Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Last Warrior 2

Andrew krepinevich and barry watts talk about their book at the pentagons office and the pentagons think tank from 1973 to 2015. The coauthors are former members of marshalls staff. This event was held at the nixon president ial library and museum in yorba linda california. [applause] tonights discussion is that Andrew Marshall who served from nixon to obama. He retired january at the ripe age of 93 years old. For his pioneering work called the hidden hand before and behind American Foreign policy. His two former aides, let me back up for a second. What is significant is nixon tapped marshall to evaluate our military capabilities against that of our adversaries at the time namely the soviet union to the concept is called net assessment. His former aides Andrew Krepinevich and sub diver here to discuss the achievements of their mentor tonight and sign copies of their biography about him called the lost warrior Andrew Marshall and shaping of modern defense strategy. Mr. Krepinevichs it is the author of several books on military history and strategy including the very influential the army in vietnam. He is a west point graduate and a retired army officer and he also received his ph. D. From harvard university. Barry wattss a senior at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments. He also has said great body of work including friction and future werent prior to joining cs b. A. The head of the office of Program Analysis and evaluation at the pentagon he worked for northropgrumman and insert in the air force priest a graduate of the u. S. Air force academy and delta masters at the university of pittsburgh. Our program will be moderated by Jeffrey Herrera who is a Fletcher Jones associate professor of clinical studies and claremont and among the courses he teaches at our Global Politics and security and International Political economy. He holds a b. A. From Swarthmore College and the ladies and gentlemen Andrew Krepinevich, barry watts and jim herrera. [applause] first off thanks to the library for having us here this evening for what i think will be an interesting and exciting conversation. The first question gentleman deferred short version is why read this book in the longer version is a small group of washington d. C. Foreignpolicy types, long time ago i was on the far fringes of this group of several dozen or more to know who Andrew Marshall is and speak marshall laura. But i think most americans who follow Foreign Affairs closely have never heard of this man. Tell us a little bit about who he is and why you decided it was important to write what you call an intellectual biography of him. Let me begin by saying this. Over the years i came to appreciate this concept of net assessment is an analytic framework that mr. Marshall developed starting in the early 70s. It is in one sense an archetype of the cold war or an artifact of the cold war but its also the case and i think andrew would agree they both became persuaded that it had the utility and value in the postcold war environment even today. So because the office itself and andy i would have to say to be candid tended to be very secretive and the nature of the work that was done in the office was not the sort of thing youd like to see on the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow morning. Even when many people who have worked at the pentagon have little understanding of net assessment so in hopes that this form of analysis would continue the future and others would grab ahold a hold of it and continue to use the tool and the methodology we decided it was important to write this book and explain his legacy to a wider audience. If you would like to talk about it. To add to what barry said one reason for writing the book is theres not a lot known but theres not a lot known about a lot of things. We thought that the story needed to be told because in a number of instances this individual Andrew Marshall had a remarkably great level of influence on how Senior Defense officials even outside the pentagon came to think about our military competition with the soviet union and after the cold war what kind of world we were finding ourselves in and how we needed to think about that and prepare ourselves so we put be able to anticipate the problems as opposed to reacting to them. Its better to anticipate them to react when you live in a dangerous world. First of all is going to be 94 and september so he is a child of the depression, grew up during the depression. Remarkable that he is a selfeducated individual. He has no bachelors degree but his scores were so high that the university of chicago took him into their Masters Program after world war ii their Economics Program so he is a masters in economics but no bachelors degree. He is the kind of guy who attracts the attention of brilliant people and so when he was at the university of chicago during world war ii he was ruled ineligible for the draft because of a heart condition so he went to work in a munitions factory, actually weapons plant building bombers, parts for bombers but he was working with this metal shop at the university of chicago and earn some money to pay for his education. In walks a guy who is working on his cyclotron and they haul off marshall and he helps them fix fix it with order of magnitude improving in the cyclotron. He ends up