous 

synthetic/creative operation. Rather, it constrains the opportunity for these 

timely actions/counteractions. 

or put another way 

- Complexity (technical, organizational, operational, etc.) causes commanders 

and subordinates alike to be captured by their own internal dynamics or 

interactions--hence they cannot adapt to rapidly changing external (or even 

internal) circumstances. 

• In a strategic sense, these interactions suggest we need a variety of possibilities as well as the rapidity to implement and shift among them. Why?

- Ability to simultaneously and sequentially generate many different possibilities as well as rapidly implement and shift among them permits one to 

repeatedly generate mismatches between events/efforts adversary observes or 

imagines and those he must respond to (to survive). 

- Without a variety of possibilities, adversary is given the opportunity to read 

as well as adapt to events and efforts as they unfold. 
“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

251

know, you’re kind of revealed. What you try to do is you try to 

blend into the background, that’s why we wear that. There’s other 

ways of blending into the background, to operate in an irregular 

fashion so they can’t do it to you. You want to do all the things you 

can do so the other guy can’t discern what you’re up to. 

And frequently change what you’re doing, so you’re always 

giving a screwed up picture of what’s going on. Don’t let your 

troops get comfortable, because then you’re going to get sandtabled. They’re going to want to get, oh I’ve got [unintelligible] 

once again, while you’re there, the enemy recce’s [reconnaissance] 

always working a problem on you, in a patrol action. They’re going to start knowing your outlines and they’re going to start to 

figure out how, where your weakness are, they’re going to be able 

to penetrate that and cause you problems. But if you’re moving 

about, you’re giving, you’re screwing up their mental picture all 

the time. 

[25:00] That’s what you turn to, so you can pull them apart, 

produce, and do this. Okay? 

I’ll let you read this chart, then I want to talk to this one, this 

is important, the implications behind this. You all want to understand in a tactical sense, these multidimensional interactions suggest a spontaneous, synthetic/creative, and flowing rather than a 

step-by-step, analytical/logical, and discrete move/countermove 

game. 

And, of course, the two dashed statements below that are related. In other words, what I’m saying, without that, if you don’t 

get the fingerspitzengefühl, you get all these goddamn procedures 

and checklists, these complicated plans, well what is it going to do, 

[makes raspberry sound] just grinds you down, slows you down, 

slow as molasses in January. So put it another way. Complexity— I 

don’t care whether it’s technical, organizational, operational—that 

causes commanders to be captured by their own internal dynamics or interactions, hence they cannot adapt to rapidly changing 

external, or as a matter of fact even internal circumstances. On 

the other hand, war is complicated. So you’re going to have, you’re 

going to tend to have complexity. How do you get around that? 
APPENDIX A

252

Because remember, you want to have the variety and rapidity, so 

how do you get around it? That’s what we’ve been talking about 

now, for two days. And this is the third day. 

How did I say get around that? Come on, you know the answer. You just won’t feed it to me. I told you about the fighter pilots 

doing all that. You take groups of people, have them work together, and throw them against a whole bunch of different situations. 

And pretty soon it becomes part of them. In other words, that’s 

the fingerspitzengefühl they build up. And with the fingerspitzengefühl, once you have that, in a sense then things don’t look so 

complicated. 

You know a basketball game, to the uninitiated, the way all 

that stuff happens it looks complicated, but the guys in there, 

Christ, they’re blowing everything. Do you understand what I’m 

saying? Same thing. And it can be done. We know it can be done, 

the Germans did it with some of their commanders and troops. 

Audience: I think a real good example of that is, that everybody 

here is familiar with, is Pegasus Bridge, where [British 6th Airborne Division’s Major John] Howard went in and they practiced 

over and over and over again every night, night after night after 

night. Attacking this [Caen Canal] bridge and knocking out the 

Germans that were there, and so they could almost do it in their 

sleep. And when they actually— 

Boyd: They didn’t even have to think about it. 

Audience: That’s right. 

Boyd: Because it was in their subconscious. 

Audience: It was a piece of cake, once they— They just knew 

what to do. 

Boyd: No matter how the other guy adjusted, they were on top of 

it; they just keep getting on top of it. You’ve experienced that, do you 

ever notice when you’re— Some days when you’re in some kind of 
“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

253

a sport, with a lot of complicated, and all of a sudden, everything 

seems to jell, no matter— In fact, you ever notice when you’re 

good at something, everything else seems like it’s in slow motion. 

Did you ever get that feeling? I used to get it when I fly the 

fighter, everything was really good, everything else just seemed very 

slow to me, and you’re just carving that son of a b——h up, going 

after the other guy, whipsawing in here, and I’ve heard ground 

troops say the same thing. It’s just that, Guderian said that, get that 

feel, that fingerspitzengefühl, and you’ve got everything, you just 

know it, and you’re adjusted. [German General Hermann] Balck, 

same way, he kept saying you gotta have that fingerspitzengefühl, 

all the time.10

And that’s what we’re talking about here. In a strategic sense, 

these interactions suggest we need a variety of possibilities, so the 

other guy can’t get wise, rapidly implement, and why? Ability to 

have these and generate many different possibilities, and permits 

one to repeatedly generate those mismatches. You want to get mismatch on top of mismatch on top of mismatch. In other words, 

you really want to screw up his image of the world. Or give him 

multiple images of the world. Because what does that do? Doubt, 

uncertainty, paralyzes his counteractions, etcetera. And if you 

don’t have a variety of possibilities, you give him the opportunity 

to read into what you’re doing, which means then you’re not going 

to do too good, in fact, you’re going to get your head handed to 

you. So that’s why you’ve got to have variety, rapidity, harmony, 

initiative, you see what I’m saying? All plays together. 

Audience: Sir, you said one thing, you have to have the feel all 

the time. 

10 Balck was a highly decorated German officer who commanded multiple panzer forces on both the western and eastern fronts during World War II. He was 

one of several former German officers with whom Boyd talked while he was 

assigned to the Pentagon during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Boyd frequently 

references the book Panzer Battles, which recounts several armored engagements 

in which Balck fought. See MajGen Friedrich W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, 

1939–1945: A Study of the Employment of Armour in the Second World War, trans. H. 

Betzler, ed. L. C. F. Turner (New York: Ballantine Books, 1956).
APPENDIX A

254

Boyd: Well, sometimes you may be surprised. 

Audience: If you lose it, hopefully you— 

Boyd: But you want to get it back. 

Audience: Come back, yes, sir. 

Boyd: And there’s another thing I hate, and we talked about it 

in the car today coming back. I’ve heard people say I’ll never be 

surprised. I just start laughing, that’s horse sh——t. Because now 

they have a perfect image of the world, and never going to be 

surprised. You’re going to get surprised, you’d like to minimize it. 

What you want to do is set yourself up so when you’re surprised, 

you can adjust to it, and get back on top. You’re going to get surprised, you can’t say you’re not going to be. That’s a horse sh——t 

argument. The question is, can you cope with it? And if you’ve 

learned how to do all these different things, you start gathering 

yourself together to try to get back and you may have some problems. But you gather yourself together and get back on top of it. 

Audience: I guess your example you use about the basketball 

team, you have to fight to say time out, time out. 

Boyd: Yeah. 

Audience: Be patient enough to work through it. 

Boyd: That’s right. 

Audience: It’s hard too. 

Boyd: But I heard guys say, you know, I’ve heard it, I say get the 

hell out of here, that’s bulls——t. [30:00] In other words, you’re 

God, you’re a perfect human being. That’s baloney. Have you ever 

heard guys say that they’re not going to get surprised, they’re going to set themselves up so they are never going to be surprised, 
“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

255

SLIDE 177

Wrap-Up

• Alternatively--by stripping away and recombining some of the comments associated 

with "Clausewitz," "Grand Tactics," "Message," "Game," "How," and “Implications"--we can say:

- Variety/rapidity allow one to: 

• Magnify adversary friction hence stretch out his time to respond in a 

directed way. 

- Harmony/initiative permit one to: 

• Diminish own friction hence compress own time to exploit variety/rapidity 

in a directed way. 

- Altogether variety/rapidity/harmony/initiative enable one to: 

• Operate inside adversary's observation-orientation-decision-action loops to 

enmesh adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, 

disorder, fear, panic, chaos . . . and/or fold adversary back inside 

himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold. 

• Simultaneously--by repeatedly rolling through 0-0-D-A loops while appealing to 

and making use of the ideas embodied in "Grand Strategy" and "Theme for Vitality 

and Growth"--we can:

- Evolve and exploit insight/initiative/adaptability/harmony as basis to: 

• Shape or influence events so that we not only amplify our spirit and 

strength (while isolating our adversaries and undermining their resolve and 

drive) but also influence the uncommitted or potential adversaries so that 

they are drawn toward our philosophy and are empathetic toward our success. 

huh? I know some of you have heard it. I can’t believe you haven’t. 

I’ve heard people say it and I just laugh. Now if you want to say 

we want to set ourselves up so we’re not surprised all the time, you 

want to diminish the possibility of it, that’s a different thing. But 

nevertheless, you’ve got to be expecting, when you get a surprise 

you’re going to get on top of it. 

Okay, so now let’s look at all these things— Look at all these 

things we’ve been talking about, Clausewitz, grand tactics, strategy, and that; remember variety and rapidity, what does that allow 

you to do? Variety and rapidity, in other words, we’re throwing 

variety and rapidity at our adversary. It allows you to magnify adversary friction, stretch out his time to respond in directed ways. It 

will take him longer to cope. 

Harmony and initiative, what that permits you to do is diminish [your] own friction, compress [your] own time and exploit that 

variety and rapidity, because you’re trying to build up this fingerspitzengefühl to a higher-level harmony, so you can exploit that 

relative [to] your adversary. 

So if you glue all that together—variety, rapidity, harmony, 

and initiative together—it allows you to get inside his OODA 
APPENDIX A

256

loop. Put uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, and all that stuff 

we’ve been talking about into his system, or fold himself back inside himself, so he can’t cope with events as they start rolling over 

him, and just start scarfing him up. 

