OODA loops are the most significant new framework for war and combat since Sun Tzu. The Orientation, Observation, Decision and Action concept was introduced by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd in the late 70s.
I wrote a diary about the usefulness of this military theory in politics almost 9 years ago;
OODA Loops, Political Campaigns and the Blogsphere
Combat is the framework of politics today, and politics is the activity we must engage in to reclaim our country.
So listen up. Today, if you engage in any form of combat you must understand OODA Loops or risk being outfought and outfoxed by your adversary.
I also wrote a diary in Jan 2008 before the Dem primaries started;
Hillary is inside Barack's OODA Loop
If we are going to compare just how well each campaign is doing the basics such us fund raising or GOTV, Hillary either ties or comes out ahead. Getting down and dirty with Clinton may not be a good idea. She seems to be spoiling for a fight on her own terms.
Obama needs to pull a similar stunt to target some important segment of the population, Hispanics in California perhaps. I hope some brainstorming session is taking place at Obama HQ at this very moment.
But there may be a way out for Obama, also according to John Boyd.
One thing that John Boyd also understood very well is the concept of controlling the moral high ground. This may Obama's best strategy. But just how do you capture the moral high ground in a political campaign after you got down in the mud? Easier said than done.
Recently I noticed that the some are aware of OODA loops as I read this article back in August by Josh Marshall, the editor of Talking Points Memo;Whether Trump is explicitly using them, or whether he's figured out what all "winners" have, OODA is the lens through which I've been watching Trump. (Boyd's complete oeuvre is called "The Discourse on Winning and Losing". Trump's repeated use of the word "winner" suggests to me that he might well have imbibed some Boyd directly.)
More recently I came across this highly recommended article in The Federalist (a libertarian website);
Military Strategist Explains Why Donald Trump Leads—And How He Will Fail
We can better understand what Trump has done successfully, as well as his ultimate limitations as a candidate and why he would be such a terrible president, using the ideas of military strategic theorist John Boyd. Trump has been, thus far, the true Boyd candidate in this race, yet he is already exhibiting symptoms of precisely the flaws that Boyd saw as fatal in combatants.
...
After Perry, the second candidate to drop would be Walker, one of the early favorites for the nomination. For the first half of 2015, Jeb and Walker sat first and second in the national polls, with Walker leading in Iowa and Jeb in New Hampshire.
…
By Labor Day, Jeb was in single digits nationally and in the first two states, and Walker was out of money, dropping out of the race shortly thereafter. Trump was not the only reason both campaigns crashed and burned in six weeks, but he was the proximate cause that sent both spiraling to the ground, brutally exposing the latent weaknesses in their OODA Loops.
...
His disastrous confrontation with Rubio over missed votes (at the third debate) was a textbook example of letting an opponent inside your OODA Loop. Jeb built on a newspaper attack, which had allowed Rubio adequate time to prepare a response.
...
We’ve discussed thus far the basics of the OODA Loop and how Trump has exploited it. But before we get to where the Loop may begin to bend against him (or some of his adversaries), we need to consider the concept of a subsidiary or dependent loop. That is, a theater of operations that a combatant swoops in and dominates, only to later discover to his grief that he has drawn his attention away from the main battlefield.
...
If Trump has been so effective at strategy thus far in the campaign, does that mean he would be a successful general election candidate and a good commander-in-chief? No, it doesn’t, and in fact, there are significant warning signs that Trump may already be falling into some of the very traps Boyd warned against.
...
While he’s very shrewd and swift in observing, orienting, deciding, and acting when he’s on familiar terrain, Trump draws information from a fairly closed loop.
And here is my point;
The changing battlefield is not the only way his opponents could degrade Trump’s OODA Loop as the calendar turns. A truly sophisticated approach might also consider exploiting Trump’s vulnerability to misinformation.
It is clear that total war has been declared by the Clinton campaign and the Sanders campaign has won the first battle over the missing firewall in an impressively short time (24 hours?) by filing a lawsuit against the DNC.
As it goes now, Hillary’s traditional politics is confronted by Bernie’s grassroots operations. I support Bernie because, among other things, he controls tge moral high ground. I hope his campaign operations allow him to stay within Hillary’s OODA loop in the primaries and Trump’s in the general.
I hope this OODA loop framework for politics gets to the Bernie campaign (if they don’t use it already) and even to the Hillary campaign if she gets nominated and has to duke it out with the Donald.