{"id":28115,"date":"2013-09-25T17:34:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T17:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28115"},"modified":"2013-09-25T17:38:50","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T17:38:50","slug":"vlahos-forty-years-of-the-fighter-mafia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28115","title":{"rendered":"Vlahos: Forty years of the Fighter Mafia"},"content":{"rendered":"

[by Mark Safranski<\/strong> a.k.a “zen”]
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Kelly Vlahos<\/a><\/strong>, the often sharp-penned defense columnist at The American Conservative<\/strong><\/em>, has written an excellent tribute to Colonel John Boyd<\/strong> and his Acolytes<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

40 years of the Fighter Mafia<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

….<\/strong>Boyd and Christie started the group on a very small scale in Florida, fueled more by beer and frivolity than anything else. Things got serious when Boyd and later Christie were brought to work at the Pentagon. They met\u00a0Pierre Sprey<\/a>, a self-described \u201csubversive\u201d in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, then occupied by Robert McNamara. Sprey was one of the\u00a0\u201cwhiz kids,<\/a>\u201d but he believed the Air Force was doing everything wrong in Vietnam. He was an early proponent of close air support, which led to the development of the A-10 Thunderbolt II \u201cWarthog.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were bureaucratic guerrilla warriors, fighting the system and deploying whatever underground means we could use,\u201d including whistleblowing, leaking, and \u201csuborning\u201d members of Congress, Sprey says, half-joking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Boyd came in as a maverick,\u201d Sprey recalled. Initially, Boyd was brought to the Pentagon in the 1960s by a general who disliked Sprey\u2019s ideas on close air support and was pulling together a group of eggheads to \u201cdisgrace\u201d him. When the general left Boyd alone in the room with Sprey they \u201cbecame fast friends, co-conspirators.\u201d The rest is history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By the time the group held its first Washington meeting in 1973, Sprey, Boyd, Christie, and test pilot Col. Everest Riccioni had designed the concept that was directly implemented as the F-15 and F-16 fighter programs\u2014which have served as the core of American air power for the past 40 years. The group came to be known as the\u00a0\u201cFighter Mafia\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and expanded their circle to include other like-minded individuals with the same goals for reforming programs and building better weapons systems for the military.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of what we achieved, but it was only a drop in the bucket\u201d relative to the massive size of the Pentagon\u2019s budget and operations, says Sprey. \u201cAt least we got a few things done.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, he adds, \u201cwe\u2019re a network of subversives trying to cut the defense budget and campaigning against things that don\u2019t work.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nice piece. \u00a0Read the rest here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Addendum:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This would also be a good time to remind everyone that the <\/span>Boyd & Beyond 2013<\/strong> conference<\/a> will be at <\/span>Quantico<\/strong> on <\/span>October 11th and 12th<\/a>. \u00a0It’s free, but you must RSVP Scott Shipman<\/strong> or Colonel Stan Coerr<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[by Mark Safranski a.k.a “zen”] Kelly Vlahos, the often sharp-penned defense columnist at The American Conservative, has written an excellent tribute to Colonel John Boyd and his Acolytes: 40 years of the Fighter Mafia ….Boyd and Christie started the group on a very small scale in Florida, fueled more by beer and frivolity than anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[910,304,425,338,39,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boyd-2013","category-defense","category-government","category-john-boyd","category-military","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28118,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28115\/revisions\/28118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}