And simultaneously, by looking through these things, evolve 

and exploit insight, initiative, adaptability as the basis to shape 

or influence events, etcetera. In other words, we’re looking at it 

from a destructive viewpoint up here, and a constructive viewpoint 

down here primarily. 

You see the two different themes? There’s constructive themes 

and there’s destructive themes. Sometimes you have to use destructive themes, or you have to use destructive themes in conjunction with constructive themes. Not just “we’re going to bomb 

the bastards back to the Stone Ages.” Because then they get mad 

and they fight longer and harder. Okay? [32:14]

EPILOGUE ON PRINCIPLES OF WAR

Tape 5, Side 2

[33:00] Okay, now let’s go on my epilogue. 

Remember what I told you, after I’ve gone through this, and 

thought about all of this, then mentally, not that I wanted to, I sort 

of started juxtaposing these things as the principles of war, the 

stuff we’ve been uncovering. And I was a little bit disturbed. So, it 

left me a little bit unsettled so I want to take them head-on. So let’s 

illustrate it by looking at some principles of war. 

And these aren’t always the same, these all weren’t drawn up 

at the same time. They were drawn up at different times, but you’ll 

see in a minute, it feeds my argument.

For USA, you’ve seen these, United Kingdom, in fact ours 

are very similar to the United Kingdom, because actually we got 

them from J. F. C. Fuller and we’ve modified it a little bit, but ba-
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257

SLIDE 181

SLIDE 180

Comment

• Reflection upon the previous discussion and reflection upon the various principles of war that are bandied about leave one unsettled about the real value 

associated with these principles.

• To illustrate, let's take a look at some of the principles of war (or military 

art).

Principles of War

United States

• Objective

• Offensive

• Mass

• Economy of forces

• Maneuver

• Unity of command

• Security

• Surprise

• Simplicity

United Kingdom

• Aim/goal

• Coordination

• Offensive

• Freedom of action

• Concentration 

• Economy of 

efforts

• Surprise

• Security

• Morale 

• Control of rear

Soviet Union

• Mobility/tempo

• Concentration

• Surprise

• Combat activeness

• Preservation of 

combat effectiveness

• Conformity of 

goal/plan to 

actual situation

• Coordination/interworking

France

• Concentration of 

efforts

• Freedom of action

• Economy of forces

sically are about the same.11 And the Soviet Union— But notice 

the Soviet Union, where we don’t have anything about speed or 

tempo, their first one is mobility and tempo. Where the hell did 

they get that? Because they got their head handed to them by the 

first part of the blitzkrieg, they didn’t have it before World War II. 

Audience: Didn’t Fuller, after he wrote the “Principles of War,” 

shortly afterward says all this is a bunch of— 

Boyd: Yeah, after he put it together, he said, when he saw people 

11 MajGen John Frederick Charles Fuller was a British Army officer and voluminous writer of military history and theory. He planned major tank operations for 

the Allied armies against Germany in the last two years of World War I, and this 

experience led him to devise more advanced theories on armored warfare which, 

ironically, were extensively studied by German officers between the world wars 

and became part of the basis for the Nazi blitzkrieg of World War II. Fuller’s list 

of “principles of war” was first published in The Foundations of the Science of War 

(London: Hutchinson, 1926).
APPENDIX A

258

were using it, he says toss it out, it’s bulls——t. And then guess 

what we did, we went for it even harder. That’s exactly right, that’s 

exactly what Fuller did. I’m glad you mentioned that. 

Wyly: In fact, J. F. C. Fuller waited years before he said toss it 

out, it’s bulls——t. He kept changing them, and I think it was in 

1925, we looked at them, and adopted them, and they’ve stayed 

in concrete ever since. So then he changed them for several years, 

and then finally, threw them all out. 

Boyd: Yeah. 

Wyly: And the American ones and the British ones initially looked 

exactly the same— 

Boyd: I think they were exactly the same. 

Wyly: In fact, ours lasted longer; we kept his old ones longer than 

the British, the British list in 1925 would have been just like our 

list. 

Boyd: Yeah. 

Wyly: And ours stayed in concrete the longest. 

Boyd: Now these were drawn up in the Soviet Union right after World War II. And any— How many— Some of you people 

might have read some of those— Used to have translated documents, The Operational Art, [35:00] they’ve got them listed in there, 

you know, the book by Savkin.12 Are you familiar with the book 

I’m talking about by Savkin? And that’s where they’re laid, you 

can just look and you can see them all. And he has long goddamn 

dialectic conversations on them, most of it’s horse sh——t, but 

you know, if they don’t get— I think it’s about if they don’t have 

12 V. Ye. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics (A Soviet View) (Moscow: USSR Ministry of Defense, 1972). 
“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

259

one-third of their document full of dialectical materialism, they 

won’t publish the thing.

And so you’ve got to work your way through all that baloney. 

It’s terrible stuff to read. You know, every time I read that stuff, I 

got to sit there every five minutes and say, “hang in there, Boyd, 

it’s going to [get] better,” knowing it’s not. [audience laughter] 

Knowing that it’s not, it’s terrible. Drink a lot of coffee, [and say 

to yourself,] “Come on, tiger, it’s going to get better.” I’m giving 

myself a pep talk, knowing that it’s never going to get any better. I 

got to deceive myself. And then France, you’ll see this, concentration of efforts, freedom of action, and economy of forces. In fact, 

they had different ones in their country. They argue about the, you 

know, the typical French, you know, different factions are going to 

have different principles of war. 

And then, of course, the Germans—they might have them 

now—they didn’t even have any. Well, isn’t that interesting? They 

didn’t even have principles. I don’t know whether they do— Do 

they have them now, I don’t even know? 

Wyly: Not that I know of. 

Boyd: They might, I figured after they might have learned from 

us, but they don’t even have principles. So the question is, you 

know, will the real principle stand up? Who’s right or who’s wrong, 

or what are we talking about here? And here’s my critique. 

Second bullet is the important bullet. In other words, you 

know, Newton’s second law of motion is not different for different 

countries, it either fits or the goddamn thing doesn’t fit. 

My point is, instead they seem to me to be some kind of a 

goddamn laundry list or checklist you’re going through. I don’t 

know what the hell else you’d use them for. To put it mildly, I’m 

very turned off. Not only that, they’ve got them mixed up. Let me 

go back to the list again. [flips back to slide 181] Christ, they’ve got 

input mixed up with output and all that. You look at it, they’ve got 

it all— This is us, this is us, or we’ll take this one, we get objective, 

offensive, mass, maneuver, security, surprise. That’s output. Some 

of them are your input, then they got output— They can’t even 
APPENDIX A

260

separate the input from the output. Surprise is what you’re getting 

the other guy, concentration is what you do. Same with Soviet 

Union—mobility, tempo, and surprise, output. I mean that’s what 

you’re trying to get out of your adversary. Mobility, that’s you. 

So the whole thing is all gomered up. That’s my point. You see 

what I’m getting at? What do you do and what are you trying to 

get out the other guy? So it’s— Let’s put it this way. It’s not too well 

thought out. Not very well thought out. 

In any case, maybe there’s an alternative possibility, way to 

think about this stuff. Not only that, I wouldn’t get too keen on 

some of these scientific principles, because they’re blowing a lot 

of them over right now. They’ve got stuff you know, the super— 

Superconductors, you know. They had theories to explain that, 

and now they don’t explain it. They get turned over too, not as frequently, but they get turned over. Or maybe not the whole thing, 

but certain aspects of it. 

But here’s an alternative, maybe we can come up with someSLIDE 183

SLIDE 182

Critique

• A list of principles does not reveal how individual principles interact or the 

mechanism for doing so.

• Scientific laws and principles are the same for all countries and tend to change 

little over time. On the other hand, we note that the principles of war are 

different for different countries and change more dramatically over time. 

Furthermore, they do not make evident the importance of variety/rapidity/

harmony/initiative as basis to shape and adapt to circumstances--a necessary 

requirement for success in the uncertain and everchanging environment of conflict 

or war.

• This would suggest that the principles are not principles. Instead, they seem to 

be some kind of a (shifting) static check off laundry list of what should be 

adhered to.

Alternative Possibility

• With this critique in mind, if we still feel we need some guidance, why not 

evolve statements that reflect the essence of conflict dynamics in a connected 

sense

or put another way 

• Why not collect appropriate bits and pieces and assemble them in a coherent way 

to present a more satisfying picture. 
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261

SLIDE 184

Appropriate Bits and Pieces

• Compress own time and stretch out adversary time. 

• Generate unequal distributions as basis to focus moral-mental-physical effort for 

local superiority and decisive leverage.

• Diminish own friction (or entropy) and magnify adversary friction (or entropy).

• Operate inside adversary's observation-orientation-decision-action loops or get 

inside his mind-time-space.

• Penetrate adversary organism and bring about his collapse.

• Amplify our spirit and strength, drain away adversaries’, and attract the 

uncommitted.

thing that might help us. In other words, putting a— Why not 

do this? If we need some guidance, then we evolve statements to 

reflect at least the conflict dynamics and some kind of a connected 

sense, where it plays together. 

Or put it another way, why not collect appropriate bits and 

pieces and put them together in a coherent whole? In other words, 

let’s do an analysis and a synthesis and see what we’ve got. There’s 

a way of doing it, we’ve already done it, we’ve just got to look at it. 

So I’ll do it in a simplistic fashion. You want to keep things 

simple. First of all, I think we want to compress our time and 

stretch out adversary time. Or do you want to do it the other way? 

Do you want to stretch out your time and compress his? You’re 

going to get taken to the cleaners if that’s the case. 

You want to generate unequal distributions as [a] basis to gain 

superiority and leverage against him. We just see that piling up all 

the time. You want to diminish your own friction, or if you want to 

think like a modern, twentieth-century guy, diminish your entropy 

while pumping his up, his friction or entropy. In fact, that goes 

right along, friction and time. You pump up your friction, you’re 

going to stretch out his time. If you diminish your friction, you 

diminish your time for doing things, see what I’m saying? They 

go together. 