playing bridge with a guy named Kenneth Arrow who ends up winning the nobel prize in economics. Its one after another after another and it almost reminds you of the forest gump. You have this really smart guy who keeps bumping into all these fascinating people. And the other thing i guess thats quite interesting is he is sort of on the ground floor of some pathbreaking work on how we understand Human Behavior behavior of organizations and there was a huge debate in the 1970s of how formidable the soviet union was. It was a big battle between marshall and the cia and he had the moral convictions to pursue that debate. In the end he was proven right. The other thing i would say another reason we havent heard a story he is terrible at selfpromotion which is why we had to do the book instead of him. [laughter] but i used to kid and say you throw words around like manhole covers. These sorts of things but behind that sort of exterior masks a very emotional person and there are some stories in the book and id be glad to talk to you about them if youre interested of the deep feeling he has about other people, but the people he has mentored, many over the years and also about his country. I thought that was reflective of the other to the greatest generation. So barry began by mentioning this concept of net assessment which is if its a biography of a human being at the biography of Andrew Marshall but its a biography of net assessment. After introducing our human star maybe we should introduce our conceptual star. Tell us a little bit about what net assessment is but also this is interesting to me and im asking questions i guess. Why did an emerge when it did in the 1970s in the Nixon Administration in what had the pentagon been doing before that time to try and assess the military capability of days preeminent adversary in the military balance between the United States and the soviet union lacks. I was more than one question. I suppose it was. You can pick the one you want to answer. What were the origins of this notion of net assessment . He would go back to the German Administration and the special of value value a valuation subcommittee to assess where the president. This was a group on the National Security council, what damages soviet Armed Nuclear attack would inflict on the United States. When that was continued by president eisenhower it kept on looking at the problem of the damage that the soviets could inflict with a Nuclear Attack on United States. He continued exploring that in various ways termination managing the damage and so on and so forth into the mid60s when Robert Mcnamara who was secretary of defense at the time decided to cancel it because he had the office of systems analysis at that point and he didnt think he needed any help deciding what things to buy and what things to procure from the National Security council. So was canceled. Within a year or two people who were involved in not began to raise the possibility in what was written to the president for example suggesting they needed to reconstitute a net assessment capability on the nsc or in the Defense Department and the concern there was fundamentally given i think by two elements. One by the early 70s the soviets in absolute terms were starting to outspend the United States in terms of military programs in an absolute sense. And it looked like that trend was going to continue and it did in fact continue up until the reagan administration. So during the decade of the 70s they outspend us by 88 probably Something Like 300 or 4 million. Secondly the other Major Development that and he talked about at great length during the 70s was the soviets achieving basic Strategic Nuclear parity with the United States. On one hand the competitors started outspending and on the other hand he is a Nuclear Capability which could in fact if push came to shove and deterrence fail. In the context of those developments people thought it was increasingly important and if you are being outspent you had better make that strategic choices. So the idea which cropped up in a special Defense Panel with Henry Kissinger and that andy was involved in in 1970 basically Charlie Herzfeld who was a guy who gave the goahead for the arpanet and what became the internet suggested to andy and to jam insert that they needed to measure and track where we stood in various areas of military competition relative to the soviets. Actually nixons blue ribbon Defense Panel suggested as one of his recommendations that they established that kind of capability in the Defense Department. Andy didnt have anything to do with that. He was working on intelligence issues for the president and for Henry Kissinger so it wasnt until they reorganize the Intelligence Committee that a net assessment capability was recreated and established on the nsc. Within a couple of years that was then transferred to the pentagon to the secretary of defense. Schlessinger and marshall outran colleagues and friends. They both worried about things like where the United States stood relative to the soviet union and whether we were tracking that so we could make more informative and useful strategic decisions. That was really the beginning of net assessment. Andy moved to the pentagon and a somewhat turbulent. Back in 1973. Effective the move to the pentagon occurred during the middle of the yom kippur war. If those of you familiar with the Nixon