At face value, Boyd seems to be repeating long held notions of time as a competitive weapon. Or in the words of an unknown Civil War general when asked what it took to win a battle, “being thar fustest with the mostest”. Boyd dug much deeper into what it really meant to cycle not just faster but better than your adversary. After all, if your dealing with inaccurate information or the wrong frame of reference then all speed does is hasten your demise. No, Boyd went much further in order to articulate how the OODA loop can rapidly synthesize the right information necessary to shape your adversary and maneuver your adversary so that they defeat themselves.

Or in the words of Sun Tzu:

“Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponents fate.”(7)

7. The Art of War. trans. Thomas Cleary. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1988.