Sea Control

Sea Control 601: Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals

Episode Summary

Ian Brown joins the program to talk about his book - Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals John Boyd's Vision for Thriving in Chaos, and John Boyd’s continuing relevance to current events.

Episode Notes

Ian T. Brown is a retired Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pilot, with multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Pacific throughout his career. He has written dozens of articles, reviews, and short stories on military history, military theory, future war, and wargaming, to include the book A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare (Marine Corps University Press, 2018), which was added to the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Professional Reading List in 2019 and remains on the list today. He has also contributed to or developed several commercial wargame designs, including the card game #Maneuver Warfare, published by the Dietz Foundation in 2025.

J. Overton is co-host of the Sea Control podcast and edited the essay collection “Seapower by Other Means: Naval Contributions to National Objectives Beyond Sea Control, Power Projection, and Traditional Service Missions.”

Links -

Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals: John Boyd's Vision for Thriving in Chaos. 

New Conception of War 

Marine Corps University Press online order form (can be used for hard copies of all their books, including “New Conception of War” and “Snowmobiles”)

 #Maneuver Warfare card game: