Igni ferroque

Currently, Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign has devolved into internal squabbling, selfserving information leaking, finger pointing, and a general inability to adapt to the Obama campaign's activities. Much of the McCain campaign's flailing on issues, attacks, and negative campaigning are attempts to make an issue "stick" to Obama. Some pundits have called McCain's campaign all tactics and no strategy. Some pundits believe that it is the financial meltdown They are all wrong. What we are seeing is the Musashi 's classic definition of collapse as mentioned in the Go rin no sho's Book of Fire.

Sen Barak Obama will be president because not because of the money, Senator McCain's short commings, President Bush's failings, or the financial meltdown. Senator Barak Obama will be president because the country understands that he is the prospective sovereign that understands "The Way", and that this is what the country needs now.

Senator McCain's precieved flailing is a product of his fighter pilot training. Here is what McCain says about his own decision-making process in the 2002 book "Worth the Fighting For" which he co-wrote with Mark Salter:

"I make them (decisions) as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can," ...furthermore... "Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint."

Why does Senator McCain say this about his decision process and why is it due to his fighter pilot training?

The answer is due to John Boyd's OODA Loop. John Boyd was an airforce fighter pilot who saw combat in the Korean War; he is the U.S.'s Musashi. He is revered not by the USAF where he served and litterally wrote the book on fighter performace methodology ("Energy-Maneuverability_theory"), but in the USMC where his theories are the foundation of maneuver warfare.

"According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (either an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby "get inside" the opponent's decision cycle and gain a military or business advantage....

"In order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries--or, better yet, get inside [the] adversary's Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action time cycle or loop. ... Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversaries--since our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns they are competing against."

wikipedia OODA Loop

Sadly, Senator McCain is misinterpreting John Boyd's OODA Loop. Senator McCain s understanding is based solely on speed in traversing the OODA Loop. This is a very common and very fatal reading of Boyd. What Senator McCain is doing is quickly observering, making decisions and acting but eliminating the orientation process. Further, the OODA Loop is not a simple loop, but "the entire 'loop' (not just the orientation) is an ongoing many-sided implicit cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation and rejection.". Currently, the McCain campaign has become detached from the empathy and correlation part of orientation.

fig 1 ref

 

What the McCain campaign has failed to understand is that the actions taken in the OODA Loop must be based on reality. The whole idea of tempo warfare is to create a mismatch between the opposition's preception of reality and what is real and concurrently, preserving and enhancing your preception of reality. What happens when the mismatches to reality become accute? Infighting, finger pointing, and dissention. Musashi and Sun Tzu consider this a severe form of insanity. Students of Boyd have a term for this state: self-referencing. At one time this was a more severe epithet than many four letter words in the USMC. It means that you are wholely focused inward; you have lost all touch with reality and are as good as dead. This is why to Sun Tzu "Warfare is the Way of Deception".

So the lesson here is that while one may traverse the OODA Loop quickly, but one must take actions that are strategically relevent. A failure to take strategically relevent actions will create a rapidly deteriorating situation. You must attempt to perceive the situation and your opposition in ever increasing levels of clarity or risk taking actions that degrade your capability to Observe. You must not degrade your capablity to Orient (project, empathize, correlate, and reject information) by indulging in prejudices, accepting the opposition's deceptions, or fall prey to your own deceptions.

At this point it is appropriate to disscuss the concept of cheng and chi Cheng is the concept of the conventional attack, and chi is the unconventional attack. The cheng is the attack that is in plain sight. The purpose of cheng is to provide a real and credible threat to a strategically important target. The chi is the unconventional attack, often less visble and more harmless looking, on a strategically important target. In warfare, one fortifies one's strategic, but vulnerable points while attacking the opposition's vulnerable strategically important points. This is why Sun Tzu is often quoted as saying to "One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles."

The essence of Senator McCain's problem is that Senator Obama is operating at a faster tempo that is amplified by the fact that Obama is making more appropriate decisions (based on a better understanding of ground truth). Senator McCain has been driven to a state of selfreference because he has failed precieve that Senator Obama's cheng (conventional attack) is the tv commercials while his chi (unconvetinal attack) is his community orgainzation ground game, fortified by his understanding and implementation of policies that adhere to "The Way". The good news is that the millennial generations have embraced "The Way" and are now active in the electorate. Thank you Master Sun, Col. Boyd and all those who follow the lessons that they teach; and thank you to those who have paid for these truths with blood and iron.