So the more I can put friction in the other guy’s system, the 

longer it is going to take to get his act together to do something. 

You’re going to give him more and more delays, whether it be 

mental, whether it be moral, whether it be physical, or combinations thereof. And as a result of doing all these things then, that 
APPENDIX A

262

permits you to get inside his OODA loop. If you don’t do this, 

you’re not going to get inside his. Or get inside his mind-timespace. 

[40:00] All this together then allows you to penetrate his organism and pull him down and bring about his collapse. And 

that’s the destructive side. The same time, you want to amplify our 

spirit and strength, drain away his, and attract the uncommitted. 

[40:09]
263

APPENDIX B

Seminal Articles 

on Maneuver Warfare 

in the Marine Corps Gazette

The following article excerpts are reproduced here with the permission of the 

Marine Corps Gazette, for which the author is grateful. The excerpts have 

been reproduced here as originally printed, though revised to conform with style 

standards for grammar, spelling, and punctuation consistent with the rest of 

this work.

First Lieutenant Stephen W. Miller, “Camouflage and 

Deception,” Marine Corps Gazette 59, no. 12 (December 

1975): 25–29.

Camouflage and deception have been, throughout history, a 

means for the out-manned but shrewd commander to gain a more 

equal balance of combat powers. They are a haven to any force 

faced with massed firepower, a seemingly unalterable threat to survival. The use of camouflage must extend beyond the front lines, 

deep into the rear areas, and hinder the enemy’s ability to gather 

intelligence “indicators” that will point to our course of action.

Today, countries facing manpower and economic limitations 

are turning to smaller, more sophisticated armed forces to accomplish the same mission. Yet this streamlining and large-scale 

technological sophistication has made each man and piece of 
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equipment that much more vital to the total effort. They are fewer and more expensive. Similarly, weapons systems have grown 

more efficient. However, no delivery means can be any more effective than its compatible surveillance and target acquisition effort. 

Without a target, the most devastating and accurate weapon is 

worthless. Today, we face a surveillance threat which goes beyond 

the traditional visual, photo, and infrared means. It also encompasses radar, thermal detection, microwave, and ultraviolet photography, which can be air, ground, or satellite based. With the 

advent of laser and TV-guided projectiles, wire-guided missiles, 

radar bombing, and advanced day and night sighting systems, target acquisition has been developed to the point that anything seen 

and recognized can be destroyed.

Yet, all this sophisticated surveillance has one common denominator. It relies on the human eye, either directly in application by 

an observer or gunner, or indirectly as by a photo interpretor [sic]. 

Thus, the effect of camouflage is to be inconspicuous rather than 

invisible. Camouflage must resemble its surroundings and most 

of all not appear to be that which it is. Even if discovered, one 

must still present the most difficult identification problem possible 

and foil reacquisition. A pilot who [cannot] find specific targets, 

even knowing their general location, cannot be effective. It is that 

confusion and hesitation that should be fostered in a camouflage 

effort. Time is [of] the essence. Time to react, to gain surprise, to 

enhance our own survivability, and [to] increase the effectiveness 

of the combat power presented to the enemy.

. . . 

An enemy who does not know the dispositions or intentions 

of his opponent is greatly disadvantaged. He must spread his efforts or choose one course of action without sufficient supporting 

intelligence.

It is our option to choose where, how, and when we will act. 

To mass our forces against his weakest point and, with speed and 

surprise, smash the force opposing us before they can react. Thus, 

through camouflage and deception, we can take the advantage. 

Though disadvantaged in numbers and faced by sophisticated 

weapons systems, it is still possible to negate their effectiveness, 
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minimize our losses, and increase our decisive combat power to 

win.

Captain Stephen W. Miller, “Winning through Maneuver: Part I—Countering the Offense,” Marine Corps Gazette 63, no. 10 (October 1979): 28–36.

Throughout history commanders have won battles with limited 

resources by out-maneuvering the enemy on his own battlefield.

Since the beginning of recorded history, wars have been 

waged by armies with commanders of various caliber. Some commanded well and were successful. Others did not and were defeated. All of the most successful commanders revered today for 

their skill, knowledge, and abilities had one common trait. They 

demonstrated an intuition into their enemies’ actions. Yet often it 

was not intuition at all but rather the culmination of long hours 

of meticulous study of their adversaries’ tactics, organization, 

and weapons, which allowed these successful leaders to establish 

their enemies’ weaknesses and strengths. Using this insight, they 

modeled their own armies and their tactics and organizations to 

capitalize on their enemies’ disabilities while accentuating their 

own strengths.

Impressively, these commanders won their battles, though 

outnumbered, in hostile countries with all factors seeming to predict against success. Through the use of maneuver, Alexander 

the Great, Julius Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, the Duke of Marlborourgh, Fredrick the Great, and [Nathan] Bedford Forrest committed their strengths against their more numerous opponents’ 

weaknesses and thereby achieved victory. They disrupted their 

enemies’ states of balance, using surprise and the unexpected. 

Each fostered confusion, disorder, and uncertainty on his enemy. 

Thus, these commanders gained a moral ascendancy over the opposing commanders and their armies and with it achieved decisive 

victory.

. . .

How then will the Soviets react to an amphibious assault? 

Their current doctrine relies heavily upon the mobility, firepower, 

and speed of armored and motorized rifle (mechanized) battalion- 
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and regimental-size groups to close rapidly with and overrun invading forces before they can establish themselves ashore. Should 

this prove unsuccessful, a Soviet-style force will attempt to pen [sic] 

the invasion force into its beachhead, containing and isolating it 

by using high volumes of fire until it is weakened and ripe for 

an armored coup de grace. Considering the quantity of indirect fire 

weapons and attack aircraft; the effectiveness, range, and numbers of air defense weapons; and the threat of sea- and land-based 

antiship cruise missiles which such an enemy can bring to bear on 

amphibious shipping, a beachhead-confined landing force would 

find itself progressively restricted. As the enemy builds up his combat assets, they will infringe increasingly upon the landing force’s 

airspace, helicopter approach routes, amphibious transport area, 

and transfer area offshore. This stranglehold will cause increasing 

difficulty for air and naval supporting forces. As it loses its freedom 

of action, the landing force will evolve rapidly from an asset into 

a liability. Pinned into its beachhead, the landing will resemble 

the hollow investment of a Gallipoli or Anzio, which consumes 

resources on a geometric scale just to maintain a status quo.

The Soviets’ initial actions will be an effort to liquidate the 

landing force. It will initially develop as a meeting engagement 

characterized by rapidly moving forces, indefinite intelligence, and 

successive hasty attacks by enemy forces of increasing size. Should 

these attacks fail to penetrate the landing force combat elements, 

the enemy force may revert to a defensive posture designed to hold 

the invasion force in place while larger additional units move into 

position for a renewed, more deliberate assault.

The landing force cannot permit this massing, giving the enemy time to organize a deliberate attack. From the time it hits the 

beach, the landing force must maintain mobility and react with 

speed and superior firepower on the enemy’s most vulnerable 

points. The execution of an assault from the sea provides the Marine commander with the initiative. His every subsequent effort 

must ensure he maintains that initiative. To lose it, faced by the enemy’s high mobility and massed firepower, will predicate disaster.

. . .

The massive destruction of men and materiel or the holding 
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of ground is not the objective, nor are they required. Neither can 

ensure victory at acceptable cost. In fact, an obsession with either 

will destine failure. The main effort must focus on the enemy’s 

greatest weakness. The goal of the landing force is to sow confusion and disorder. Uncertainty and fear must be fostered among 

the enemy commanders and troops. The highest priority must be 

given to the destruction of command facilities, supporting arms 

and combat trains.

. . .

Through the high tempo of operations, constant shifting of 

forces and fluid, flexible action by ground and air elements working in close harmony, the Soviet-style enemy will rapidly lose control, cohesion, and momentum. With a loss of higher direction 

and a seemingly unpredictable foe able to undermine any action, 

disorder and paralysis occurs, leading to panic and a collapse of 

the Soviet opponent’s capacity and will to resist. The friendly force 

must emphasize superior speed, mobility, and tactical unity. The 

commander must acquire reliable and continuous intelligence 

while denying the same to his enemy. He must have superior mobile communications and units, which are logistically independent 

in the short term, to provide resupply flexibility, with only essential 

logistics located forward.

Captain Stephen W. Miller, “Winning through Maneuver: Conclusion—Countering the Defense,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 63, no. 12 (December 1979): 57–63.

. . . 

The use by the landing force of firepower and direct force alone to 

achieve a decision could lead to an attrition conflict, where success 

favors the Soviet defender. To win, the landing force must employ 

maneuver and mobility. Firepower must be used only after the way 

has been prepared psychologically and then only as a means to 

reinstate maneuver. A preceptive deception program, combined 

with selective counterreconnaissance and command center neutralization, supplies a distinct advantage in shaping the enemy’s 

image of the impending assault. Here again, tactical surprise is the 

object, furnishing the assault with a decisive advantage by keeping 
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the opponent off balance and retarded in reaction. Deceived as to 

the true point of impact, the Soviet defensive forces will be misplaced and unable to counter the assault effectively.

. . .

The origin of maneuver doctrine is not recent. It was the basis for the successes of both Alexander [the Great] and Genghis 

Khan. It was first described in the writings of the eighteenth-century author/generals [Maurice] Saxe, [Pierre-Joseph] Bourcet, 

and [Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de] Guibert. It has been 

expounded since by military writers such as J. F. C. Fuller, Heinz 

Guderian, and more recently in the unpublished works of Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret), father of the energy management 

approach to air combat tactics (who placed it into the analytical 

model popular today). Its theory is equally applicable to regular 

or guerrilla warfare, to tactics or to strategy and to air-to-air or 

ground conflict. As yet, it has not been applied to the amphibious 

assault, however, the circumstances now exist which necessitate 

this application. Outnumbered on most potential fronts, opposed 

by an increasingly sophisticated world arsenal and faced by the 

escalating costs of equipment and weaponry, an appreciation of 

the potential of maneuver warfare by amphibious forces is vital. 

