Own Words
We are pleased to share a new series featuring selected writings and speeches by Andy in his own words. In addition to informing the next generation of strategic thinkers, our hope is that this series will illuminate not just what Andy thought but how he thought. We invite you to raise your own questions, come to your own conclusions, and share them with us. We hope you derive insights from Andy’s approach that provoke your own thinking about the strategic challenges facing the U.S. today.
We are grateful to Emily Goldman for introducing this series. Emily Goldman is a cyber strategist at US Cyber Command. In 2003, she co-edited The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas, with a foreword by Andrew Marshall. Recent publications include “The Importance of Analytic Superiority in a World of Big Data and AI,” with Robert Grossman, and Cyber Persistence Theory: Redefining National Security in Cyberspace, with Michael Fischerkeller and Richard Harknett.

Emily Goldman
The most important competition is not the technological one; it is an intellectual one. Deriving advantage from disruptive technologies requires innovation in concepts, organization, and process, anticipating opponents and denying their aims. So argued Andy Marshall in the mid-1990s amidst major changes in warfare predicated on precision strike and information operations, enabled by surveillance and real-time command and control. Marshall predicted “information superiority” would occupy operational art because connectivity was essential for precision strike.
Today, artificial intelligence technologies have reached a tipping point after decades of development. Large language models and generative AI offer powerful capabilities that are diffusing widely. As more powerful models built on ever larger data sets become ubiquitous, militaries are in a new competition to deploy AI. Operational art must now embrace “analytic superiority,” the ability to get and manage data, build and deploy models into operational systems, and derive value while denying an adversary’s ability to do the same. We have an extraordinary opportunity to leverage these technologies if we heed Marshall’s counsel that the central issues are intellectual.
A View from Outside the Force
Based on the remarks of Andrew W. Marshall, Director of OSD Net Assessment, delivered at the National Security Industrial Association’s 13 September 1995 Seminar on “Submarines in the Littoral.”

RMA Update
“The purpose of this memo is to put on paper some thoughts about the hypothesis that the next two or three decades will see a revolution in military affairs. The last memo I wrote on this topic was in August of 93. A number of things have happened in the interim that deserve some comment.” – Andrew W. Marshall

Some Thoughts on Military Revolutions
“The purpose of this memo is to put down some ideas about the nature and character of military revolutions and to record where my office is in developing a better understanding of the current, potential military revolution. I also want to put forward some ideas about what ought to be done in the next two or three years. I’m doing this following talks with Bill Perry and John Deutch. Both are quite interested in the notion that a military revolution may be underway, or may be possible. I want to go beyond what I talked about with them to a fuller description of what might be undertaken if they and other top-level officials become convinced that, in fact, we are in the early stages of a major change in the nature of warfare.” – Andrew W. Marshall