Administration you remember 72 and 73 were very busy. Back at the white house. There was the opening to china and the renewal of the easter offensive in vietnam despite the efforts of kissinger and nixon to get us out of vietnam. There was the abm treaty signed in moscow as well as a strategic arms Limitation Treaty and in 72 was an electionyear and something funny happened in the Watergate Hotel which have all kinds of consequences and that period. I would add a little bit to that. As barry said by the early 70s there is his recognition that we cant outspend these guys anymore. We cant just spend money and beat them that way. They have caught up to us and conventional capability and probably advantage Nuclear Capability. They are outspending us so systems analysis focused on questions like is this thing better than that tank come, is this plain better than that plane . Marshall said we need to look at much broader issues. Can we successfully defend europe against a soviet attack and deter soviet Nuclear Attack . These much broader issues and his point was senior decisionmakers particularly for his job as secretary of defense needs to know how we are doing in these critical areas and he needs to know what the trends are. Are we Getting Better off or worse off and if we are wheres the most important area to invest our funds . So those were the kind of broad issues and he would get into i would say if you are looking at net assessment its diagnostic so martial if he wants to use a medical analogy is trying to get the secretary of defense a good diagnosis of what the real dangers were, what the diseases were out there would threaten our security because if you have a good diagnosis then you have a much better chance of writing a good description. A bad diagnosis, not so good good so theres that aspect to it. With multidisciplinary so when for example marshall looked at the soviet military he wouldnt just look at how many tanks today have and how many planes do they have. He would look at things like demographics and he would find the Health Care System in the soviet union was lousy. There was ahca with some problems. Life expectancies were not good. The percentage of nonspeaking russians was increasing. In a lot of ways they have severe weaknesses if you could get beyond the hardware. Theres also this effort to look at what was called fault lines. Again, one of the reasons why a lot of it is classified. Secretary of defense. It doesnt go any further than that. A little more history. Leading up to another question. And so this concept emerges somewhat reactively to hear the two of you talk in the response, the soviet union and increasing defense spending with respect to American Defense planners. Things start changing. The 2nd cold war the soviet union invades afghanistan. The because the spiral out of control. So a very different strategic environment. The let me just such for a 2nd. Just briefly about the military. An assessment that he did in the office. I raise that because the assessments intended to be as comprehensive as possible flight a few emerging strategic problems. So you have to work out in advance to see what the trends the symmetries are and identify emerging problems or on the Positive Side of a competitive strategy since to focus on opportunities. As secretary of defense wanted to make some specific decisions to exploit that opportunity to work on soviet weaknesses and put some of our strikes against those weaknesses we could make those decisions. As we talked about 12 military technical evolution which was basically the emergence of precision strike capabilities based upon precision munitions sensors and computerize commandandcontrol. The cold war in the 80s. Sorry to advertise, an emerging issue and will change the way wars are fought in the future. And just briefly on the other side of that diagnosis that his business its own military services fundamentally responsibility. The military technical evolution. Trying to raise the issues villagers across the. A couple of things. His 1st tour as defense secretary, the systems analysis people in on friday the assessment to talk. As so many ships of this stuff is so many ships of that type. But stop looking. Wake of the big picture. And his Naval Military secretary of the air force 45 years later major advantages with respect to the soviets and maritime operations. Turns out to be an acoustics. We really need to emphasize the competition and emphasize submarine forces. That is the sort of information really act upon it in a way that would have an enduring affect on the military balance. In the 1980s the started to talk about intelligence strategies. The example of that after he took office in 1977. If anyone will carry Nuclear Weapons, icbms submarines. If we obama we will keep the old ones. Lets look at the lets look a little deeper at the issue. There are certain things that they do that it would be very difficult for them not to do. The worlds longest border, 11,000 miles long. These guys, totalitarian regime. Fanatical about protecting the airspace. So they have this enormous system that has to stretch 11,000 miles. The 3rd thing is they have this military organization. They are airspace constantly lobbying the leadership for air defenses. That is what they do. Look at that and we know the still bomb we dont want to give these guys an excuse not to build their defenses the cost of