This comprehension wedded with the ground mobility offered by 

today’s technology supplies the capacity to bring maneuver to its 

highest progression and effect. Maneuver doctrine can propel the 

Marine Corps into the twenty-first century where it will again, 

as in World War II, provide the leadership to this revolution in 

warfare.

William S. Lind, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the 

Marine Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette 64, no. 3 (March 

1980): 55–58.

. . . 

Maneuver warfare refers to an overall concept or “style” of warfare. It has an opposite, the firepower-attrition style.

Firepower-attrition is warfare [based] on the model of Verdun in World War I, a mutual casualty inflicting and absorbing 

contest where the goal is a favorable exchange rate. The conflict 
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is more physical than mental. Efforts focus on the tactical level 

with goals set in terms of terrain. Defenses tend to be linear (“forward defense”), attacks frontal, battles set piece, and movement 

preplanned and slow.

In contrast, maneuver war is warfare on the model of Genghis 

Khan, the German blitzkrieg, and almost all Israeli campaigns. 

The goal is destruction of the enemy’s vital cohesion—disruption—not piece-by-piece physical destruction. The objective is the 

enemy’s mind, not his body. The principal tool is moving forces 

into unexpected places at surprisingly high speeds. Firepower is a 

servant of maneuver, used to create openings in enemy defenses 

and, when necessary, to annihilate the remnants of his forces after 

their cohesion has been shattered.

Maneuver conflict is more psychological than physical. Effort 

focuses more on the operational than on the tactical level. The 

goal is set in terms of destroying the enemy’s forces, not seizing 

terrain seen a priori as “key.” A defender places only a “tripwire” 

forward and relies on counterattacks into the flanks and rear of 

enemy penetrations. “One up and two back” is the rule. Attacks 

ooze through and around enemy defenses. Battles are usually 

meeting engagements. Rates of advance are high. Movement is 

constant, irregular in direction and timing, and responsive to fleeting opportunities.

A key to understanding maneuver war is to realize that not all 

movement is maneuver. Maneuver is relational movement. Maneuver is not a matter simply of moving or even of moving rapidly. 

Maneuver means moving and acting consistently more rapidly than 

the opponent.

Recently, the concepts behind maneuver war have been organized and expanded into an overall theory of conflict. This theory 

was developed by Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret) and is appropriately known as the “Boyd Theory.”

Colonel Boyd was the father of energy management air combat tactics. More recently he has devoted himself to studying the 

nature of conflict in general. He observed that in any conflict 

situation all parties go through repeated cycles of observationdecision-action. The potentially victorious party is the one with 
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an observation-decision-action cycle consistently quicker than his 

opponent’s (including the time required to transition from one cycle to another). As this party repeatedly cycles inside his opponent, 

the opponent finds he is losing control of the situation. Because 

of his longer cycle time, his reaction is facing a later action by the 

faster party than that which it was intended to oppose. Instead of 

achieving convergence with the first party’s action, he finds himself facing ever-widening divergence. Suddenly, he realizes there 

is nothing he can do to control the situation or turn it to his advantage. At that point, he has lost. Often he suffers mental breakdown in the form of panic and is defeated before he is destroyed 

physically.

The Boyd Theory is the theory of maneuver warfare. In maneuver war, if the enemy is destroyed physically (and often that is 

not necessary), that is not the decision but merely the outcome. 

The real defeat is the nervous/mental/systemic breakdown caused 

when he becomes aware the situation is beyond his control, which 

is in turn a product of our ability consistently to cut inside the time 

of his observation-decision-action cycle.

. . . 

How does the Boyd Theory and its application to ground warfare, maneuver war, relate to the Marine Corps? It is relevant, 

because maneuver war is the most promising tool for the side with 

fewer numbers and less weight of metal. In many scenarios, Marines are likely to be outnumbered in men and materiel. An attrition contest is not promising for the outnumbered force, while 

maneuver makes quantitative factors less important by striking at 

the enemy’s mind.

. . .

Maneuver war relates directly to the probable main mission 

of the Corps during the remainder of this century, supporting the 

United States’ friends in the Third World. 

. . . 

In many potential Third World scenarios, the Marine Corps 

faces an opponent superior in numbers and in materiel—possibly 

quality as well as quantity of materiel. 

. . . 
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Indeed, the force multiplier effect of maneuver warfare should 

be more striking against a Third World opponent. While Third 

World armies may be large, well-equipped, and competent at operating their weapons systems, they are likely to be tactically and 

operationally inflexible. Third World nations can produce some 

highly competent officers and planners, as the Egyptians demonstrated in the canal crossing in 1973. But they are not likely to have 

many such officers, and flexibility may be lacking in field forces. 

The impact of maneuver warfare, with its emphasis on speed, surprise, and the creation of unexpected situations, could be devastating. Such has been Israel’s experience in several wars with her 

Third World neighbors. However good the prewar planning and 

set-piece operations of the Arabs, the Israeli maneuver style of 

warfare triumphed dramatically once the situation became fluid. 

The reason was not that Israeli equipment was better or that Israeli troops were more courageous, but that Israeli field forces showed 

great flexibility. Their opponents did not.

It is sometimes mistakenly thought that maneuver warfare 

automatically means armored warfare. To be sure, foot infantry 

cannot fight effective maneuver war in open terrain. But in rugged terrain, maneuver concepts apply fully to infantry warfare. 

Indeed, maneuver war was first manifested in the West in this century during World War I by German foot infantry in so-called 

infiltration “von Hutier” or “soft-spot” tactics.

. . .

A shift to maneuver warfare offers a major challenge to Marines. But it is an exciting challenge, especially for company and 

field grade officers. In maneuver warfare, the responsibility placed 

on company and field grades increases dramatically. The key to 

maintaining a rapid observation-decision-action is to make all 

decisions on the lowest possible level, the company and battalion 

level. This is one of the fundamental principles of the German 

army and is central to their concept of mission orders tactics (Auftragstaktik). Mission orders tactics require company and field grade 

officers to understand the concepts of maneuver war and of the 

operation in which they are engaged. Only through a solid con-
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ceptual understanding can they hope to make the right decisions 

on their own as events occur in the field.

There is no question Marines can meet the challenge. By 

adopting a maneuver concept of war, they can give the United 

States the capability it needs to defend its vital interests outside 

Europe. And by performing that task, the Marine Corps can assure itself a solid mission of unquestionable value.

Captain G. I. Wilson, Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Wyly, 

William S. Lind, and Major General Bernard E. Trainor, 

“The ‘Maneuver Warfare’ Concept,” Marine Corps Gazette 65, no. 4 (April 1981): 49–54.

By Captain G. I. Wilson:

. . .

What does maneuver warfare mean to the Corps? What does the 

maneuver style of war hold in store for Marines? These questions 

were best addressed by William Lind in his Gazette (March 1980) 

feature, “Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps.” 

Lind’s presentation should be read, reread, and weighed carefully 

by all Marines both Regulars and Reserves, for the concept of 

maneuver warfare may be the very essence of the Corps’ future. 

The firepower-attrition approach with its “artillery conquers and 

infantry occupies” thinking cannot be employed effectively in scenarios where the enemy has numerical and materiel superiority. 

What, then, is this “maneuver warfare” concept that offers the 

most viable alternative to firepower-attrition concepts?

The key element of maneuver warfare is the disruption and 

disorganization of the enemy rather than a fixation with the killthis-and-kill-that syndrome. The maneuver style of war is more 

psychological in its destruction of the enemy, whereas firepowerattrition war is more physical. With maneuver warfare, the precept 

is to create for the enemy as many unanticipated and threatening 

situations as possible, while at the same time seeking out tactical 

advantages on the battlefield. This seeking out of advantages will 

require the use of opportunity tactics coupled with bold aggressive action and individual initiative. Marines employing maneuver 

warfare concepts will have to possess the capability to go anywhere 
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on the battlefield they choose, creating a myriad of rapid, unexpected, and threatening events for the enemy as they go.

By creating a rapid sequence of unanticipated multiple events 

to which the enemy cannot react effectively or keep up with, the 

enemy’s cohesion is shattered. The enemy perceives he has lost 

control and becomes the victim of disruption, confusion, and disorganization. This rapid chain of unexpected events, which the 

enemy finds impossible to cope with effectively, is in concert with 

the “Boyd Theory” as described by Lind in his previously mentioned article.

In addition to creating this turbulent environment, which 

overloads the enemy’s “observation-decision-action cycle,” maneuver warfare requires that reserves be used to reinforce success 

and exploit opportunity tactics. To accomplish this, the combat 

commander (especially at the lower unit level) will need to have 

the ability to take well-calculated risks when the opportunity 

arises.

. . .

To be effective in combat, where a Marine unit will likely be 

pitted against an adversary with a preponderance of combat power, may require the adoption of the maneuver warfare concept. 

The characteristics of the battlefield of the future will include 

great speed and destruction; see-and-hit weapons of extreme accuracy; and lightweight, highly mobile weapon systems. Freedom 

of movement on the battlefield will be enhanced, and distances 

will become less important with advances in technology. To cope 

with the characteristics of future battlefields, it may be necessary 

to consider an alternative to the firepower-attrition style of warfare. The answer will be maneuver, for firepower-attrition will not 

measure up to the challenge.

Does the Corps lend itself to the maneuver warfare concept? 

Yes, it does, given its fairly small size, flexibility (land, sea, and air 

capabilities), and present technology favoring lightweight, highly 

mobile weapons.

. . .

Along with flexible command and logistics, the need to develop the Marine’s ability to perform independently on the spur of 
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the moment and use his individual initiative will be indispensable 

in the scheme of maneuver warfare. Combat commanders will 

have to use initiative, aggressively seize opportunities, and issue 

mission-type orders to subordinates to impose a turbulent environment on the enemy. Once the enemy perceives that he can no 

longer influence the action effectively, he is beaten. This is often 

more psychological than physical.

. . .

