News Filter: News Releases
Praise for “The Incalculable Element,” from James N. Mattis
Letter from James N. Mattis, 26th United States Secretary of Defense, to Jaymie Durnan, Co-founder and Chairman of the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation
Praise for “‘The Incalculable Element’: Ancient Innovations for Modern Security Problems,” by Emily A. Davis
“In a word, this is wonderful. It is an apt, appropriate use of applied history. In a tumultuous time when journalists seem to be the only voices trying to make sense of our situation, nearly all historians have been unable to give us guideposts or a compass to orient us to solutions. As W. Churchill put it, the more one can look into the past, the further one can look into the future….This paper rates study and application to our own thinking about what we face. Vice dismissing the reasons for the internal disarray, Hermocrates sought to understand them and then to show them why they must mature their thinking. Where in America is such informed leadership today?
This is an award-winning paper in the truest sense of the word. This demonstrates why we need historians who can apply history to our current situation. As SecDef I often got my best new ideas from old books/history.
This paper is nothing short of exciting in what it unlocks. Many, many thanks for what your team is bringing to the fore in this paper Ms. Davis has crafted. I’m inspired and humbled by her application of history. Hermocrates ranks with Aurelian guiding Rome out of the crisis of the third century AD or Choiseul’s thoughtful leadership under the Sun King. Kudos to your Marshall Foundation and Ms. Emily! Hooray to you all, Jaymie. Only you could orchestrate such thinking with the way you’ve crafted, a method that rewards and draws out innovative thinking.”
Announcing the Finalists of the 2023 Chain-Writing Experiment on Collapse
Warm Wishes and Happy New Year from the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation
Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prize on the Role of Organizational Behavior in Competition
Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prize on Creative Bursts and Intellectual Outliers
Advisor Jesse Ausubel Awarded 2022 Nierenberg Prize
The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation (AWMF) congratulates Jesse Ausubel, member of our Advisory Group and Director of the Program for the Human Environment at the Rockefeller University, on receiving the 2022 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The Nierenberg Prize is an annual award honoring the late William A. Nierenberg, an American physicist and former director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Previous awardees have included Warren M. Washington, Jennifer Doudna, Sir David Attenborough, and Jane Goodall.
Jesse is an integral member of the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation; his ever-curious nature and sage guidance are vital to our community, and we are honored that he has dedicated time and effort to our mission.
Jesse’s work includes the Census of Marine Life, the International Barcode of Life, the Encyclopedia of Life, the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, and the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project, among many other ground-breaking activities.
Owen J. Daniels Named as Second Andrew W. Marshall Fellow
Hosted by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown University
Jaffrey, NH – The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation (AWMF) welcomes its second Andrew W. Marshall Fellow, Owen J. Daniels, who will be hosted in residence at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown University from 2022 to 2024.
A Policy Communications Specialist at CSET, Owen was also the grand prize winner of the inaugural Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prize on New Revolutions in Military Affairs, for his paper, “The ‘AI RMA’: The Revolution Has Not Arrived (Yet).”
The Andrew W. Marshall Fellow experiment provides new voices with the time, space, resources, and guidance to take new approaches to explore strategic questions facing the United States. In keeping with the spirit of Andy Marshall’s legacy, Fellows have great freedom to select a topic to explore over a two-year period in residence at a host institution. They are valued for their original thinking and are expected to think broadly, creatively, and break new analytical ground.
As a Fellow, Owen will explore broad questions related to U.S. technology strategy, particularly in the context of U.S. partners and allies and their relationships to U.S. competitors.
“We are delighted to continue working with Owen beyond his work on the paper prize and now as an Andrew W. Marshall Fellow at CSET,” Jaymie Durnan, Co-founder and Chairman of AWMF, said. “Owen has proven himself to be a curious, critical thinker. We are enthusiastic about working with CSET to foster him as he explores questions pertinent to the long-term security of the United States.”
“Owen brought to CSET a passion for strategic analysis as a result of his experiences at the Atlantic Council and the Institute for Defense Analyses,” CSET Director of Analysis Igor Mikolic-Torreira said. “His passion for this work is matched by the talent he demonstrated as a winner of the inaugural Andrew W. Marshall Foundation paper competition. At CSET, Owen has the freedom to explore the strategic issues posed as the U.S. for the first time faces a technological and economic peer. The mentorship and support provided by the Andrew W. Marshall Fellowship will help shape Owen as a strategic thinker contributing to the long-term security of the United States, in the tradition of Andrew Marshall.”
Established in January 2019, CSET is a research organization focused on studying the security impacts of emerging technologies, supporting academic work in security and technology studies, and delivering nonpartisan analysis to the policy community.
AWMF was established by Andrew W. Marshall and Jaymie Durnan. AWMF’s mission is to find and foster new voices who apply analytical approaches across disciplines to explore the strategic questions facing the United States. It prioritizes potential over popularity, thinking over volume, and courage over caution.
For more information, visit AWMF and CSET.
For media inquiries, contact AWMF at info@andrewwmarshallfoundation.org or CSET at Adrienne.Thompson@georgetown.edu.Follow AWMF on Twitter @AWMFoundtn and on LinkedIn.
Follow CSET on Twitter @CSETGeorgetown and LinkedIn.
Follow Owen Daniels on Twitter @OJDaniels.