elder defenses for another 11000 miles of border. The radar signature. The this much to build their defenses. Not not so much whether we need bombers to affect the soviet union a matter of imposing enormously disproportionate costs the number one. Number one. Number two, investing in an area of military competition that we consider much more benign. Its an entirely different way of looking at the problem. System analysis the Andrew Marshall<\/a> who served from nixon to obama. He retired january at the ripe age of 93 years old. For his pioneering work called the hidden hand before and behind American Foreign<\/a> policy. His two former aides, let me back up for a second. What is significant is nixon tapped marshall to evaluate our military capabilities against that of our adversaries at the time namely the soviet union to the concept is called net assessment. His former aides Andrew Krepinevich<\/a> and sub diver here to discuss the achievements of their mentor tonight and sign copies of their biography about him called the lost warrior Andrew Marshall<\/a> and shaping of modern defense strategy. Mr. Krepinevichs it is the author of several books on military history and strategy including the very influential the army in vietnam. He is a west point graduate and a retired army officer and he also received his ph. D. From harvard university. Barry wattss a senior at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments. He also has said great body of work including friction and future werent prior to joining cs b. A. The head of the office of Program Analysis<\/a> and evaluation at the pentagon he worked for northropgrumman and insert in the air force priest a graduate of the u. S. Air force academy and delta masters at the university of pittsburgh. Our program will be moderated by Jeffrey Herrera<\/a> who is a Fletcher Jones<\/a> associate professor of clinical studies and claremont and among the courses he teaches at our Global Politics<\/a> and security and International Political<\/a> economy. He holds a b. A. From Swarthmore College<\/a> and the ladies and gentlemen Andrew Krepinevich<\/a>, barry watts and jim herrera. [applause] first off thanks to the library for having us here this evening for what i think will be an interesting and exciting conversation. The first question gentleman deferred short version is why read this book in the longer version is a small group of washington d. C. Foreignpolicy types, long time ago i was on the far fringes of this group of several dozen or more to know who Andrew Marshall<\/a> is and speak marshall laura. But i think most americans who follow Foreign Affairs<\/a> closely have never heard of this man. Tell us a little bit about who he is and why you decided it was important to write what you call an intellectual biography of him. Let me begin by saying this. Over the years i came to appreciate this concept of net assessment is an analytic framework that mr. Marshall developed starting in the early 70s. It is in one sense an archetype of the cold war or an artifact of the cold war but its also the case and i think andrew would agree they both became persuaded that it had the utility and value in the postcold war environment even today. So because the office itself and andy i would have to say to be candid tended to be very secretive and the nature of the work that was done in the office was not the sort of thing youd like to see on the front page of the Washington Post<\/a> tomorrow morning. Even when many people who have worked at the pentagon have little understanding of net assessment so in hopes that this form of analysis would continue the future and others would grab ahold a hold of it and continue to use the tool and the methodology we decided it was important to write this book and explain his legacy to a wider audience. If you would like to talk about it. To add to what barry said one reason for writing the book is theres not a lot known but theres not a lot known about a lot of things. We thought that the story needed to be told because in a number of instances this individual Andrew Marshall<\/a> had a remarkably great level of influence on how Senior Defense<\/a> officials even outside the pentagon came to think about our military competition with the soviet union and after the cold war what kind of world we were finding ourselves in and how we needed to think about that and prepare ourselves so we put be able to anticipate the problems as opposed to reacting to them. Its better to anticipate them to react when you live in a dangerous world. First of all is going to be 94 and september so he is a child of the depression, grew up during the depression. Remarkable that he is a selfeducated individual. He has no bachelors degree but his scores were so high that the university of chicago took him into their Masters Program<\/a> after world war ii their Economics Program<\/a> so he is a masters in economics but no bachelors degree. He is the kind of guy who attracts the attention of brilliant people and so when he was at the university of chicago during world war ii he was ruled ineligible for the draft because of a heart condition so he went to work in a munitions factory, actually weapons plant building bombers, parts for bombers but he was working with this metal shop at the university of chicago and earn some money to pay for his education. In walks a guy who is working on his cyclotron