“This assessment of the strategic forces balance employs the methodology Andrew W. Marshall developed during his tenure as the director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), a position he held for over 40 years following its founding in 1973. But while Marshall offered a definition of net assessment, he persistently refused requests to provide a definitive structure for how to craft one. This is easily understandable when one realizes that there are different kinds of net assessments: regional, functional, and technical. Moreover, by refusing to provide a cookie-cutter process for net assessments, Marshall left the door open to improve upon the methodology.”
Hudson Institute
February 2025
March 14, 2023
The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI)
“Foreign policy strategist Andrew Marshall had a career that spanned seven decades from the late 1940s. He was hailed by a former KGB officer as ‘the grey cardinal, the éminence grise’ of the U.S. revolution of military affairs, and as ‘the great hero’ of Chinese officers tracking developments in U.S. military technology, claiming they had translated every word he wrote. Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken joins ‘Talking Strategy’ to discuss his work and life.”
January 16, 2023
Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC)
“Known throughout parts of the American national security establishment as “Yoda,” referred to by The Atlantic as the “Brain of the Pentagon,” and respected worldwide for his decades of strategic work at RAND, the National Security Council, and finally in founding and running the Office of Net Assessment, Andrew Marshall was a critical figure in the Cold War and post-Cold War history of American security and strategy. He was also an intellectual figure who left a limited imprint on the literature of American national security, having written the vast majority of his work for classified audiences and publishing very little in the open.”
December 19, 2022
Book Review
“U.S. national security is recovering from over twenty years of Instant Gratification Warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat posed by the People’s Republic of China requires the U.S. to think in decades instead of in deployment cycles, and develop strategies and plans in an integrated manner. “Reflection on Net Assessment” is the perfect book for someone who needs to shake off organizationally-incentivized impatience and focus on long-term threats.”
March 2020
Cambria Press
In Thomas G. Mahnken’s Net Assessment and Military Strategy, former members of Marshall’s staff and those who benefited from his mentorship present essays on the history, tenets, applications, and influence of net assessment and Marshall’s work. Featuring an introduction by Andrew Marshall, this volume is essential reading that traces net assessment’s impact on U.S. national security and defense strategy from the Cold War to today.
January 6, 2015
Basic Books
In The Last Warrior, Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts—both former members of Marshall’s staff—trace Marshall’s intellectual development from his upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to his decades in Washington as an influential behind-the-scenes advisor on American defense strategy. The result is a unique insider’s perspective on the changes in U.S. strategy from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day.
2020
Journal of Strategic Studies
“Andrew W. Marshall, who shaped the way in which contemporary international security experts think about strategy, has been mostly associated with the invention of net assessment. The intellectual sources of this analytical technique, and of the related competitive strategies concept, could be traced to Marshall’s efforts to uncover Soviet post-World War II defense transformations. This article outlines the essence of these Soviet innovations – the empirical frame of reference that inspired Marshall. It provides a new perspective on the history of the net-assessment methodology, advances the debate within strategic studies over the nature of military innovations, and offers insights for experts examining defense transformations worldwide.”
May 2020
The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation
This publication features reflections, remarks, and essays by:
Graham Allison
Mie Augier
Jesse Ausubel
Gordon Barrass
Rebecca Bash
Keith Bickel
Jacqueline Deal
Nicholas Eberstadt
David Epstein
David Fahrenkrug
Aaron Friedberg
Melissa Hathaway
Andrew Krepinevich
Scooter Libby
Andrew May
Jeffrey S. McKitrick
John Milam
Chip Pickett
Dmitry Ponomareff
Jim Powell
James Roche
Stephen P. Rosen
Paul Selva
Abram Shulsky
Anna Simons
Lionel Tiger
Barry Watts
