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Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

Robert Coram · ★★★★☆ · 485 pages · 2002

Boyd was someone who was trying to shake up institutions that was tried to tradition and continuing existing modes of thinking: the armed forces. His theories are basically akin to the lean movement where a bunch of experiments are done quickly to take an enemy by surprise. In his system of OODA look the goal is to take the least-expected action instead of the most-effective action. To win before the battle ever starts by overwhelming the enemy by surprise.

The first part of the book focuses a lot on Boyd's time in the Air Force and the E-M theory that he developed, but it seems like the last part just glances over his ideas on the OODA loop and Creation and Destruction (his only written work). I wish there was more time spent on it. Overall a good book but it could have been cut by maybe a 100 pages as every chapter basically included some portion of how he insulted some general or another instead of giving enough credence to the ideas themselves.

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