With the Corps deploying units to various parts of the world 

and the increased probability of Marines facing a numerically 

superior force, maneuver warfare may offer the only substantial 

hope of success in combat. It will be up to the individual Marine 

leader to act immediately upon receipt of mission-type orders. 

The concept of maneuver warfare is generally thought of in terms 

of armor and this can be misleading. Maneuver warfare can be 

applied to the infantry. Mechanization alone does not necessarily 

mean maneuver warfare.

. . .

Moreover, maneuver warfare can logically be applied to the 

Corps’ amphibious capability. There are Third World scenarios 

where an amphibious projection of combat power within a maneuver warfare concept would prove extremely valuable, even if 

only deterrent in nature. General Barrow in the Armed Forces Journal (November 1980) pointed out the following:

True usefulness of amphibious capability begins with the 

deterrent aspects, even from the day of loading out. Because there’s no accurate forecast of where you’re going 

and what you’re going to do, and there’s no dependence 

on bases and overflight rights that require your commitment to be one that you can’t call back. The deterrence 

aspects of being in a given region or nearby a scene of 

some crisis merits better understanding. A decision to 

conduct an amphibious operation is always done with a 

full understanding that you’re going to have air superiority, and that you’re going to land in a place and time 

of our choosing, not the enemy’s. You do not choose to 
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land where he’s strongest—you choose to land where he 

is weakest and where he’s less likely to reinforce quickly.

The Marine Corps must anticipate combat against forces 

steeped in Soviet doctrine, superior in numbers and materiel, and 

with logistical support near at hand. Even though outnumbered, 

Marines can with the maneuver warfare concept exploit the enemy’s vulnerabilities and win decisively. The time is now for actively 

accepting, teaching, and training for maneuver warfare. What is 

desperately needed is a doctrinal publication on maneuver warfare, a manual of maneuver war!

By Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Wyly:

. . .

We seem to be focusing on the wrong thing. The signal comes 

whenever I hear an officer saying, “our air strike will attrite their 

armor” or “our forces have been attrited.”

. . .

“Attriting the enemy” too often becomes the central activity 

toward which every effort is directed. Tactics are ineffectual when 

they focus on the wrong objective. After all, a force that is attrite 

but full of tenacity and wisely employed is more formidable than 

an opposing force, fresh, without attrition, but timid and unwisely 

employed against a poorly selected objective.

Attrition is not even relevant to winning or losing. It is but one 

of many factors that bear on the course of war. Our war games 

should focus on meaningful things, such as destruction, not attrition. 

We destroy the enemy when we destroy his will to resist. We will 

need much more than attrition to destroy his will, unless he is woefully short on resolve.

. . .

If we are amusing ourselves with bean counts of friendly and 

enemy casualties in our exercises, we are guilty of the same crime 

for which I blame commanders who ordered their troops to risk 

their lives counting dead enemy bodies in the Vietnam War. The 

name of the crime is waste. The count does not mean anything. 
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Where you strike the enemy does. By skillfully selecting objectives, 

you can throw him off balance so that he cannot pick himself back 

up. You can destroy him by attacking his command and control or 

his logistic lifeline. You cannot destroy him by attrition.

The key is concentrating on the right objective. When we attack our objective, we most certainly must inflict casualties ruthlessly. We may have to accept as many casualties as we inflict. 

What counts is that we destroy the enemy in the right place and 

control something that he cannot do without. Then, when he is off 

balance, we may exploit and pursue until he is defeated beyond 

recovery.

. . .

Let us consider history. The Soviet Union lost 8.6 percent of 

its population, killed, in World War II. Some 13 percent of its 

population had been mobilized and 34 percent of those mobilized 

were killed. The Soviet Union did not lose its will to resist. Germany did. Germany’s casualties were lighter, whether you measure 

percentage killed or raw numbers. Germany lost only 5 percent 

of its population, killed. Of the 14 percent that was mobilized, 

only 31 percent died. In raw numbers, 3,250,000 German soldiers 

were killed in action or died of wounds, compared to 7,500,000 

Russian soldiers, who met the same fate. No matter how you look 

at it, then, the Soviet Union, the winner, suffered more casualties 

than Germany, the loser. . . . Although Germany singlehandedly 

inflicted tremendous casualties on the Soviets, she failed to find 

and strike the decisive point. The Soviets’ will to win never faltered.

. . .

Did attrition defeat us in Vietnam? One thing is certain. Attrition did not defeat the North Vietnamese, who lost far more men 

that [sic] we did. Our Marines unquestionably had still the will to 

resist, right through the day of their departure. If attrition broke 

the American will at home, we ought to consider a bit of Napoleon’s philosophy. That is, never enter a war that you are unwilling to see through to its successful conclusion, even when winning 

means expenditure of resources.

. . .
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If indeed, then, we mean to place great emphasis on the body 

count or how the computer “attrites” our forces, we probably 

should not be tampering with a thing so demanding as war. If we 

have become preoccupied with thought of attrition, we would be 

better off drafting our surrender instead of preparing to fight. For 

if we do not win, and we will not without being strong in the face 

of losses, then attrition will amount only to waste.

I use the term, body count, because I hope that it emphasizes 

the folly of the attrition game. I do not, however, mean that the 

folly of the game stops at counting bodies. Counting dead tanks, 

downed aircraft, or damaged artillery is equally misleading. In the 

1973 War, Israelis repaired disabled Egyptian tanks and put them 

to use against their enemies. Likewise, German and British tanks 

changed hands between both sides in the North African desert in 

1942. Our country’s abortive raid in Iran in 1980 failed as a direct 

result of our preoccupation with numbers of men and machines. 

The victory goes to the side that has the resilience to replace and 

repair its losses, or do without. It goes to the side that can use the 

enemy’s equipment against him and that knows where to strike to 

destroy the enemy’s will.

Nothing that purports to measure success in combat . . . is 

worth its cost if it ignores the value of surprise, deception, attacking the flank as contrasted against the front, striking weak points 

compared to strong. One should look intently at the value of an 

attack on the enemy’s command and control with electronic warfare, and the effects on us if he attacks ours.

Do we need to count casualties to learn how to employ economy of force? Of course not. You apply economy of force by keeping your reserves out of the battle until the decisive moment.

Napoleon said to find a single point, the decisive point, concentrating our power there to create a situation where the “equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing.” Clausewitz said “in war, 

the aim is to disarm the enemy.” [General William T.] Sherman 

said to put the enemy “on the horns of a dilemma.” All three saw 

their principles applied against their enemies, whose forces crumbled. Let us use the war game and the computer, therefore, not to 

count casualties. Instead, let them help us to discover where the 
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decisive point is, what disarms our enemy when denied him, and 

what dilemma can put him on its horns.

As for attrite as a verb, let us not politely discourage its use. 

Pounce on it. Jump up and down on it. Forbid its mention. And, 

destroy it.

By William S. Lind:

Major General Trainor’s article, “New Thoughts on War,” [in the] 

December 1980 Gazette makes some good points. His warning 

against attrition warfare is particularly important, since many 

Marine officers seek guidance from Army FMs, which express 

a firepower-attrition doctrine. Some Marines may absorb a firepower-attrition mind-set from these FMs without realizing they 

are doing so.

However, a few questions do need to be raised about some of 

General Trainor’s views:

. . .

Maneuver. I must disagree with General Trainor when he 

defines maneuver as “physically disposing the enemy at a disadvantage to himself and an advantage to us.” This definition is too 

narrow, in that it fails to portray maneuver as a continuous, psychological as well as physical process. It is also unclear, in that it 

could be read to mean, “maneuver is getting the enemy in a position most advantageous to my firepower, and least advantageous 

to his.”

Maneuver is best understood as a continuous process of 

change in both reality and appearance whereby the enemy’s actions and counteractions are rendered irrelevant in time and place. 

Both General Trainor’s definition and the definition of maneuver 

as getting into good firing positions are valid subsets of maneuver 

warfare, but they cannot be seen as its entirety.

. . .

I must also disagree with General Trainor’s statement that, 

“battle itself must be sought, because war is a killing game . . . only 

physical punishment (will break the enemy’s will to resist).” This 

cannot be stated as a rule, because whether it is valid or not depends on the specific opponent. Some opponents will only break 
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after being punished physically, but for others, being outmaneuvered may suffice. . . . War is not a killing game, it is a game to 

defeat the enemy, which may or may not require much killing, 

depending on circumstances.

. . .

Finally, I suggest there is a danger in saying, “superiority in 

the six factors of modern warfare will lead to victory.” The only 

formula for victory is to recognize there are no formulas. Everything must be relational to the specific opponent in the specific 

time and place. We can develop understandings of what generally 

leads to success, but not formulas or check lists. We must see tactics as a process, combining learned techniques with an educated 

understanding of the art of war, all applied in a unique way to the 

unique circumstance that is each opponent, each battle. This is not

a prescription for a “gut reaction” approach to the battlefield, for 

a view that says, “since there are no formulas, each commander’s 

hunch is as valid as any other approach.” Rather, it is a call for education as opposed to rote training, for developing the “sense” for 

opportunities and enemy weaknesses so often shown by German 

commanders. Not every officer can do it. But as General Balck has 

remarked, “In the last analysis, military command is an art: one 

man can do it and most will never learn. After all, the world is not 

full of Raphaels either.”

By Major General B. E. Trainor:

True to form, Bill Lind has contributed to the dialogue on war in 

the modern world. I am grateful for Mr. Lind’s development of 

the thoughts expressed in my essay on the six factors of warfare. 

I view most of his comments as an extension of the essay rather 

than a contradiction. For example, there is nothing incompatible 

between “physically disposing the enemy at a disadvantage to 

himself and an advantage to us” and rendering the enemy’s actions and counteractions “irrelevant in time and place.”

. . .

As for my view that war is a “killing game,” I plead guilty 

to being a hostage of my Service. Marines never seem to fight 

enemies who capitulate when the rules of chess would so dictate. 
APPENDIX B

280

Until we do, I still think it is wiser for an enemy to know that we 

intend to kill him, not psych him.

