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The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security. By Grant T. Hammond. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. 234 pages. $29.95. Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Phil M. Haun, USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
The turbulent career and controversial thinking of the late Colonel John Boyd, USAF, are lauded in this biography by Grant Hammond, a self-described Boyd disciple. His personal loyalty to Boyd, however, has prejudiced Hammond's judgment, resulting in a one-sided, exaggerated ode prone to hero-worship. Still, Boyd was undeniably an innovative thinker and had a significant influence on the defense community, and this work has real value if the reader can get past the recurrent David versus Goliath theme of Boyd single-handedly taking on and defeating the US Air Force. Moreover, since Boyd never published his ideas, Hammond has done a great service by recording Boyd's theory of strategic paralysis and maneuver warfare, focusing on a process known as the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) Loop.
The first half of the book is dedicated to the service career of John Boyd, the self-acclaimed maverick fighter pilot. Indeed, it was on combat missions during the Korean War that he had his grand epiphany. In a dogfight, the F-86's advantage over the MiG-15 lay in its ability to transition more quickly from one maneuver to another. This insight proved fundamental to Boyd's thinking. He went on to instruct...