and they haul off marshall and he helps them fix fix it with order of magnitude improving in the cyclotron. He ends up playing bridge with a guy named Kenneth Arrow<\/a> who ends up winning the nobel prize in economics. Its one after another after another and it almost reminds you of the forest gump. You have this really smart guy who keeps bumping into all these fascinating people. And the other thing i guess thats quite interesting is he is sort of on the ground floor of some pathbreaking work on how we understand Human Behavior<\/a> behavior of organizations and there was a huge debate in the 1970s of how formidable the soviet union was. It was a big battle between marshall and the cia and he had the moral convictions to pursue that debate. In the end he was proven right. The other thing i would say another reason we havent heard a story he is terrible at selfpromotion which is why we had to do the book instead of him. [laughter] but i used to kid and say you throw words around like manhole covers. These sorts of things but behind that sort of exterior masks a very emotional person and there are some stories in the book and id be glad to talk to you about them if youre interested of the deep feeling he has about other people, but the people he has mentored, many over the years and also about his country. I thought that was reflective of the other to the greatest generation. So barry began by mentioning this concept of net assessment which is if its a biography of a human being at the biography of Andrew Marshall<\/a> but its a biography of net assessment. After introducing our human star maybe we should introduce our conceptual star. Tell us a little bit about what net assessment is but also this is interesting to me and im asking questions i guess. Why did an emerge when it did in the 1970s in the Nixon Administration<\/a> in what had the pentagon been doing before that time to try and assess the military capability of days preeminent adversary in the military balance between the United States<\/a> and the soviet union lacks. I was more than one question. I suppose it was. You can pick the one you want to answer. What were the origins of this notion of net assessment . He would go back to the German Administration<\/a> and the special of value value a valuation subcommittee to assess where the president. This was a group on the National Security<\/a> council, what damages soviet Armed Nuclear<\/a> attack would inflict on the United States<\/a>. When that was continued by president eisenhower it kept on looking at the problem of the damage that the soviets could inflict with a Nuclear Attack<\/a> on United States<\/a>. He continued exploring that in various ways termination managing the damage and so on and so forth into the mid60s when Robert Mcnamara<\/a> who was secretary of defense at the time decided to cancel it because he had the office of systems analysis at that point and he didnt think he needed any help deciding what things to buy and what things to procure from the National Security<\/a> council. So was canceled. Within a year or two people who were involved in not began to raise the possibility in what was written to the president for example suggesting they needed to reconstitute a net assessment capability on the nsc or in the Defense Department<\/a> and the concern there was fundamentally given i think by two elements. One by the early 70s the soviets in absolute terms were starting to outspend the United States<\/a> in terms of military programs in an absolute sense. And it looked like that trend was going to continue and it did in fact continue up until the reagan administration. So during the decade of the 70s they outspend us by 88 probably Something Like<\/a> 300 or 4 million. Secondly the other Major Development<\/a> that and he talked about at great length during the 70s was the soviets achieving basic Strategic Nuclear<\/a> parity with the United States<\/a>. On one hand the competitors started outspending and on the other hand he is a Nuclear Capability<\/a> which could in fact if push came to shove and deterrence fail. In the context of those developments people thought it was increasingly important and if you are being outspent you had better make that strategic choices. So the idea which cropped up in a special Defense Panel<\/a> with Henry Kissinger<\/a> and that andy was involved in in 1970 basically Charlie Herzfeld<\/a> who was a guy who gave the goahead for the arpanet and what became the internet suggested to andy and to jam insert that they needed to measure and track where we stood in various areas of military competition relative to the soviets. Actually nixons blue ribbon Defense Panel<\/a> suggested as one of his recommendations that they established that kind of capability in the Defense Department<\/a>. Andy didnt have anything to do with that. He was working on intelligence issues for the president and for Henry Kissinger<\/a> so it wasnt until they reorganize the Intelligence Committee<\/a> that a net assessment capability was recreated and established on the nsc. Within a couple of years that was then transferred to the pentagon to the secretary of defense. Schlessinger and marshall outran colleagues and friends. They both worried about things like where the United States<\/a> stood relative to the soviet union and whether we were tracking that so we could make more informative and useful