In the other chair, on most days, sits a nonagenarian who could easily pass for a person twenty years younger. He is a few inches short of six feet, and bald except for an arc of gray hair along the sides and back of his head. A slightly large and hawkish nose and an ever-present pair of slightly out-of-date wire-rimmed eyeglasses dominate his features. Behind the spectacles sparkle a pair of brilliant blue eyes. He speaks softly and sparingly. But when he does speak his often-cryptic comments almost invariably go to the core of the issue at hand.
His name is Andrew Walter Marshall. Since the early days of the Cold War he has been one of America’s most influential and enduring strategic thinkers.
Now well into his seventh decade of public service, Marshall has been described as one of the “Wizards of Armageddon”—an intellectual giant comparable to such nuclear strategists as Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, and Albert Wohlstetter, men whose insights influenced the decisions of US presidents, defense secretaries, and senior military leaders during the Cold War and beyond. His intellectual journey toward becoming one of the nation’s most influential behind-the-scenes strategists can be dated to the late 1940s, when he was studying for a master’s degree of economics at the University of Chicago. There, among other things, he assisted the physicist Gerhardt Groetzinger with a cyclotron and played bridge with Kenneth Arrow, who later won the Nobel Prize in economics. Joining the RAND Corporation in 1949, Marshall was quickly drawn into the unprecedented intellectual challenges confronting US strategists during the early days of the nuclear missile age. From his pathbreaking work at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and early 1960s to his establishment of a net assessment program in the Pentagon, Marshall emerged as one of the United States’ leading strategic thinkers during what proved to be a long, bitter, and dangerous standoff with the Soviet Union. After the Cold War ended, he fathered the debate within the US military over the “revolution in military affairs” and foresaw more clearly than most the emerging changes in America’s national-security environment and the challenges they would pose as the United States entered the twenty-first century.
The crowning intellectual achievement of Marshall’s twenty-three years at RAND (1949–1972) was arguably his creation of a long-term competition framework for analyzing the US-Soviet rivalry in intercontinental nuclear forces, which he recognized was fundamentally a series of moves and countermoves in peacetime aimed at gaining relative advantage. Subsequently, while working on Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council, he drew on this framework to develop a conception of net assessment that remains valid to this day. For Marshall net assessments were careful comparisons of US weapon systems, forces, operational doctrines and practices, training, logistics, design and acquisition approaches, resource allocations, strategies and likely force effectiveness with those of prospective and existing rivals. Net assessments have consistently sought to determine where the United States stood in various areas of military competition relative to rivals and adversaries. Their ultimate aim has been—and remains—to illuminate emerging problems and strategic opportunities far enough in advance for senior leaders to have time to make decisions that will either mitigate the former or exploit the latter. From the USSR’s achievement of strategic nuclear parity in the early 1970s to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following al Qaeda’s 9/11 (September 11, 2001) attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Marshall’s net assessments have been remarkably prescient in identifying the “next big thing” for senior national security officials to worry about or capitalize on. Far ahead of most others, he foresaw the consequences of the revolution in warfare brought about by precision weaponry and the rise of China as a major strategic competitor.
Remarkably, although Marshall has continuously refined the practice of net assessment since 1972, his fundamental conception of the enterprise has stood the test of time. Since the end of the Cold War, the international security environment has undergone dramatic transformation. We have witnessed the rise of Islamic terrorism, China’s astonishing economic growth and military buildup, the continuing proliferation of nuclear weapons in the developing world, and, most recently, the reemergence of revanchist ambitions in Moscow. Yet net assessment—understood as an analytic framework for comprehending the fundamental character of a competitive situation—remains the necessary first step in the formulation of sound strategies, particularly ones that seek to impose disproportionate costs and difficult challenges on the other side.
Marshall has been influencing American strategic thought since the 1950s. His ability to wield influence over such a protracted period of time stems from a rare combination of intellectual and personal qualities. He is clearly brilliant. During RAND’s “golden age” in the 1950s and early 1960s Marshall was described by one colleague as “first among equals.” He also possesses an intense and abiding curiosity as to how things really work. Then there is his intellectual honesty: his willingness to reconsider his beliefs when they conflict with the facts, and to challenge the conventional wisdom whenever it becomes apparent that such thinking does not reflect reality.
Marshall’s intellectual integrity has won the admiration of senior policy makers across the political spectrum. His reputation is such that despite the growth of partisan politics in recent times, he has served under every defense secretary since James Schlesinger and every president since Richard Nixon. His longevity as a senior government policy official is nothing short of astounding.
Although many of his contemporaries have made lasting contributions to America’s security, Marshall is the only one still actively serving in a senior position. He is the last: the last of the generation that grew up during the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in modern times; the last of the generation that in early adulthood provided the muscle and sweat behind what President Franklin D. Roosevelt termed the “arsenal of democracy”; and the last of the generation that shed its blood fighting and winning the most costly war in human history against some of the darkest forces the world has ever seen. In middle age, some of his contemporaries rose in prominence to help bring about the postwar economic boom, while a handful of others helped guide the country through some of the Cold War’s most perilous hours. As they reached seniority, those few who attained the highest positions of responsibility played central roles in ending the forty-year standoff with the most formidable enemy their country had ever confronted, hoping that they had at last witnessed the triumph of liberal democratic order and the “end of history,” as political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously described the triumph of Western values over Soviet communism.
