Coup d'Oeil
Tactics Made Simple
In the realm of maneuver warfare, coup d'œil is synonymous with “orientation,” the activity that John Boyd once described as “the most important part of the OODA loop.” In the world of decision games, this ability of a leader to quickly make sense of a tactical situation is seen as one of the many skills that result from active participation in a large number of decision-forcing exercises. In both spheres, coup d'œil is the ability to answer, quickly and with confidence, the question made famous by Ferdinand Foch: “What is really going on here?” (De quoi s’agit-il?)
Coup d'œil is not the same thing as the making of a decision. Rather, it is an indispensable prerequisite to the creation of a course of action. That is, before he can decide what he wants to accomplish, and how he plans on doing it, a leader must first make sense of the situation in which he finds himself.
The human mind is such, however, that a leader will often size up a situation and decide what to do at the same time. That is, in the course of making sense of a situation, an able tactician will consider a variety of solutions to the emerging problem. Indeed, the consideration of possible solutions may even help him with the task of evaluating the situation that he faces. To put things another way, the logical relationship between coup d'œil, and the making of a decision is different from the psychological relationship between those two things.
Note on pronunciation: Coup d'œil rhymes with “new boy.”