“Extracts from OH 6-1: Fundamentals of Maneuver 

Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 72, no. 4 (April 1988): 50.

Focus on the enemy; not on terrain objectives.

Act more quickly than the enemy can react. Maneuver 

warfare is as much a mental approach to warfare as it is a physical 

one. The essence of maneuver warfare is to make and implement 

operational and tactical decisions more quickly than the enemy. 

However, this does not mean making rash decisions and executing 

incomplete plans. The commander who generates a faster operational tempo gains a significant advantage. He seizes the initiative 

and dictates the course of battle until the enemy is overcome by 

events and his cohesion and ability to influence the situation are 

destroyed. General A. A. Vandegrift wrote: “Positions are seldom 

lost because they have been destroyed, but almost invariably because the leader has decided in his own mind that the position 

cannot be held.” In order to facilitate the necessary operational 

tempo, the commander should decentralize tactical decision making, make effective use of mission-type orders, and make his intent 

clearly understood.

Support maneuver by fire. Firepower supports maneuver 

by suppressing and disrupting enemy forces, or physically destroying the remnants of enemy units whose cohesion has been destroyed.

. . .

Avoid enemy strength and attack enemy weakness.

The commander bypasses located enemy strength—sometimes 

described as surfaces—and exploits enemy weaknesses—also 

known as gaps—attacking aggressively at key locations where he 

can achieve local superiority. He seeks to attack at an unexpected 

time and place and from an unexpected direction. Enemy weaknesses may take the form of physical gaps between enemy units 

or may take the form of inferior mobility or firepower, inefficient 

command and control, lack of initiative or flexibility on the part 

of commanders, poor night-fighting capability, discernible tactical 
SEMINAL ARTICLES ON MANEUVER WARFARE

281

patterns, or any identified characteristic that can be tactically exploited. Attacks follow the course of least resistance into the enemy flanks and rear.

Exploit tactical opportunities developed or located by subordinate units. This technique, sometimes known 

as “reconnaissance pull,” is the means by which the commander 

attacks enemy weakness. In this manner, the course of battle is 

shaped by subordinate units. Higher commanders must maintain 

the flexibility and agility to react quickly and decisively to fleeting 

opportunities created by his subordinates. Operations should be 

fluid and continuous, each operation based on a previous success. 

Exploitation should be immediate and relentless, offering the enemy no respite until his total collapse is achieved.

Always designate a main effort. The main effort is the 

most important task to be accomplished, that task on which the 

overall success of the operation depends at that instant. The commander assigns the main effort to a subordinate unit, which he 

provides with the necessary combat power and support. Through 

the main effort, the commander provides focus to the decentralized efforts of his command. All elements of the command must 

understand and support the main effort. The decisions of where 

to locate his main effort and when and where to shift it are among 

the most important and most difficult decisions a commander 

must make in combat.

Avoid set rules and patterns. The enemy must not be 

allowed to anticipate tactical events or he will seize the initiative. 

Each combat situation is based on different circumstances and 

requires a unique approach. Leaders must take an imaginative, 

practical approach to solving tactical problems. They must not 

fight according to checklists.

Act boldly and decisively. Commanders at all levels must 

be able to deal with uncertainty and must act with audacity, initiative, and inventiveness within their commander’s intent to seize 

fleeting opportunities. When fighting a numerically superior enemy the commander must be willing to take prudent risks, especially when there is the opportunity for a significant gain.
282

APPENDIX C

Critiquing Boyd

While John Boyd has long been charged with never writing anything down, that is not entirely true. Certainly Boyd did not formally publish any of his work, but his pen was never idle. Among 

the things he wrote were responses to critiques of his various presentations, and one of the most insightful examples of these are 

the handwritten thoughts he wrote in the margins of an unpublished essay by Roger J. Spiller. 

Spiller, a longtime historian and instructor at the Army’s 

Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, wrote an 18-page review of the “Patterns of Conflict” brief, 

titled “Critique of John Boyd’s ‘Patterns of Conflict’,” which he 

sent to Boyd for his comment.1

 Comment Boyd did; and this appendix reproduces those excerpts of Spiller’s essay that Boyd believed demonstrated Spiller’s misunderstanding of “Patterns of 

Conflict.” These excerpts, and Boyd’s commentary, are included 

here to give the reader a flavor of Boyd’s personality, but also to 

show how Boyd revealed his own insights as he fought back against 

misperceptions regarding his ideas from an early date. While Spill1

 This paper is located in folder 9, box 5, Col John R. Boyd Papers, Archives 

Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.
CRITIQUING BOYD

283

er’s essay is undated, Spiller began working at the Command and 

General Staff College as an associate professor in 1978; Boyd’s 

planners show several visits to that college beginning in 1980; and 

in Boyd’s commentary, he refers to another critical essay written 

by Jay Luvaas in 1981. Thus, Spiller likely heard “Patterns of 

Conflict” and wrote his critique about the same time as Luvaas in 

1981, or shortly thereafter.

“PATTERNS OF CONFLICT” 

REVIEW EXCERPTS AND 

BOYD’S HAND-WRITTEN COMMENTARY

. . . 

Spiller: “The organization of this critique does not follow the 

organization of Boyd’s presentation, although within each major 

part I intend to preserve the evolution of Boyd’s lecture.”

Boyd commentary: “He does not, as will be shown.”

. . .

Spiller: “OODA is an acronym for Observation, Orientation, 

Decision and Action. The foundation of the OODA loop is to be 

found in the aerial combat of the Korean War between the MIG15 and the [North American] F-86 [Sabre].”

Boyd commentary: “No—OODA loop came from work and anomalies 

associated with evolution and flight tests of YF-16/17.”

. . .

Spiller: “The basic data that gave rise to the OODA loop hypothesis has never been openly challenged; however, there apparently is classified information that may call these conclusions to 

question. During our conversation, Boyd indicated that he was 

aware of this information, and he discounted the possibility of its 

adverse impact on his view.”

Boyd commentary: “Information I was referring to were the U[niversity] of Chicago[’s] work on Korean War.”

. . .

Spiller: “The provenance of Boyd’s theory is important. During 
APPENDIX C

284

a later part of his lecture, Boyd argues that one’s orientation preconditions one’s views. That point is very well taken, and could be 

applied to Boyd himself. I believe that Boyd’s early work in both 

the actual and theoretical aspects of aerial combat has preconditioned him to a particular view of warfare and thereby substantially colors his later work.”

Boyd commentary: “He cannot use this and his view is that it came 

from the F-86/MiG-15 rather than YF-16/17 tests.”2

. . .

Spiller: “The friction that so animates land combat reveals only a 

negligible presence in air-to-air combat. Aerial combat lends itself 

rather more easily to abstraction, if only because it is relatively 

simpler and so can be presented in a doctrinally ‘pure’ form. By 

contrast to land warfare, aerial war has something of the quality 

of a gentlemanly duel.”

Boyd commentary: “Air-to-air . . . warfare is a great deal more involved so he has missed this point.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd would argue that this interpretation places entirely too much weight upon his own history, that he has since risen 

above this pre-conditioning by virtue of his more recent studies. I 

would reply simply that it is in the nature of perspective that we 

are all too often led to views without realizing the impact upon us 

of such forces . . . the OODA loop is an interesting concept, arrestingly presented. That is why the OODA loop seems to permeate 

Boyd’s entire lecture.”

Boyd commentary: “He couldn’t know since Spiller is under the impression that the idea came from the F-86/MiG-15 days. Furthermore he is 

defending Luvaas’s incoherent diatribe.” 3

2

 For the purposes of this appendix, the emphasis seen in the original notes had 

been underlined by Boyd.

3

 Boyd is referring here to another unpublished essay critiquing “Patterns of 

Conflict,” written by Jay Luvaas, a professor of military history at West Point, in 

1981; this essay is cited in chapter 5.
CRITIQUING BOYD

285

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd has categorically rejected this criticism, arguing 

that the OODA Loop was merely a starting point, not meant to 

establish an overarching theme into which selected historical examples were made to fit. My opinion is that Boyd does not declare 

this important point with an emphasis sufficient to avoid misleading his audience.”

Boyd commentary: “Wass de Czege in comments at West Point about 

my work didn’t get hung up like Spiller did.”

. . .

Spiller: “But what separates Boyd definitively from both casual 

and professional students of history is his influence. Because he 

has influence, because he is listened to in important quarters, he 

thereby takes on the most serious obligation of the most serious 

historian—to be scrupulously accurate and complete and reasoned in his approaches, his research, and in the communication 

of his findings.”

Boyd commentary: “He is preoccupied with accuracy, yet he has built 

his argument on my uncovering the OODA via F-86/MiG-15.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd is the latest in a long line of military theorists 

(mostly in the modern period) who have employed military history 

in a search for the Rosetta Stone of battle.”

Boyd commentary: “Spiller you are using the Rosetta Stone, not me.”

. . .

Spiller: “As Bernard Brodie rightly points out in his last essay on 

Clausewitz, that theorist as well as Jomini had revived the ancient 

practice of arguing to the ideal. One need only isolate and then 

recombine the constituent elements of the idea.”

Boyd commentary: “What is my ideal?”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd takes what I regard to be an excessively flexible 

approach to historical fact and interpretation. He argues that his-
APPENDIX C

286

tory is by nature selective (his word). I argue that history is discriminating, and that this is not an irrelevant distinction.”

Boyd commentary: “If it is so discriminating, then how come you 

cannot get it right— ‘selective,’ his word not mine!”

. . .

Spiller: “Early in the presentation, Boyd offers the Mongol army’s operations under Ghengis Khan as a demonstration of the 

theories of Sun Tzu.”

Boyd commentary: “Distortion.”

. . .

Spiller: “This is the picture . . . that can be found in the work 

of Harold Lamb and Lynn Montross. But it is an oversimplified 

picture of this army and its accomplishments.” 

Boyd commentary: “I was more impressed with the title ‘Devil’s 

Horsemen’—my spelling would indicate that.”4

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd uses for effect the word ‘horde,’ implying that this 

was the description the Mongols’ enemies gave to an army that 

seemed to them to embody insensate violence and irresistible combat power.”

