OODA loop: Difference between revisions

The idea is that you must take in what is happening (''observe''), synthesise a theory of what the other guy is up to (''orient''),<ref>“Orient” doesn’t seem as good a word to me as “synthesise”, especially as that would have made the acronym “OSDA”, which all [[ninja]]s will find pleasing.</ref> figure out what to do about it (''decide'') and then do it (''act'') ''before'' your opponent gets through its own decision cycle works out what you’re up to and changes up what it is planning to do to back. Whoever changes tack first spoil’s the other one’s clever plan.

Hand-to-hand combat is a [[wicked environment]]. You ''can’t'' just execute on your plan ignoring how the other guy will react and adapt.

The OODA loop concept was invented by contrarian US Air Force Colonel John Boyd. Boyd’s classic dog-fighting manoeuvre, when being pursued, was abruptly to fly straight up, stalling his plane, catching his pursuer off-guard, and forcing her to fly straight under him, then dropping down on the attacker and giving her the full nine yards.<ref>Speaking of dogfighting, those public-spirited kill-joys at Wikipedia tell us [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_whole_nine_yards the legend that “the whole nine yards” originated from the total length of a Spitfire’s machine gun belt] (hence, “to shoot everything you have at once”) is an urban myth. The phrase dates back to the late 19th century, before there were any Spitfires. Boo.</ref>

The player who can do it ''faster'' — thereby rendering the other player’s observation and orientation= obsolete before it can decide and act — is “inside her opponent’s OODA loop” and, as long as she can continuously keep her OODA loop cycling fast enough, will have the opposition constantly reacting to what she is doing, chasing the game, having to change tactics without ever getting onto the front foot.  

It shouldn’t really have taken a maverick Top Gun Actor to tell the world that in combat situations — [[Finite and Infinite Games|finite games]] — are usually won by the attacking team, but there you have it.<ref>You can get inside an attacker’s OODA loop by intercepting a pass, I suppose).</ref>

Famously, the Brexit side of the Brexit Referendum was marshalled by a chap, Dominic Cummings, who remains a big fan of the OODA loop theory, and used it to great advantage to keep the Remain side permanently destabilised.  

Now getting inside your opponent’s punch is all well and good so long as it is your opponent, of course, and Matthew Syed has rightly pointed out<ref>“Looping the Loop”, ''Sideways'', [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sr4s BBC podcast].</ref> that dogfighting as a strategy for peacetime governance didn’t work out so well for Cummings since the idea wasn’t the [[finite game]] of defeating utterly an opponent in a binary, winner-take-all showdown, but the [[infinite game]] of keeping as many people happy for as long and often as possible.

Throwing OODA loops is an exhausting, destructive, destabilising business. It works best for [[zero-sum game|zero-sum]], short-duration fixed-rule games where keeping other players at a disadvantage is the optimal outcome. But if your game is “keepy uppy” — which in the broadest sense most of political and social life is —