The John Boyd Library
When I was writing my
dissertation on how to apply John Boyd's thinking to the problem of counter-insurgency, a most valuable resource was the
Defense in the National Interest website maintained by his friend and acolyte, Chester Richards. Alas, weeks before I submitted the paper, Chet decided to abandon the website, and he invited anyone who cared to download the materials there. I did so for all the documents in my bibliography. To these I have added other available books and monographs by and about John Boyd. Blue skies! -- Daniel Ford
A Discourse on Winning and Losing
The
Discourse is a spiral-bound document, dated 1987 but probably assembled in 1992. I got my copy from the curators of the Boyd Papers at the U.S. Marine Corps Archives at Quantico, Virginia, where I spent a fascinating week mining the thoughts of this self-taught strategic genius.
The Discourse contains four sets of briefing slides, plus his monograph entitled Destruction and Creation, in this order:
Aerial Attack Study ($2.95 PDF reproduction of Boyd's 1965 tactical manual for fighter combat)
New Conception of Air-to-Air Combat (Boyd's 1976 "Fast Transients" briefing)
The Essence of Winning & Losing (Boyd's 1996 summary briefing)