It was not to be. As the few remaining members of this cohort—now labeled by some the “greatest” generation—passed from the public scene, new and formidable challenges, some geopolitical, others economic, emerged once again. Yet Marshall remains, still serving his country.
In recent years some members of the strategic studies community have taken to referring to Andrew Marshall as “the most influential man you’ve never heard of.” Other members of the defense cognoscenti have gone so far as to call him “Yoda” as a tribute to his long experience, wisdom, aversion to the spotlight, and the impressive group of scholars and senior officials whom he has mentored over the years. His close protégés, for their part, have been referred to as “Jedi warriors,” another reference to the Star Wars series of motion pictures. The “Jedi warriors” themselves adopted a more modest term when referring to themselves: They are all proud graduates of “St. Andrew’s Prep.” Most would freely admit that the education they received from Marshall’s mentoring has had a profound influence on their thinking and their work.
Marshall cringes at even this much attention. He has always preferred to operate behind the scenes. To this day, this is predominately where his influence has been felt. His thinking about such subjects as surprise attack, the role organizations play in decision-making, and competitive strategies, has been the inspiration behind the pri
ncipal contributions of such well-known scholars as Graham Allison and Roberta Wohlstetter. Marshall himself, more often than not, is discernable only in the background, his presence felt but not always openly acknowledged in the many ideas and thinkers he has influenced. This book, then, is an attempt to bring him out of the wings and onto center stage.
The Last Warrior strives to capture Marshall’s intellectual contributions to US defense strategy. Unfortunately, much of what he has written, as well as the products of the Office of Net Assessment, remains classified. Consequently, this book is based on extensive interactions and interviews with the man himself as well as those documents and materials that are publicly available. They offer the most complete picture of his life and work as we are likely to have for a generation or two, until the full extent of his contributions is revealed through the progressive declassification of documents stretching back to the early days of the Cold War. Yet, although necessarily incomplete, much of what is presented in the pages that follow is not widely known, even to those who have known Marshall longest.
In large part this incomplete understanding of Marshall’s intellectual legacy stems from his strong aversion to self-promotion; indeed, one of his fondest sayings is, “There is no end to the good a person can do if he does not care about who gets the credit.” Another reason for his lack of public fame centers on his belief that others, especially those he has mentored, should be left to travel their own intellectual journeys of discovery, much as he has done himself. Marshall’s own contributions are very much the product of self-education and the informal exchange of ideas with colleagues. Rather than impose his intellectual views upon others, he has instead sought to provide them with the guidance and encouragement they need to develop their own views.
Similarly, in his exchanges with several generations of America’s most senior government officials, Marshall has steadfastly avoided giving them detailed recommendations as to what course of action they should pursue. Using a medical metaphor, he has been perhaps his country’s foremost strategic “diagnostician.” He has been very reticent about offering specific “prescriptions.” This stems from his realization that an accurate diagnosis is the key to identifying the proper strategic prescription. Or, as Marshall has on occasion put it, “I’d rather have decent answers to the right questions than great answers to irrelevant questions.”
This behind-the-scenes approach to exerting influence has suited both Marshall’s intellectual preferences and innate modesty. It has also allowed him to avoid the wider recognition his contributions richly merit. Some sense this; hence the “Yoda” references he disdains. Yet the fact remains that Andrew Marshall stands as perhaps one of the most enduring—and insightful—contributors to the evolution of US national security and defense strategy since this nation emerged as a global power seventy years ago. His story, in a sense, is the story of the United States as a superpower—and it is one that anyone wishing to understand the past, present, and future of American foreign policy and defense strategy would do well to study for insights into how this country has made it this far, what dangers lie ahead, and how they might be avoided or overcome.
1
A SELF-EDUCATED MAN 1921–1949
I’d rather have decent answers to the right question than great answers to irrelevant questions.
—ANDREW MARSHALL
Andrew Walter Marshall arrived in this world on September 13, 1921, in the city of Detroit. His parents named their first son after the infant’s seafaring grandfather.
The newborn’s father, John Marshall, was born in 1886 in the port city of Liverpool, some 175 miles northwest of London along England’s west coast. He was the youngest of four children, with two brothers and a sister. Their father, Andrew Marshall, was the engineer on a ship that ran between Liverpool and Buenos Aires. After he was killed in an accident at sea, his wife took their children, including John, back to Carluke, a small town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, where she had grown up. Not long afterward she passed away as well.
