Anatomy of an Trinitarian OODA Wave

The anatomy of a trinitarian OODA  wave:

Trinitarian OODA Wave
Trinitarian OODA Wave
  1. New information is  observed.
    Stage 1
    Stage 1
  2. This new information is funneled into the  input end of a  bow tie architecture.
    Stage 2
    Stage 2
  3. To  orient is to throw away.  New information is compressed  into a  tacit orientation that draws on primordial (even blind) natural forces like  culture, genes, and  previous experience. The compressive pressure of these forces, expressed in a cycle of  analysis and  synthesis, tear new information down to its basic symbolic representation and reassemble it as a simplified storyline. Their particular configuration of orientation is the tacit component of  purpose.
    Stage 3
    Stage 3

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John and Carl, Sittin’ Under a Tree…

Disembodied Floating Clausewitz Head
Disembodied Floating Clausewitz Head
Genghis John
Genghis John

Recent outbreaks in the ongoing Cold War between advocates of Maj.Gen. Carl von Clausewitz, KPB and advocates of  Col. John Boyd, USAF (ret) coincided with other  outbreaks between supporters of Sun Wu and Clausewitz. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that all such outbreaks would vanish into the maw of the Dread Zenpundit Comment Filter (DZCF), the same vortex that swallows <p>, <br / >,  and other innocent HTML tags, never to be seen again. Yet, if these debates must rage until every tag destroyed by the DZCF is paid for by yet another tag marking up yet another piece of rhetorical excess, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

I won’t attempt to reconcile Sun-tzu and Clausewitz. That calling was fulfilled by the late Michael Handel in his Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought with an aplomb that is far beyond my poor power to add or detract. However, I will second  Adam Elkus’ efforts in pointing out where the frameworks of Clausewitz and Boyd coincide.

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Purple Hearts

From Wikipedia:

During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied  invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty-five years following the end of  World War II — including the  Korean and  Vietnam Wars — have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.[2] There are so many in surplus that combat units in  Iraq and  Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers in the field.[2]

Good job, atom bomb.

Good Boy!
Good Boy!

From the Pen of William Seward: One More Thanksgiving Message

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

 

Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

 

Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

 

The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

 

By the President of the United States of America.

 

A Proclamation.

 

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the  ever watchful  providence of almighty God.

 

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

 

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

 

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

 

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

 

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

 

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State

Vapors of a Infernal Machine: Towards a General Theory of Strategy

POWER →  CONTROL →  PURPOSE

This is the threefold path of strategy:

  1. power: the possibility of friendly conditions
  2. control: conditions friendly to aspiration
  3. purpose: an aspiration for how things should be

Power is converted into  control to achieve  purpose.  This is  97% of any general theory of strategy.  The rest is details.

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