Inside their OODA loop
Welcome back to camp. Since it seems that writing this on Tuesday has become a thing, we’re going to move officially to a Tuesday writing, Wednesday publication cycle until further notice.
Anyway, booze is in the slide out pantry next to the fridge, dinner? I have no idea, maybe Gyros, maybe steak, maybe seafood… TBA, but we’ll eat something good, pull up a chair. As always, please notice the cup at the tip jar Where we restock the bar. Of course, I thank the current contributors to the ‘keep the author lubricated’ fund! I’m pleased to say that that fund, just for the Substack version, broke a grand a year last week. Thank you all!
So, OODA. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. If you’re not familiar with it, that’s OK, you probably know it by one of its many other model names. This one was developed by Col. Boyd specifically for Air Combat but is equally viable for anything else. There’s also PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) there’s several versions that are different names for the same process taught in various “Be the best manager in the world” books, and schools.
It all comes down to the same thing though. Figure out what the problem is, Figure out where the point of leverage is, Decide what can be done with the point of leverage, about the problem, and Do it. Then observe the results as you run through the cycle again.
There’s even a special version that USAID dreamed up.
Any of these descriptions are used to teach how to make good decisions quickly, and to identify when your decision is taking you in the right direction quickly. When you are in combat, making decisions faster and better than your enemy does means you get to write the contact report
.
This is true whether you are in military combat, business combat against a rival, or whether you’re playing “The Game of Thrones.” Figuring out what is going on, what to do about it, and doing it, faster than your opponent is always the winning move.
Now this isn’t highly thought of by the Brahmans from Foggy Bottom (I speak of the “career diplomats” here, not the current Sec. State, or even all of the rank and file… Just the guys that, for the last 75 years have thought that they were “above petty politics, with the job of making the president do what they wanted done.) These guys seem to think that 1) If the US would just give everyone enough money, they would see things our way, 2) The good of “the world” is more important than the good of the nation that employs them, 4) Slow deliberation is always better than “rash” action, and 5) THEY are the natural rulers of the world, and elections, separations of nations, and all that are just a temporary inconvenience, that in the end, all of the diplomats will decide how to make the little robots do what is best in a planned economy.
That’s where part of the kerfuffle over USAID is coming from. USAID was a money pot used by the various intelligence agencies to cover black ops funds, and by the Brahmans to conduct social engineering. What is most offensive is that they, as members of the US Government, were conducting social engineering not just overseas, but here at home!
Fortunately, they don’t understand or believe in getting inside the other guy’s decision loop. The left in general understood it once, and in fact was pretty good at it, but they’ve been on top so long, they lost the skillset. That’s a warning for the future, by the way… Your enemy can learn. Assuming that because you’re on top now, you’ll always be so, is how you end up in the “dustbin of history” alongside the Romans, the Grecian empires, the Chinese empire, etc…
So, where are you going with this Lehman? I hear you ask.
Simple. Trump, and his employee Musk, have become masters at getting inside the decision loop on their enemies. For the first time since R. Reagan, the Right is ascendant, the Left is rocked back on their heels in disarray and literally does not know what to do.
Let’s look at some cases. Reason reports at: here that “The New York Times reports that soon a bunch of IRS agents (including the agency's pseudo-police force) might be reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily help that agency round up and deport migrants—and that would mean a short-staffed IRS less capable of routine enforcement (whatever will we do). "That work could include auditing employers believed to have hired unauthorized migrants and investigating human trafficking," reports the Times. "Of its roughly 100,000 employees, the I.R.S. has more than 2,100 trained law enforcement officers who help investigate violations of tax law and other financial crimes."
They go on to say: “Even if you favor crackdowns on illegal immigration, it's worth noting that auditing employers who run, say, fruit farms and meat processing plants is a strange way to go about it since these are some of the most industrious people, gainfully employed and actually contributing to the American economy. And if you do this at scale, whole communities reliant on these plants and farms will feel the impact.”
Well, I understand her concern on this, in a way; but uh, excuse me, it’s the law that you are not allowed to hire aliens, unless they are here on a work visa. My brother was the head of security for a major meat packing plant in the Midwest (several of them actually) and part of his job was to ensure that Haseeb (yes, most of them were from the Middle East and Northern Africa, far more than the Mexican and Central American contingent, who were there, but not in as large a number.) Was in this country legally and was not “trafficked.” (A bigger problem than you might believe.)
like this one
She continues: "On Day 1 I immediately halted the hiring of any new I.R.S. agents," Trump said recently at a rally in Nevada, referring to his federal civilian employee hiring freeze. "We're in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them or maybe we'll move them to the border. I think we're going to move them to the border."