strategic decisions. That was really the beginning of net assessment. Andy moved to the pentagon and a somewhat turbulent. Back in 1973. Effective the move to the pentagon occurred during the middle of the yom kippur war. If those of you familiar with the Nixon Administration<\/a> you remember 72 and 73 were very busy. Back at the white house. There was the opening to china and the renewal of the easter offensive in vietnam despite the efforts of kissinger and nixon to get us out of vietnam. There was the abm treaty signed in moscow as well as a strategic arms Limitation Treaty<\/a> and in 72 was an electionyear and something funny happened in the Watergate Hotel<\/a> which have all kinds of consequences and that period. I would add a little bit to that. As barry said by the early 70s there is his recognition that we cant outspend these guys anymore. We cant just spend money and beat them that way. They have caught up to us and conventional capability and probably advantage Nuclear Capability<\/a>. They are outspending us so systems analysis focused on questions like is this thing better than that tank come, is this plain better than that plane . Marshall said we need to look at much broader issues. Can we successfully defend europe against a soviet attack and deter soviet Nuclear Attack<\/a> . These much broader issues and his point was senior decisionmakers particularly for his job as secretary of defense needs to know how we are doing in these critical areas and he needs to know what the trends are. Are we Getting Better<\/a> off or worse off and if we are wheres the most important area to invest our funds . So those were the kind of broad issues and he would get into i would say if you are looking at net assessment its diagnostic so martial if he wants to use a medical analogy is trying to get the secretary of defense a good diagnosis of what the real dangers were, what the diseases were out there would threaten our security because if you have a good diagnosis then you have a much better chance of writing a good description. A bad diagnosis, not so good good so theres that aspect to it. With multidisciplinary so when for example marshall looked at the soviet military he wouldnt just look at how many tanks today have and how many planes do they have. He would look at things like demographics and he would find the Health Care System<\/a> in the soviet union was lousy. There was ahca with some problems. Life expectancies were not good. The percentage of nonspeaking russians was increasing. In a lot of ways they have severe weaknesses if you could get beyond the hardware. Theres also this effort to look at what was called fault lines. Again, one of the reasons why a lot of it is classified. Secretary of defense. It doesnt go any further than that. A little more history. Leading up to another question. And so this concept emerges somewhat reactively to hear the two of you talk in the response, the soviet union and increasing defense spending with respect to American Defense<\/a> planners. Things start changing. The 2nd cold war the soviet union invades afghanistan. The because the spiral out of control. So a very different strategic environment. The let me just such for a 2nd. Just briefly about the military. An assessment that he did in the office. I raise that because the assessments intended to be as comprehensive as possible flight a few emerging strategic problems. So you have to work out in advance to see what the trends the symmetries are and identify emerging problems or on the Positive Side<\/a> of a competitive strategy since to focus on opportunities. As secretary of defense wanted to make some specific decisions to exploit that opportunity to work on soviet weaknesses and put some of our strikes against those weaknesses we could make those decisions. As we talked about 12 military technical evolution which was basically the emergence of precision strike capabilities based upon precision munitions sensors and computerize commandandcontrol. The cold war in the 80s. Sorry to advertise, an emerging issue and will change the way wars are fought in the future. And just briefly on the other side of that diagnosis that his business its own military services fundamentally responsibility. The military technical evolution. Trying to raise the issues villagers across the. A couple of things. His 1st tour as defense secretary, the systems analysis people in on friday the assessment to talk. As so many ships of this stuff is so many ships of that type. But stop looking. Wake of the big picture. And his Naval Military<\/a> secretary of the air force 45 years later major advantages with respect to the soviets and maritime operations. Turns out to be an acoustics. We really need to emphasize the competition and emphasize submarine forces. That is the sort of information really act upon it in a way that would have an enduring affect on the military balance. In the 1980s the started to talk about intelligence strategies. The example of that after he took office in 1977. If anyone will carry Nuclear Weapons<\/a>, icbms submarines. If we obama we will keep the old ones. Lets look at the lets look a little deeper at the issue. There are certain things that they do that it would be very difficult for them not to do. The worlds longest border, 11,000 miles long. These guys, totalitarian regime. Fanatical about protecting the airspace. So they have this