Not much is known about how the four orphaned children were raised. What is known is that John Marshall was less educated than his two elder brothers, perhaps due to their parents’ untimely deaths. Upon reaching adulthood they all emigrated from Scotland to either Canada or the United States. Christina, John’s sister, chose Canada and eventually married a World War I fighter ace, settling down on a large farm in Saskatchewan. One brother, Arthur, came to the United States and migrated west. Over time the family gradually lost track of him. The other brother, who was also named Andrew, had attended a technical school and became a craftsman-engineer, settling in Dayton, Ohio, where he worked at Wright Field with two of his cousins, Fred and Tom Russell.
Unlike many European immigrants who entered the United States at Ellis Island in New York harbor, John Marshall took an indirect route. He traveled first to South Africa, India, Australia, and then to Canada as he looked for a place to settle down. He arrived in Detroit via Ontario, where he met Katherine Last who, like him, was a British expatriate.
Katherine was born on December 27, 1894, the middle child in a family of thirteen children. She was raised in the small town of Halstead in Essex County, northeast of London. In the late nineteenth century Essex was a manufacturing center and Halstead was known for its weaving. One of Katherine’s more enterprising elder sisters, Maude, immigrated to the United States and settled in Detroit. In 1916 Katherine joined her there.
John and Katherine married in 1920. Having met in Detroit, they decided their family would plant its roots in the United States, and they both became American citizens.
The year after their marriage Andrew Marshall was born in his parents’ home, a relatively rare event in today’s America but quite common in those times. The two-story detached house was modest but comfortable, a reflection of the lower-middle-class blue-collar section of Detroit where the Marshalls lived. A second son, Frederick John Marshall, was born in December 1922. He was named after one of his mother’s brothers, but everyone called him Jack.
Unlike the hollowed-out, financially insolvent city of today, the Detroit of Andrew Marshall’s youth was a vibrant, growing metropolis. The city was a key part of America’s rapidly expanding industrial sector—a kind of early-twentieth-century Silicon Valley. Automobiles were the new sensation. Such innovations as Henry Ford’s assembly-line production techniques made cars affordable for the middle class. The United States was becoming a nation on wheels, with Detroit—“Motor City”—its capital.
Andrew Marshall’s boyhood years were in many ways typical of that bygone era. He enjoyed sports, playing pickup baseball and football, and, during Michigan’s long, cold winters, ice-skating. The family made periodic trips to Dayton to visit his father’s brother Andrew. Young Andrew bonded with his uncle, who on one occasion took him to an open house day conducted by the Army Air Corps at Wright Field. The airplanes on display, especially the large bomber aircraft, awed young Andrew, who would develop a lifelong interest in military affairs.
Marshall’s father was a kind and generous man, and within the family Andrew naturally gravitated toward him. This was made all the easier as Katherine was the source of order in the family, the principal disciplinarian for Andrew and Jack. She also managed the family finances with intelligence and prudence. Even during the Great Depression, when her husband went through a long stretch during which he had trouble getting work as a stonemason, Katherine’s financial acuity enabled the family to weather the country’s economic downturn without the severe hardships that were visited upon many of their neighbors. Things were tight but there was no wolf at the door.
Young Andrew possessed an intense curiosity, combined with a love of reading, both of which he inherited from his father, whose interests were diverse. The family’s modest library included a multivolume literature collection and a set of encyclopedias. Andrew devoured the books and, in seeking further intellectual stimulation, discovered the main Detroit Public Library. Funded by Andrew
Carnegie, the library opened its doors in the same year as Marshall’s birth. Andrew started visiting the library at an early age. He also began using his modest allowance to buy his own books, reading widely on topics ranging from chess and mathematics to history, literature, and warfare.
On a trip to one of his mother’s relatives in the city, Andrew came upon a set of the 1911 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica. During subsequent visits the precocious young man would steal away to sit by himself and read entries, many of which were written by some of the leading figures in their respective fields. Having access to some of the best minds in the world in this way so excited Marshall that he started saving money to buy a set of his own, which he did as a teenager—quite an accomplishment, given the considerable cost of The Encyclopaedia Britannica, then and now.
Marshall attended Marxhausen Elementary School, about a half-dozen blocks from his home. This was followed by what today would be called middle school at Barbour, a little farther away. In those days children walked to school, irrespective of the weather, and even a few blocks’ distance could be a challenge in the Michigan winter. At Barbour, students were separated into homerooms according to academic proficiency. Andrew’s homeroom boasted the top students.
Toward the end of his last year at Barbour, Marshall and his classmates were given an exam, a kind of aptitude test. Some days later the principal asked to see Andrew, another boy, and three girls. The principal questioned them about their plans for further education. “Where are you going to go to high school?” she wanted to know. It was quickly apparent to Andrew that she had called them in because he and the others had scored extraordinarily high on the exam. When Andrew told her his parents planned for him to attend Cass Technical High School, she expressed some concern. Cass was a good school, she said, but she emphasized that he should go to college, and a technical high school wouldn’t give him the preparation he needed. She seemed to fear that since his father was a stonemason, Andrew would see Cass as the way to acquire a trade or craft and not fulfill his intellectual potential.
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