A Discourse on Winning and Losing

Boyd's initial focus was a 193 slide summation of military history in the "Patterns of Conflict" brief and his effort soon expanded dramatically. His insights led him to introduce the theory of maneuver warfare as critical to military success in general, as it had been for successful air-to-air tactics where his intellectual journey began. His study and thought led him to produce a series of other briefings. They included a 37 slide briefing entitled "An Organic Design for Command and Control," a 58-slide briefing entitled "The Strategic Game of ? and ?," a 27-slide briefing entitled "The Conceptual Spiral," and one of the few essays he ever wrote called "Destruction and Creation." The larger "Discourse" ends with his summation entitled "Revelation." To this is added a four slide brief on "The Essence of Winning and Losing" produced on 28 June 1995. It is an effort to compress all that he had learned into a simple, yet elegant and comprehensive, conclusion embedded in his concept of O-O-D-A Loops, what they mean and why they are important.--Provided by publisher.