In the marginalia of his copy of On War, influential fighter pilot-theorist John Boyd laments that Carl von Clausewitz never thought about inducing friction for the adversary: “Overcome friction, yes—but also why not magnify friction for the adversary commanders?” Perusing his pencil marks, “He does notimply that it may be beneficial to increase friction.” If only, Boyd thinks, Clausewitz had “the notion of entropy and the idea of Gödel and Heisenberg and the 2nd Law to generate uncertainty, confusion, disorder as a payoff instead of just interfering with friction as a payoff.” Overall, Boyd finds Clausewitz too inwardly focused, keen “on reducing/overcoming (friction) confusion and disorder,” without seeking to “undermine [the] adversary and diminish his expenditure of effort.”
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