Somebody's gotten inside somebody else's OODA Loop

WaPo: In recent weeks, the White House has had to endure its chief economist's positive comments about job "outsourcing," or sending work overseas; controversial passages in the annual Economic Report of the President; questions over the legitimacy of Bush's 2005 budget; a California swing in which Bush bragged about the possible addition of two or three jobs to a 14-person business in Bakersfield and a flap over a job-creation forecast that not even the president could stand by.

But the non-naming of Anthony F. Raimondo on Thursday as assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing and services has brought the concerns to a boil.

The long-anticipated announcement of a manufacturing czar was supposed to be a good-news day for a White House struggling with its economic message. Instead the planned, smiling photo op fizzled when it came to light that a year ago Bush's choice had opened a major plant in Beijing.

Ooops.

"This is a hyper-charged political environment, and they have not adapted," the former official said.

And Karl Rove, who is on the government payroll as the White House senior adviser, is stretched thin between trying to watch what the administration is doing and overseeing the ramping up of a campaign that has accelerated its plans in response to Kerry's early lock on the Democratic nomination.

Machines don't fight wars. Terrain doesn't fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must get into the mind of humans. That's where the battles are won.

-Col John Boyd, USAF

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

As you know, Battles, Campaigns, Wars, Corporate Initiatives, even Live Television take on unexpected characteristics once you flip the switch and the train is in motion. And, like a train, they are very hard to stop, unable to offer time-outs so you can sit and ponder which switch to throw when presented with a "Y" in the tracks. This is the strength and the weakness of OODA. Strength, because if you're in control and shaping events due to your superior assimilation of landscape data and ability to execute, you can figuratively create endless "Y"s for your opponent. In fighter pilot terms, even in athletic terms, it's called being in the zone. Time slows down for you in a sort of zen serenity: you're calm while your opponent is sweating every minute detail, and losing it with each reactive bead of sweat. Weakness? You run the risk of believing you're omnipotent, relative to your competitors perceived abilities. Call it, uhh, operational hubris.

John Boyd, creator of the OODA Loop, recognized that in an age of increasing information gathering potential, the opportunities to exploit what you know could only be taken if you can adequately and wisely assimilate and categorize the incoming data. In essence, you must know what you know, know what you don't now, and always be aware that there's one more worry: things you don't know that you don't know. Confused? Exactly. That's why it's called complexity theory. But we like simplicity around here, so let's translate:

Don't believe your lying eyes and ears. Never accept the answer you expected to hear. Accept input from atypical sources. Insist on it. The more strongly you feel about a certain event or outcome the more widely you should entertain alternative futures. Overlay information to find patterns and rythmns, because they're there. Keep your head on a swivel, not up your ass. The brain gets more oxygen that way.

Well, that's probably how Boyd would have said it (a bit of a maverick, Boyd.) Much in the way that, for the want of a shoe a kingdom was lost, or Mrs. O'Leary's cow changed Chicago forever, God and victory is in the small, seemingly innocuous details. And, of course, you must leave out any ideological biases when assimilating the data and generating strategy--or you short out the loop. In other words, sometimes you use the tool, and sometimes the tool uses you.

Did I mention Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove are huge fans of Boyd's work?

Too bad the Colonel died in 1997. Methinks the Bushies are in need of a refresher.