Chet Richards

[Warning! This is a theory post. If you've had enough theory for one day, you're excused.]

I. It’s orientation, not speed

As I noted in an earlier post, several commentators have pointed out that the observe-then-orient-then-decide-then-act model doesn’t work very well. This has led people to question the relevance of the OODA loop, and by implication Boyd’s work in general, to modern conflict. If that were an accurate description of the “loop,” they would have a good point.

As early as the mid-80s, though, Boyd was moving away from the sequential concept and beginning to emphasize the role of orientation:

Orientation is the Schwerpunkt … Orientation shapes the character of present observation‑orientation‑decision-action loops-while these present loops shape the character of future orientation. (Organic Design, 16)

The second O, orientation-as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences-is the most important part of the O‑O‑D‑A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act. (Organic Design 26)

A decade later, Boyd had not only moved orientation to center stage, he had begun to identify it with the entire OODA “loop”:

Also note how the entire “loop” (not just orientation) is an ongoing many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection. (The OODA “loop”sketch, from The Essence of Winning and Losing)

II. What is the US national orientation?

If orientation is that important, what do we make of a recent poll by the Pew Research Center that found that the US population is evenly divided on how the war is going? In other words, we seem to be split into two camps with mutually opposing orientations on a very important topic. These two viewpoints represent differences not only in orientations but also in the actions that would flow from them, i.e., our national policies.

III. Sounds bad, but what exactly is orientation?

It will help, at this point, to examine a little more on what orientation is. Here’s Boyd’s cut at it:

Orientation is a far-from-equilibrium interactive process of many-sided implicit cross-referencing projections, empathies, correlations, and rejections that is shaped by and shapes the interplay of genetic heritage, cultural tradition, previous experiences, unfolding circumstances, and the analyses we perform and the syntheses we create. (Organic Design 15, as amended by personal communication)

That really clears things up. Reminds me of the opening lines of Beowulf (”Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, …” Both this and Boyd are technically in English, incidentally.)

There are a few nuggets to be mined, however. First thing to notice is that it’s not really a definition (Boyd didn’t claim that it was, by the way). It doesn’t say that orientation is the one and only such interactive process, nor does it say anything about the process itself other than list some of its ingredients and interactions.

IV. Can we find out what our orientation, or anybody’s, is?

Another point is that you can’t completely understand your own orientation in any explicit sense because any concept you have of your orientation is part of that orientation. It’s like the eye trying to see itself. The idea that there are such indefinable concepts goes way back:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. (Opening lines of the Tao Te Ching, Mitchell trans.)

Boyd had read Alan Watts’ Tao, the Watercourse Way and was well aware of this.

What this means in practical terms is that if you try to make your orientation explicit - by, for example, listing all the elements in it or diagramming/modeling your own belief system - you will reach a point of diminishing returns.

But there are more fundamental limitations when we try to use a system to define itself:

One cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself, and attempts to do so will generate confusion and disorder. (”Destruction and Creation” 13)

All of the Discourse (D&C, Patterns, Organic Design, etc.) is but an exegesis of this statement. In fact, the essence of Boyd’s strategy of conflict is to get the other side to do this to themselves, while improving your own ability to resist these effects.

V. So, what’s it good for?

Granting all this semi-mystical musing, is there any practical value in the concept? Depends on how you use it. Here are some points on orientation as it relates to the conduct of conflict:

1. Orientation is dynamic. Like a whirlpool, it only exists if it is processing. Boyd often used this image, borrowing from the work of the late Ilya Prigogine. See Osinga for more on this. Things we can do to the other side, like generate confusion and disorder, can work on the dynamics of their orientation and make it less effective in triggering actions against us.
2. It can be thought of as some sort of mental model, although that’s also a construct - people act as if they had a mental model inside their heads but nobody’s ever actually seen one. Still, there is an image of a dynamic external world and a dynamic internal simulacrum of that world, and our job is to keep the two in rough harmony, better than our opponents do, even though neither is completely knowable. It’s also nice to screw up the other side’s whenever we can.
3. One way to approach it is as the opposite of “disorientation,” which has the connotation of a queasy feeling right on the verge of panic. So whatever the opposite of that is to you.
4. Keep reminding yourself that what’s important in a conflict is operating inside the opponent’s OODA loop, not so much the OODA loop itself. This suggests that what we really want is for our orientations to generate useful actions at a rhythm or tempo that the other side cannot cope with - i.e., to disorient them. As always, we do whatever we can to keep the other side’s orientation from doing the same to us.

VI. We now return you to the war in progress.

If your conception of the situation is something like: “All the major parties are beginning to accept the advantage of decreasing the level of communal violence and cooperating with US forces to rebuild Iraq” then you probably see a long presence in the country to help them do it.

If, on the other hand, your assessment is more like: “The various militias, including the Iraqi army, are taking whatever they can get from us while they prepare for the big civil war to come” then you might favor an immediate drawdown of US forces or perhaps even a complete withdrawal.

We can live with this difference of opinion for a while. Given the uncertainty in the situation, some difference of opinion is healthy. But over time, and with an election coming up, differences of opinion can escalate into “many non-cooperative centers of gravity.” This is taking us out of mere uncertainty and over into the very nasty realm of ambiguity, competing impressions of events as they may - or may not - be. If it reaches this stage, we will have no national orientation worthy of the name and so no hope, other than dumb luck, of effective actions.

VII. It gets worse.

Ambiguity plus menace - lacking now, but where did all those “terrorists” we pushed out of Baghdad go? - and mistrust, a natural consequence of fragmenting into many non-cooperative centers of gravity, produce Boyd’s formula for national moral collapse. When this happened during the Vietnam War, we came back to our North American sanctuary and regrouped.

In fourth generation warfare, unfortunately, there are no sanctuaries.