Boyd commentary: “Not true, I am familiar with fact [that] ‘horde’ 

was related to order.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd then introduces his audience to the battles of 

Leuctra, Cannae, and Leuthen.”

4

 Boyd is evidently referring to the book The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion 

of Europe by James Chambers, first published in 1979. The “spelling” Boyd references is how he referred to the Mongol leader in his slides as “Chingis Khan” as 

opposed to one of the many other variations commonly used.
CRITIQUING BOYD

287

Boyd commentary: “Incorrect.”5

. . .

Spiller: “The first of these are ancient battles, and as such 

bear special burdens, for very little of substance is known of 

them.”

Boyd commentary: “Once again we find Spiller scholarship lacking.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd then uses Leuthen to demonstrate what he argues 

is a variation on the single envelopment, the oblique attack or the 

attack by echelon. But the attack by echelon is (at least as it was 

played out at Leuthen) not an enveloping attack or even a flanking 

attack and in my view has more to do with the attack on the ‘point 

of unequal distribution’ that Boyd discusses later in the lecture.”

Boyd commentary: “Incorrect, unequal distribution brought out before 

a la Leuctra etc.”

. . .

Spiller: “Therefore, much of what I heard at this point of the 

lecture struck me as being misdirected.”

Boyd commentary: “How would he know, he hasn’t got it right

yet—Why? Because he is misdirected.”

. . .

Spiller: “With so much talk about doctrine today, it is easy to be 

misled about its real effect on the battlefield. I asked Boyd how 

much he thought about doctrine when he was in aerial combat 

over Korea. I suggested that if he was thinking about anything, it 

was probably the last conversation he had with his comrades in the 

ready room concerning air-to-air tactics. He agreed.”

Boyd commentary: “There was no formal doctrine as such at that 

time, only formation arrangements and favorite maneuver. What he doesn’t 

5

 In “Patterns of Conflict,” Boyd first introduces Leuctra and Cannae, then the 

Mongols, and finally Leuthen.
APPENDIX C

288

know [is that] I already had worked a few ideas which I evolved from my own 

experiences and conversations with others.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd is particularly interested in Clausewitz’ [sic] remarks on friction, remarks which take up about three pages in 

about six hundred, a proportion which suggests what Clausewitz 

himself thought about the subject.”

Boyd commentary: “Totally incorrect—he has many more pages.”

. . .

Spiller: “Boyd further criticizes Clausewitz because he ‘incorrectly stated’ that the center of gravity in a formation corresponds 

to the center of the mass.”

Boyd commentary: “He used center of gravity in a scientific sense—

then said it applied to war as an analogy—not as you have stated (which is 

incorrect).”

. . .

Spiller: “It seems unfair to criticize Clausewitz on strictly modern grounds, therefore. Modern armies may (and most do) have 

multiple ‘centers of gravity’ that are vulnerable to attack. I am less 

sure about the armies of Clausewitz’ [sic] day.”

Boyd commentary: “I did not use multiple centers of gravity but ‘many 

non-cooperative or conflicting centers of gravity’.”

. . .

Spiller: “[Boyd] constructs an analogy between friction in war 

and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Yet, throughout his lecture, Boyd stresses the mental (in our conversations, he used the 

word ‘temporal’) aspects of conflict in association with the physical. This analogy, then, does not bear up under standards of scrutiny set by Boyd himself, for the 2nd Law addresses the physical 

world, not the ‘temporal’ world in which so much of Boyd’s war 

takes place.”

Boyd commentary: “Incorrect, I didn’t construct an analogy but said in 

some sense he anticipated the modern statement of the 2nd law.”
CRITIQUING BOYD

289

. . .

Spiller: “I have suggested to Boyd that Jomini is much more congenial to his ideas than Clausewitz, and that by looking at Robert E. Lee’s and Winfield Scott’s use of Jominian practices, some 

interesting insights could be found. To summarize my objections 

to Boyd’s treatment of these two theorists, I think his statement 

that their major flaw was that they saw operations from the top 

down is misleading. So did everyone else during this period. So 

do professional armies today. . . . The hierarchical model is a very 

compelling one, and very difficult to break out of. Few people at 

any time are able to do it.”

Boyd commentary: “Since Spiller hasn’t understood my work so far he 

wouldn’t know.”

291

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307

Index

1st Provisional Marine Brigade, 35, 

36, 37

2d Marine Division, xxxiii, xxxvi, 130, 

141, 152, 161, 162, 163, 164

A-10 Thunderbolt II, Fairchild Republic, influence of development 

on Boyd’s ideas, 22, 87, 88, 95

A-X project, 21–22, 87 

Aerial Attack Study, 13, 14, 31, 168;

influence on Boyd’s later work, 

14–16, 29, 89, 105 

Air Force Institute of Technology 

(AFIT) program, 14, 28, 93

Amphibious Warfare School (AWS), 

xi – xii, 152, 153, 156–58. See also

Expeditionary Warfare School

Anderson, Gary (LtCol), 133, 134

antiaircraft artillery (AAA), 48, 50

antitank guided missiles (ATGM), 48, 

55

Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, xvi, xxxvii, 102n, 

111, 119

“Attritionist Letters,” 182–84, 191

Barrow, Robert H. (Gen), 72, 161n, 

274 

Basic School, The (TBS), xi, xix, 76, 

154, 156–57, 163, 168 

Batcheller, Gordon D. (LtCol), 64–65

Besch, Edwin W. (Capt), 70

Bevilacqua, A. C. (Maj), 71

Binkin, Martin, 55–59, 64, 71, 75

Birdzell, William (Capt), 182

blitzkrieg, 95, 104n, 106, 141, 192, 

257, 269

“Boyd Theory,” xxxv, 83, 125, 142, 

269–70, 273

Burton, James G., xxxvi, xlii, 4, 100, 

111, 189n

Chapman, Leonard F., Jr. (Gen), 43

Clausewitz, Carl von, xi, xiii, xv, 103, 

112, 170, 171, 172; On War, 

Boyd’s critique of, 90, 195, 201, 

209, 211, 212, 214n, 216, 222, 

223–24, 255, 277, 285, 288–89

close air support (CAS), 21, 87, 88, 89; 

influence on Boyd’s ideas, 88

Cold War, 8, 34, 40, 70, 116, 150, 
INDEX

308

178; influence on Marine Corps 

development following Vietnam 

War, xlv, 4, 17, 63n, 64n, 122

Combined Action Program (CAP), 

41–42, 74

Conway, James (Gen), 181, 184n

Coram, Robert, xxxvi, xxxviii, 1, 146; 

historiographic problems of, xli–

xlii, 158n, 170

Coughlin, Sean T. (Lt), 136, 138

Cowan, Jeffrey (Maj), xxxvi

Cuban Missile Crisis, 38, 40

Cushman, Robert E. (Gen), 43, 58

Damian, Fideleon, xlii, 99n

DePuy, William E. (Gen), 47, 54

“Destruction and Creation,” xxx, xlii, 

xlvi, 80, 85, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96–

98, 102–3, 107, 116, 118, 119, 

171, 172; origins of, xxxi, 15, 31, 

61, 85

Edson, J. J. (Col), 179–80, 185 

Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory, xxviii, 18, 19–22, 23, 29, 31, 

