Lunch with John Boyd
The most memorable meal of my life
The recent debut of the Substack of Mark McGrath (welcome aboard, Moose!) reminds me of the time, more than thirty years ago, I had lunch with America’s greatest strategist, John R. Boyd. He was already famous for his work in the (believe or not) related fields of fighter tactics, aircraft design, and the theory of maneuver warfare. I was a young captain of Marines, a “temporary gentleman” who had just been recalled to active duty to design the curriculum for the School of Advanced Warfighting.
The place was a Japanese restaurant in the town of Quantico, Virginia, a place richly provided with the paper placemats that would play a central role in the conversation. The topic was the Schwerpunkt, the concept that Colonel Boyd had borrowed from the German tradition of maneuver warfare. In particular, we discussed the question of military operations in which such a concentration of efforts and attention might be superfluous.1
After a good deal of talking and drawing, Colonel Boyd and I came to the conclusion that, as powerful as the practice of Schwerpunktbildung might be, there were, indeed, situations in which it made no sense to identify a place, capability, or enemy unit as the focus of efforts. Likewise, there would be occasions in which the designation of one of one’s own units as the main effort would do more harm than good.
If memory serves, this meal also provided me with an opportunity to ask Colonel Boyd about his plans to write a book. He answered that he feared that any attempt to reduce his thoughts to writing would deprive his work of its open-ended, ever-changing character. To put things another way, John R. Boyd preferred the conversation to the conclusion.
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The Japanese restaurant in Quantico Town remains in business. For some reason, however, the owner no longer provides his patrons with paper placemats.
It is interesting to think about some of the most brilliant minds and their ability to see clearly way into the future while all about them massive disruptive change is occurring at the rapid rate of fire. (If not faster) Long story short of a similar nature. The founder of International Data Group Patrick McGovern told me, in an interview for a job in his company that one day people would trade food recipes and little children in Appalachia would go to school in distant classrooms using a computer that was basically a pad made of glass and there would be no wires attached to send an impulse, in fact at the time the issues of wireless versus cables to deliver this technology had not even been close to settled. I thought he was crazy, paper was the major medium by which his magazine publishing companies delivered their information, but he saw something the rest or at least most people didn’t see. (this was spring of 1995) John Boyd and a cocktail napkin, thinking out of the box and shifting paradigm’s without saying “the paradigms are shifting.” It is surely a great opportunity when one gets exposed to great thinking. It would be amaximg to be a fly on the wall when a conversation between Alcibiades (Big Al!) and Socrates took place. Similar to lunch with John Boyd no doubt.
I need to read DuPuy especially on infantry ... any recommendations or links? 🔗