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The rountable on Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd by Colonel Frans P. Osinga has begun at Chicago Boyz. The introductory post is up,  from which I will quote:

A tireless briefer and formidible mentor, Boyd wrote only a few papers and never attempted a magnum opus, preferring to evolve his thinking through the intellectual give-and-take of briefing sessions, deep reading, discussion and reflection. While Boyd’s slides remain readily available online at DNI and Belisarius.com, the context that Colonel Boyd created when he gave his talks are not always obvious to the viewer. As a result, a summative statement and analysis of Boyd’s strategic theory had been lacking until now. Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd by Colonel Frans P. Osinga has filled that breach.

And also introduce our roundtable of reviewers:

William F. “Wilf” Owen – A military writer and Editor of The Asian Military Review. A military theorist with a special interest in tactical doctrine. Wilf Owen served for twelve years in the British Army and is a
member of the Small Wars Council.

Shane Deichman – Former Science Adviser to JFCOM. Particle physicist. Managing Director of Operations for IATGR. Managing Director of EnterraSolutions, LLC. ORCAS (Oak Ridge). Blogger, Wizards of Oz, Dreaming 5GW.

Adam Elkus – free-lance writer for Defense & The National Interest, The Huffington Post, Athena Intelligence, Foreign Policy in Focus. Blogger, Rethinking Security, Dreaming 5GW.

Lexington Green of Chicago Boyz

“Dan of tdaxp” – Dan of tdaxp is currently working on his third advanced degree, a doctorate in psychology. Computer programmer/web designer. Lecturer. Blogger at tdaxp, Dreaming 5GW.

“Historyguy99″ – Historian. Veteran of the Vietnam War. Blogger, HG’s World.

Mark Safranski – Teacher, Educational consultant. Adviser, Conversationbase, LLC. Contributor, HNN. Member, Small Wars Council. Blogger, Zenpundit, Chicago Boyz.

We are also very pleased to have an author’s rebuttal/response at the conclusion of the reviews, from:

Dr. Frans Osinga – Colonel, Royal Netherlands Air Force. Fighter Pilot. Associate Professor of War Studies at the Netherlands Defense Academy. Formerly, of Nato’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation. Research Fellow, Clingendael Institute of International Relations. Author of Science, Strategy and War:The Strategic Theory of John Boyd.

Read the introductory post in full here.

We had the honor of having Wilf Owen give the first review of the roundtable – and he pulled few punches:

The fact that no one previously attempted such a task is to my mind indicative of John Boyd’s actual contribution to military thought. I admit to being a Boyd sceptic and this book merely confirmed all my doubts about his work, which I had harboured since reading the Coram and Hammond biographies. This book, like the biographies, is based on the premise that Boyd was an important and profound thinker on War. This is not a view I would share, but I concede he was vastly influential. Influential does not mean good. Was Boyd any good is the question the book should answer.

Read Wilf Owen’s review in full here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 2:43 am and is filed under book, john boyd, science, strategy, Strategy and War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.