88, 89; origins of, 17, 30

Expeditionary Warfare School (EWS), 

xxxvii, 171. See also Amphibious 

Warfare School

F-15 Eagle, McDonnell Douglas, 20, 

21, 31

F-86 Sabre, North American, 8, 9, 10, 

11, 96–97, 141, 283–85

F-X project, 19 – 20, 21

Fast transient maneuvers, 10, 29, 93, 

97, 104, 144; origins from YF16/YF-17 fly-off, 22, 23, 88

Fighter Weapons Newsletter, 12, 14

Fighter Weapons School (FWS), 11–

12, 13, 14, 28, 204, 208

Fingerspitzengefühl, xxxix, 104–06, 119, 

169, 172, 202–9, 221, 251–55

Fort Pickett exercises, 152, 161, 162, 

163

Franklin, Ray M. (LtCol), 71

Fuller, J. F. C., xxxvii, 256–58, 268

Girard, E. W., 55, 75; “grabby” concepts, 55, 72, 75, 79, 172

Gödel, Kurt, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 103

Grazier, Daniel R. (Capt), 101, 130, 

131, 184–85

Gray, Alfred M. (Gen), xiv–xv, xxii, 

xxv, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, xxxviii, 

xlvi, 38, 43n, 44, 81, 130, 141, 

147n, 151, 152, 159–72, 174–75, 

177n, 180, 187, 193, 196

Great Depression, xxviii; influence on 

John Boyd, 2, 5–6

Greenwood, John E. (Col), xl, 172–73

Grissom, Adam, xxxii

Gritz, John P. (Maj), 72

Ground Combat Operations, Operational 

Handbook (OH) 6-1, 165–66

Gudmundsson, Bruce, 194

Hamilton, Mark R. (LtCol), 136n, 142, 

145

Hammond, Grant T., xxxviii, xlii, 

171n

Harkin, William (Col), xxxvi

Hart, B. H. Liddell, xxxvii, 64, 65, 90

Hayden, H. T. (LtCol), 134

Heisenberg, Werner, 91, 92, 93, 94, 

97, 103n

Hitler, Adolf, 114–15, 137–40n, 221n, 

231, 232n, 240, 246, 248 

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 24–27 

Hooker, Richard (Maj), 179–80, 185

Janay, Michael R. (Maj), 58

Jomini, Antoine-Henri, 90, 103, 201, 

216–17, 285, 289

Jones, James L. (Gen), 180

Kelly, John (Gen), 147n, 161n, 181, 

184n, 191

Korean War, 7, 9, 11, 35, 36, 50; influence on Boyd, 9, 10, 141, 283

Krulak, Charles C. (Gen), xxxvii, 147n, 

175, 180, 187, 196
INDEX

309

Landing Force Bulletin 17 (LFB-17), 35

Lauer, G. S. (Maj), 128, 135

Lejeune, John A. (Gen), xl, 34, 40, 77, 

81, 141, 152, 161, 163

Leopold, Raymond J. (Capt), 1, 2

Light Armored Vehicle (LAV), 70, 72, 

73, 74, 164

Lind, William S., xxxiii, 81, 118, 121, 

135, 143, 145, 166, 178n; conflict with Marine Corps leaders, 

145–47; as promoter of Boyd’s 

ideas, xxxiv, xxxv, 83, 118, 121, 

124–25, 133, 145, 148, 151–53, 

157–58, 163, 164n, 167, 170, 

172, 175, 184–85, 187, 268, 

272–73, 278–79; Maneuver Warfare Handbook, 118n, 146, 153

Lloyd, Jeffrey (LtCol), 173

Luftwaffe, 22

Luvaas, Jay, 141, 283–84

maneuver conflict in “Patterns of 

Conflict,” 104, 107, 110, 112–14, 

126, 137–39, 148, 269

Maneuver Warfare Board, xxxv, 152, 

161

Manstein, Erich von (Field Marshal), 

108, 140, 221, 231–32

Marine Air-Ground Task Force 

(MAGTF), xxvi, 49–50, 53, 61, 

81, 84, 148, 180; origins of, 35–

39

Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), 58

Marine Amphibious Brigade (MAB), 

38, 49, 69, 73, 159–61 

Marine Amphibious Force (MAF), 38, 

68, 56, 64–65, 68, 71

Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU), 38, 

49, 69, 73–74

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat 

Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine 

Palms, 81, 126

Marine Corps Base Quantico, xi, xxxvii, 153

Marine Corps Command and Staff 

College, xiii, xvi, 170n, 199

Marine Corps Gazette, xlii, 39, 40, 47, 

121, 148, 152, 172, 173; influence on maneuver warfare debate, xiii, xxvii, xxxviii, xl, 57, 60, 

66, 72, 76, 78, 122, 124, 152–53, 

158, 159, 165, 172, 179–80, 183, 

185, 263–81

Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an 

Expeditionary Force Operates in the 

21st Century, 188, 194

Marine Corps Order (MCO) 3120.3 The 

Organization of Marine Air-Ground 

Task Forces, 37–38, 39

Marine Corps Order (MCO) 3340.4 Employment of Marine Air-Ground Task 

Forces in Future Amphibious Operations, 35

Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB), 

38, 39; origins of, xxvi; renaming 

to Marine Amphibious Brigade, 

38

Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), 

37, 40, 189, 190; origins of, 

37–38; renaming to Marine Amphibious Force, 38

Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), 

37; origins of, 37; renaming to 

Marine Amphibious Unit, 38

Mattingly, R. E. (Maj), 47, 54

Mattis, James (Gen), 181, 184n, 191

McNamara, Robert S., xii, 25

Mechanization, arguments for and 

against, 69–73, 81, 126, 274

MiG-15, Mikoyan Gurevich, 10, 11, 

96, 141, 283–85

Miles, Perry W. (Maj), 68

Miller, John G. (LtCol), 71

Miller, Stephen W. (Capt), xxxiii, xxxviii; early influence on maneuver 

warfare debate, 61, 63–64, 70, 

76–79, 80, 81–84, 126, 167, 263, 

265, 267

Millett, Allan R. (Col), xlii, 43

Mongols, 286, 287

moral conflict, 109–10, 112–16, 136, 

139–40
INDEX

310

Mujica, Mauro (1stLt), 182

Mundy, Carl E. (Gen), 147n, 180

Murray, Russell, II, 65

Nakhon Phanom, 24, 26, 28, 105

NATO, 45, 48, 52, 58, 65, 120, 159; 

northern flank, defense of, 66–

68, 73–75, 160 

Neller, Robert B. (Gen), xlv, 184n, 188

Observation-orientation-decision-action (OODA) loop, xxxviii, 107, 

109, 118, 119, 132, 133, 153, 

159, 161, 165n, 244, 249, 255, 

261–62; misrepresentation of/

misunderstanding about, 116, 

118, 133, 140–44, 145, 174, 283–

85; origins of, xvi, 117–18, 144

Oliviero, Charles, xlv–xlvi

Operations, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, 

189

Operation Desert Storm, xxxvii, xlv, 

189; as example of maneuver 

warfare, 178, 180, 192; as example against maneuver warfare, 

178, 179, 185

Operation Enduring Freedom, 181–

82, 190–92

Operation Iraqi Freedom, 181–82, 

190–92

Osinga, Frans P. B., xxxix, xlii, 118n

“Patterns of Conflict,” xxviii, xxxix, 

xlii, xlivn, xlvi, 61, 80, 100, 102, 

105, 107, 108, 109, 119–20, 125, 

129, 130, 131, 135, 137, 139, 

144, 158, 161, 168, 169, 171, 

176, 192, 195, 199–262, 282–83, 

284n, 287n; brief/lecture/presentation, 99–102, 116, 121, 123, 

140, 141; origins of, xxix, xxx, 

xxxviii, xli, 10, 85–87, 90, 93, 98, 

111, 112, 122

Packard, Nathan, xli, xlii, 74n, 177n

Piscitelli, Anthony, xxxvii, xlii, 180, 

181

precision-guided munitions (PGMs), 

47, 49–50, 65, 69, 71–72, 81–82

principles of war, 167–68; Boyd’s critique of, 168–69, 215, 256–61 

Record, Jeffrey, 55–58, 59, 64, 71, 75

Red Army, 108, 136, 138, 140n, 221n

Rider, J. K. (Maj), 58–59

Rippy, Jack W. (Col), 136

Robeson, Edward (LtCol), 174

Rosen, Stephen, xxxiii

Schlesinger, James R., 50

Schmitt, John F. (Capt), xv, xxii, xxxviii, 31n, 151, 163–73, 175–76, 

179–80, 187–88, 195, 218

second law of thermodynamics, 92, 

94, 97, 103n, 210

Shoup, David M. (Gen), 35, 38, 39

Soviet, xxvi, 11, 17–19, 29, 33, 35, 38, 

40, 44–49, 52–55, 58, 64, 66–68, 

77, 81–83, 89, 108, 125, 136–38, 

257–58, 260, 265–68, 275–76; 

naval infantry, 48–49, 70, 86, 162

Spiller, Roger, 141–42, 282–89

Stalin, Joseph, 137–39, 246

Stewart, R. A. (Capt), 126

Sun Tzu, xi, xv, xix, 89, 98, 103, 136, 

159, 170, 171, 172, 194, 201, 

218–19, 224, 241, 286; The Art of 

War, 194

surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 48, 50

Taber, Richard D. (Col), 66, 71

Task Force Alpha, 24–27

Terriff, Terry, 41

“To be or to do” speech, xxviii, 2, 5, 

77

Tobin, John L. (Col), 52, 53

Trainor, Bernard E. (MajGen), 127, 

128, 141, 147, 156–58, 189n, 

272, 278–79

Tremblay, P. J. (Maj), 191

Tucker, Craig (Maj), 142, 145

Turbiville, Graham H., 48, 52, 58n

Turley, G. H. (LtCol), 53, 55
INDEX

311

Van Riper, Paul K. (Gen), xxxiv, xxxviii, 73, 147–48, 166, 170

VFAX project, 19–20

Vietnam War, xxvi, 19–26, 41, 44, 52, 

59, 60, 76, 80, 84, 110–11, 115–

16, 120, 122, 131, 150, 166–67, 

184, 209, 218, 223, 230, 240, 

244, 248, 275–76; discipline 

problems in American military, 

26–28, 42, 74; Easter Offensive, 

26, 53; influence on Col Michael 

Wyly, 43n, 44, 154–57; influence 

on Gen Alfred M. Gray, 43n, 44, 

159; influence on Gen Paul K. 

Van Riper, xi–xii; post-Vietnam 

era, xxvii, xxviii, xxx, xl, xli, xlii, 

xliv, 2, 4, 32, 33, 34, 39, 40, 44, 

45, 47, 51, 62, 74, 85–86, 133–

48, 175

Warfighting, FMFM-1, xxv, xxxii, xli, 

xlii, xlvi, 100, 147n, 172–75, 177, 

178, 187, 193, 195, 196, 218; origins of, 150, 153, 166–72; as a 

“two crapper,” 171

Warfighting, MCDP-1, 175–76, 168n, 

180, 182, 187, 188

West, F. J. “Bing,” Jr., 51, 181

Wehrmacht, 89, 95, 96, 115, 134–40n, 

232; as archetype of maneuver 

warfare organization, 115, 134–

36, 139

Weigley, Russell, 111–12

Where Does the Marine Corps Go From 

Here?, report, 55–57, 60

Williams, James (Maj), 79–80, 82, 84

Wilson, Gary I. (Maj/Captain), xxxiv–xxxv, 126n, 130, 272

Wilson, Louis H., Jr. (Gen), 58, 68

Woods, William A. (Maj), xxxiv–xxxv

World War I, xxvii, xxix, xl, 33, 34, 51, 

52, 57, 96, 103, 122, 135, 143, 

216, 232, 257n, 268, 271

World War II, Second World War, 

xxix, 3, 5, 6, 22, 34, 38, 41, 48, 

59, 63n, 64, 89, 95, 103, 108, 

111–15, 122, 134–36, 140n, 156, 

174, 221n, 225, 227, 232n, 248–

49, 253n, 257–58, 268, 276

Wright, Evan, 181–82

Wyly, Michael D. (Col), xiii, xxxiii, 

xxxvi, 43n, 44, 128–29, 131, 151, 

152–59, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 

170, 172, 175, 184, 199, 217, 

219, 236, 239–40, 258–59, 272, 

275

YF-16 Fighting Falcon, 22–23, 88; influence of fly-off against YF-17 

on Boyd’s ideas, 22, 87, 88, 93, 

105, 141, 144, 283–84

YF-17 Cobra, 22–23, 88

Yom Kippur War, 45–54, 69