The following short essay is from my good friend and mentor Mr. Chuck Spinney. One of the greatest people this country has produced. He has the absolute strength of character and moral courage every leader should strive for. Chuck talks about strategy and politics, or how we keep getting our strategy wrong, despite a capital [...]
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Posted in Adaptability, Boyd, Leadership, tagged America's dependence on foreign oil, Andrew Bacevich, Chet Richards, Chuck Spinney, Grand Strategy, John Boyd, Leaders of Character, Nation building without end, Oil Addiction on July 17, 2008 | 8 Comments »
I know Andrew Bacevich. He is a great soldier, gave me an extensive interview for my book, Path to Victory when I was writing it. I also knew a couple of his former troop commanders (he commanded the 11th ACR during and after the First Gulf War). He also lost his son in Iraq two [...]
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Posted in Adaptability, Boyd, How to develop adaptability, Leadership, Learning Organizations, tagged adaptive leader methodology, Add new tag, Army, Army training, military education, professional education, Recruiting on July 16, 2008 | 6 Comments »
I received great and numerous responses from my “Culture of Incompetence” posting. So, I will use it as an excuse to post the first announcement for my next book Military Recruiting: Finding and Preparing Future Soldiers (hit this link to get an overview). Military Recruiting: Finding and Preparing Soldiersis due out in late October. I told Praeger [...]
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I am proud to say that Bill Lind is a close friend of mine. This is one of his best columns, because it provides a great example of how one side in war gains a moral victory. John Boyd stated that the moral side of war is the strongest. In the following passage, Bill points [...]
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You may wonder how my comments about our poor strategic leaders and the crisis in resources plays into grand strategy, but how we deal with the unprecedented ramp up in the cost of this most basic of commodities (as close to a tax on breathing as is humanly possible) will affect Boyd’s four elements of grand strategy:
Improve [...]
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Posted in Adaptability, Boyd, How to develop adaptability, Learning Organizations, tagged developing leaders for 4th generation warfare, free play force on force exercises, Manuever Warfare, Military education system, non-commissioned officer professional education system, officer professional military education, Tactical Decision Games on July 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Along with BG (ret.) James Warner, I was invited by Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University to speak at a round table called “Building Adaptive Leaders.”
Here is a transcript of what I talked about (BG Warner focused on the operational and strategic levels of development, and [...]
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by Chuck Spinney
A recent article by Thomas Powers in the New York Review of Books is a very good analysis of why Mr. Bush’s impulse to attack Iran before he leaves office is sheer madness. And at a deeper level, it well illustrates how perverted the militarization of US grand strategy has become at the [...]
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This is an outstanding article by my friend LTC Bob Bateman. Bob also gave me my first book opportunity, by printing my chapter “Culture Wars” in his book Digital Wars: View from the Frontline (Presidio Press, 1999). Fortunately for the Army, Bob is a strategist in the Pentagon. Bob’s point is that we need to [...]
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This entry was posted on 6/28/2008 12:00 AM and is filed under Decision Making, Adaptability, COL John Boyd.
Don Vandergriff and Fred Leland (LESC) Form Training Alliance & Bring Deciding Under Pressure… and Fast to New England
With scientific discoveries and technological changes being developed so rapidly in our society it is easy to forget the importance [...]
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Posted in Adaptability, Boyd, How to develop adaptability, Leadership, Learning Organizations, tagged Add new tag, COL John Boyd, Ethics, Great teachers, Integrity, Strength of Character, Truth always hurts on June 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
We all think of Socrates when we ask what makes a great teacher.
A great teacher is a leader, a mentor, someone who encourages life-long learning. A teacher’s objective is to make their students better than they are. A teacher does not have an ego, but has pride in putting out the best students, but pride [...]
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