Thoughts on Andrew Marshall’s Impact
Dear friends,
It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since we celebrated what would have been Andy Marshall’s 100th birthday. Today, as I think about Andy and the impact he had – and continues to have – on so many of us, I am reminded of a few things I’d like to share.
First, I remember what I learned from Andy about why we do what we do. Something he shared with the people he supported, and those who supported him, was a love of the United States, and what the United States could be. His contributions to national security were deep and vast, but not made through the number of op-eds he wrote (zero) or think tank panels on which he was featured (not many). While public amplification of one’s ideas is certainly commendable, it was Andy’s authentic nature, incisive thinking, and commitment to sharing unconventional ideas when they were important that made him invaluable to our country. Because of this, the Foundation also prioritizes potential over popularity, thinking over volume, and courage over caution.
Second, I remember that people are the products of their time, but good people – curious people – can break through their mental models, cultivate new ones, and support people different from themselves. There’s no doubt that growing up in the Great Depression, as well as being educated and entering the workforce during World War II and the early years of the Cold War, influenced Andy and his thinking. But as we all know, his penchant for new knowledge and new ways of looking at the world were second to none. He welcomed into his life people with dissenting ideas and opinions, people both junior and more seasoned, those trained in a discipline and jacks and jills of all trades, academics and practitioners, analysts and creators, and ever so many more.
And third, let’s not forget Andy’s thirst for life. On this day, I recommend that you cook some French food, open a nice bottle of wine, read about something you haven’t learned before, and cultivate that new hobby you’ve been meaning to jump into. Andy’s eclectic interests fostered – and were vital to – his intellectual accomplishments. Our memories of Andy would be false without recognizing how exuberantly he lived outside of his office.
As always, we could not do our work without you, and there’s so much more we can do. Finding new voices like Andy found new voices, and fostering them in his spirit, relies on this strong community. It is my honor to serve this family and continue to build it for the future.
Sincerely,
Jaymie Durnan
Co-founder and Chairman
Announcing the Winners of the Inaugural Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prizes
Jake Bebber Named as Second Andrew W. Marshall Scholar
Sponsored by Hudson Institute
Jaffrey, NH – The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation (AWMF) welcomes its second Andrew W. Marshall Scholar, Robert “Jake” Bebber, who will be sponsored by Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology from May 2022 to April 2023.
The Andrew W. Marshall Scholar experiment provides new voices with the resources and guidance to conduct a year-long study on U.S. national security.
Jake’s study will offer a methodological approach to understand and evaluate complex social systems necessary for the United States to achieve strategic effects. Building on the U.S. Cyber Command’s effective operational concepts of persistent engagement and defending forward, the study will apply trends in neuroscience, dual use technology, and financial business models to focus on confrontation and tools below armed conflict. The study’s results will propose lines of effort that create battlespace awareness, identify U.S. and adversary vulnerabilities, conduct cognitive and counter-cognitive campaigns, and best build and employ forces and capabilities to compete and win in this enduring confrontation.
“The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation is delighted to welcome Jake into its community of new voices,” Jaymie Durnan, Co-founder and Chairman of AWMF, said. “Jake’s interdisciplinary study will use an innovative social science approach to explore important questions about U.S. strategy to compete below the threshold of armed conflict.”
“Jake’s research will apply his experience and knowledge of cyber operations to explore new ways of thinking about great power confrontations,” Bryan Clark, Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said. “U.S. Cyber Command is one element of the U.S. government that is effectively countering Chinese and Russian hybrid or gray-zone aggression, which offers some insights for U.S. strategy more broadly.”
Established in July 2020, Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology examines the evolving field of military competition and the implications of emerging technologies for defense strategy, military operations, capability development, and acquisition.
In 2021, Hudson Institute selected Arthur Tellis as the inaugural Andrew W. Marshall Scholar. Arthur’s study, to be published in the spring of 2022, focuses on the role of economics in the U.S.-China competition.
For more information, visit the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation and Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.
For media inquiries, contact the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation at info@andrewwmarshallfoundation.org or Hudson Institute at press@hudson.org.
Follow AWMF on Twitter @AWMFoundtn and LinkedIn.
Follow Hudson Institute on Twitter @HudsonInstitute and LinkedIn.
Call for Submissions: The 2022 Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prizes
The Role of Organizational Behavior in Competition & Creative Bursts and Intellectual Outliers
The Andrew W. Marshall Foundation (AWMF) is offering two multi-round prizes of up to $13,000 each for intellectually bold work on The Role of Organizational Behavior in Competition and Creative Bursts and Intellectual Outliers.
AWMF seeks submissions that reinvigorate strategic thinking on organizational behavior and its impact on strategic competition, and submissions that examine how collective creativity among peer groups or within an organization comes about, is fostered, and is maintained.
Read the Competition Guidelines
Winners will have the opportunity to present their work to leading scholars and practitioners in the national security field and beyond, and have their submission published as a working paper by AWMF.
Both paper prize competitions consist of three rounds. Submissions of paper synopses for consideration for the Round One prizes are due by 11:59 PM ET on Monday, 21 February 2022.
Round One
Submission of Paper Synopsis
Up to 10 Semi-Finalists Awarded $500
Round Two
Submission of Paper
Up to 5 Finalists Awarded $2,500
Round Three
Submission of Final Paper
Grand Prize Winner Awarded $10,000
These competitions are open to all. AWMF is eager to find new voices of any age, background, experience, or discipline, including practitioners and scholars from non-traditional backgrounds with knowledge and skills transferable to national security studies.