John Boyd the Cyber Clausewitz: Potential Cyber Grand Strategist.

• In Event: Theory and Practice of Cyber Warfare

Abstract

“Operate inside (your) adversary's observation-orientation-decision-action loops to enmesh (your) adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos…and/or fold adversary back inside himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold,” John Boyd (1986). With the rise of cyber warfare, scholars have attempted, but not found a conflict theorist whose thought encompasses the nuances of the cyber realm. This paper argues that the strategic thought of John Boyd does indeed form a grand strategy for cyber operations. John Boyd is best known for originating the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act). The OODA framework has been used in business and government, most recently in refining strategies to fight terrorism, however, this is but a small part of Boyd’s overall theory of war. Boyd’s strategic thought can be characterized as evolutionary, scientific, and even post-modern in approach and application—all aspects of the cyber-realm. These unique aspects make Boyd’s thought uniquely suited for application to cyber-warfare strategy. Cyber warfare is inherently non-kinetic (although second-order effects may be kinetic), fought in a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, cyber operations are akin in many ways to submarine warfare and potential cyber wars are more similar to the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic and American anti-shipping operations in the Pacific during World War II. The adaptability and synthesis in Boyd’s thought allows it to explain the potential technological and operational changes within a coherent strategic model. Boyd’s thought embodies the strategic considerations that form a grand strategy of cyber conflict. This work unpacks the strategic thought of John Boyd applying his concepts to the strategy of cyber-warfare and engaging the extant literature to provide a coherent grand strategy for any level of cyber conflict.

Authors

• Joseph J. St. Marie, University of Southern Mississippi

• Samuel S. Stanton, Grove City College