Of course, as a good scofflaw libertarian, the idea of fewer or more distracted IRS agents gets me all excited. I also appreciate people finally being able to see some of them for what they are: cops, armed with literal guns, who force people to fork over massive chunks of their paycheck and threaten prison time if you don't comply. But there's also a case to be made that failing to collect enough taxes (while also abdicating responsibility to go after, say, entitlement reform) will make it impossible for Trump and Musk to ever get the federal government's books in order.
I’ll give Reason credit, they’re as close to even handed as you can find these days. That said, I don’t always agree with them, and I think that in this case, they’re missing part of the boat. Yes, stripping the IRS of a bunch of their agents may slow their roll. Not that that is a bad thing! But first things first, the nation is hemorrhaging money through so many holes, that plugging them must be job one. Once you figure out how much of the money in that national deficit is fraud and theft, then you know how much taxes you ACTUALLY need.
Also from Reason, we have a piece on losers wanting more money to continue to fail. Now normally, when you’re doing a job that has every metric you are associated with falling through the floor for the last sixteen years, the last thing you would think about is demanding a raise, or you’ll strike. Yet, according to https://reason.com/2025/02/10/california-teachers-make-6-figures-on-average-now-they-demand-more the California Teacher’s Association where the average wage is a good central six digits, is demanding wage increases, and smaller class sizes. This in spite of falling metrics in every single area, for sixteen years and counting. State enrollment has decreased by 36,000 students, but that’s not enough for these jackasses, they still want more teachers (which means more money for the union) and less work, or they’ll strike. Oh, and it seems that the entire state EDU group figured out how to synchronize their contracts, so that thirty two districts can strike simultaneously. And we wonder why school choice is such a hot button issue? I am no longer of the belief that California is salvageable. Just give it back to Mexico, or pave it with nukes, and start over.
As part of the same article, we have some more of the “inside the OODA loop” maneuvers by Trump and his wrecking team (and I say wrecking team with admiration) it’s worth reading the whole article. Even the stuff you might disagree with is still worth knowing.
Here's another piece of fun from the Inside their decision loop: We’ve all heard about how roughly 2/3 of the land mass of Oregon wants to join Idaho instead… Well, it seems that they aren’t the only ones looking to move state borders around. Successful Farming reports at indiana-considers-boundary-shift-and-agricultural-impact-as-illinois-counties-push-for-secession That 33 and counting counties from Illinois are tired of being considered a cash cow slave to Shitcago, and are looking for greener pastures. Indiana is working on making it happen!
“Representative and House Speaker Todd Huston is the author of Indiana House Bill 1008 (HB1008), which would establish the so-called ‘Indiana-Illinois boundary adjustment commission.’ According to the bill itself, the purpose of the commission would be ‘to discuss and recommend whether it is advisable to adjust the boundaries between the two states.’”
I for one think this is an idea who’s time has come, not just for Illinois, Oregon, and Washington, but for other places with similar problems, like New York, and even Texas. Look Austin and Dallas already think that they’re a different state than the rest of Texas, let them secede. Both sides will be happier.
The whole renaming thing is going at it hard, Sec Def just restored Ft. Bragg to its name, the ridiculousness of “Fort Liberty” has been retired to the shitcan where it belongs. Further, instead of naming it after a hero of the Mexican American War, who then had the poor judgement to side with his state instead of with his nation, they’re naming it after one of his descendants, a Pfc. Roland Bragg assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division of the 18th Airborne Corps. He received the Silver Star and a Purple Heart for actions during the Battle of the Bulge. Tying this in with an Airborne Trooper just makes it better, in my not so humble opinion. This, on top of the Gulf of America, and bringing back Mt. McKinley is a nice start. Incidentally the Gulf of America thing has another advantage, Joe’s handlers tried to poison pill any future oil drilling, by ordering a moratorium on all drilling or exploration in the Gulf of Mexico for twenty years… The law doesn’t say anything about the Gulf of America!
Old NFO hit one out of the park here:
You should go take a look at it. He covers Elon’s strategy perfectly.
There’s also the Trump order to stop making pennies. Now the Left has wanted to do this for over a decade, but they want to go to an all electronic finance system (an idea so bad that every nation that has considered it has either had their government overthrown, or has quietly dropped the idea.) Trump isn’t removing the penny from circulation, he’s just not making any more of them. Since according to the US Mint, the damn things cost 3.7 cents each to make, this should be a no brainer. trump-directs-treasury-to-stop-making-pennies/ yet, because it’s now Trump that wants to do it, the Left is suddenly against it. Even though it will save $179 million a year.
While we’re on the warpath about waste, we have this: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/revealed-congress-spent-500-billion-expired-programs-last/ From the CBO: “CBO identified 1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024.” “CBO estimates that $516 billion was appropriated for 2024 for activities with expired authorizations!” (Exclamation point mine.)
Some of this spending is for stuff that has not been authorized for over 40 years. Imagine your budget if you continued to pay for shit that you ordered and paid off over 40 years ago. And we wonder why we have a deficit!
Further attempting to rein in the unelected bureaucratic state, we have the Prove It Act of 2025 Senator Joni Ernst and Representative Brad Finstad. /ernst-finstad-to-introduce-bill-reforming-regulatory-process/ (sorry about the pay wall) “the legislation will require any newly proposed regulations to demonstrate conformity to existing law as well as report impact, both direct and indirect, on small business. "We are curbing the bloated bureaucracy and empowering job creators to innovate and lead us forward," Ernst explained. "If Washington thinks more regulations are needed, it will have to prove it." It’s already been made clear by SCOTUS that unelected bureaucrats aren’t allowed to make laws unless strictly delegated to do so, but this goes the next step and establishes it as law. Bravo, write your congressmen and tell them to support this sucker.
Washington state, who’s several billion in the hole financially, is suing Trump, and the Federal government, over a whole list of things, from cutting off funding to various charities while the government figures out what it’s paying for, to the ban on people serving in the military that have to have daily medications and jam stuff into their fake vagina’s every night to keep them from closing up, to the ban on performing genital mutilation surgery on minors… They can’t afford to pay the bills, but they’re going to spend millions if not billions on these lawsuits that they’re going to end up losing, so that they can show how anti Trump they are. (Look, if you can’t deploy, you don’t belong in uniform. If you have to be under a doctors care and take medicines daily, like epileptics, diabetics, or transexuals, you can’t deploy. That’s why Epileptics can’t enlist, for example. Medically retire the ones that are in uniform, and refuse any future enlistments for medical reasons. The medical retirement of the few currently serving is a cheep price to pay to get this shit put to bed.)
in other news, Tom Knighton did such a good job of covering how Politico is lying out their ass, using the “that depends on what the meaning of “is” is” defense, that I’m just going to send you there. /politico-is-scrambling-to-cover-themselves
In Navy news, we have this piece /russia-nato-spy-ship-audio-mediterranean-syria- It seems that one of Russia’s antiquated POS spy ships (AGI for those of you in the know) specifically the Kildin, caught fire while trying to do surveillance on a NATO op in the eastern med, to the point where she was “not under command” for a while. If you’re not a sailor, “not under command” is a legal term, meaning you have no control over your ship, it’s drifting with the sea.
These things were pieces of shit when I was serving, twenty-five years ago. They ain’t getting any better. So much for the vaunted Russian Navy.
SAL hit three navy articles out of the park this week, what-if-canada-were-conservative? About the new Prime Minster of Canada’s plans for Defense spending, (spoiler, he approves, as do I) china-moves-on-the-cook-islands about yet another China land grab. At this point it’s worth mentioning that this sort of move by China is being used as a justification for all the USAID stuff. The trouble is, the USAID money wasn’t spent on viable projects that the various nations wanted, it was spent on things like “how to teach teachers in the Cook Islands to respect queers and transexuals, and how to normalize that behavior.” In short, stuff that they didn’t want or need. Far from keeping people our friends, it actively made enemies.
Also on that front: Look if you gotta pay people to be your friends, they ain’t your friends. The only way that sort of thing works, is the way China does it. By the way, that’s also the way guys with middle names of “the” do it… You know, guys like “Vinny the bat,” or “Mack the knife?” Guys that will be your friend, and loan you money, then send around leg breakers to collect on the VIG. That’s not something we should be doing. If we did that, we really would be the Evil Empire that we’re accused of being by commies the world over. But then, as usual, Commies project, and claim everyone else is doing the shit that they are doing.
Finally, we have this piece from SAL: /the-chinese-arctic-is-an-actual-thing that discusses the sharp elbows the PRC is swinging in the Artic, even though they don’t have any land on the Artic. He also asks the very reasonable question of why our alleged allies in Norway, and Iceland, are allowing the PRC military access to their country. And make no mistake a PRC “research station” is a military foothold. Go read it, it’s stuff you need to know.
The closing observation here, is that Trump is running the Left in circles, making them respond, instead of running their own game. That’s a good thing. He’s also making Iran and North Korea respond, which is also good. The PRC on the other hand, is still acting instead of reacting. That is going to be the long run threat, folks. If the PRC can be kept from starting a shooting war for another ten years, the worst of this is probably over, because Population is destiny, and the PRC’s population problems are about to come due. The trick is keeping them from starting a war while they can still maybe win it.
That’s where spending more on the Navy comes in. We beat the Soviet Union without firing an official shot (unofficial weapons exchanges may or may not have happened) by out spending them, and making them dance to our tune until their whole house of cards collapsed (to mix my metaphors.)
The trouble is, the PRC saw that game. They understand how we played it. It’s going to be harder against them. But the alternative is taking our orders from Beijing or getting in a shooting war west of the international date line. Neither of those are optimal.
QOTD "Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.” President Trump.
Yours in Service,
William Lehman