enormous system that has to stretch 11,000 miles. The 3rd thing is they have this military organization. They are airspace constantly lobbying the leadership for air defenses. That is what they do. Look at that and we know the still bomb we dont want to give these guys an excuse not to build their defenses the cost of elder defenses for another 11000 miles of border. The radar signature. The this much to build their defenses. Not not so much whether we need bombers to affect the soviet union a matter of imposing enormously disproportionate costs the number one. Number one. Number two, investing in an area of military competition that we consider much more benign. Its an entirely different way of looking at the problem. System analysis the Carter Administration<\/a> particularly comfortable. Educate the numbers. So, moving on during the cold war evaluating the us soviet balance from a the strategic balance in the conventional balance. The interNational Security<\/a> situation is radically different, i think many would disagree with that. The rise of approach in china. They are challenge around russia. There is the threat to global terrorism. The insurgency. Military initiatives. Well, that assessment is unreasonable. Unreasonable. Therefore of future us china security competition. But i dont know what is enough. Make the case for an informative assessment in 2015. It is certainly the case that the assessments became much more difficult after the soviet union disappeared was generally referred to as a competitor. At issue that they have gone back and looked at time and again since the 90s i guess. I think in terms of Something Like<\/a> this precision strike regime it has been much more difficult to get to the end of the story than we thought it was going to be. We assumed basically there would be longrange precision strike capabilities on the part of our adversaries and what you would end up with might be longrange Strategic Strike<\/a> forces. Half of that did not happen because most of the last two decades we have been the only people on the planet that could really put a precision strike together and utilize it. It became useful for example special forces in iraq and afghanistan continues to be used in that context. So senior people in the pentagon i think, they. Out leverage going forward. That is part of the answer. There are two kinds of that assessment. What is the regional assessment. The central front military balance between the warsaw pact the functional balance i think those kinds of balances will we have tools. They are using them. Let me give you a couple of examples. Certainly with respect to china there is already some people call it the pivot to the asiapacific, rebounds. I was asked to run a study last year from mr. Marshall looking at the 1st island chain. And so there is a lot of different tools, environment is different from the fundamentals are similar and this is that were trying to preserve stability against a revisionist power. The revisionist power. The question is, do we have a simple military balance by one of the key trends in military competition. How do we do joe the chinese were thinking they their territorial is through aggression. The Nuclear Dimension<\/a> it is not just us and the soviets anymore. As we draw members down the president proposing your so ago we had a thousand. China may or may not go to a thousand. What used to be to bipolar Nuclear Competition<\/a> in the cold war can become the political scientists call on both bipolar competition. And we have roughly the same number with the soviet union. Thirty have parity we have a thousand the chinese of a thousand, the russians of a thousand. 3,001,000 come out he you gauge whether you can deter the psychological aspects. A lot of advances. Look at it over the last 38 years that shows human beings are unnecessarily rational, but there version of rational and the way they calculate cost and had risk is not the same as us. Again, he looks at demographics, looks at the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, trying to figure out what will enable us to preserve stability. Even if you are looking at the global war on terrorism. On the questions ive had with our military folks is how we impose costs on these people. Certainly it did not cost al qaeda or the taliban a trillion dollars to fight us in afghanistan or iraq. So how do we begin how do we get of it that cost . One where were we have been successful for example, is to impose a cost on time on terrorist enemies because of things like signals intelligence the eavesdropping, going in the internet and eavesdropping on cyber sites for joseph can take pictures of people moving around, they cant plan there terrorist activities anywhere near the level of efficiency that they did before september 11. You put a lot of send in their years. That is not the cost of dollars or equipment but time and it is a huge cost. In applying the methodology, i do think that there are unfortunately plenty of opportunities to apply the methodology that was developed. So i think there is a really long and Healthy Future<\/a> for that assessment. Thank you. Errors that others have claimed that he made. Three issues during the cold war. One, underestimation of the soviet unions fear. And overestimation of there acceptance of nuclear warfare. Second, the underestimation of the influence that we would call the militaryindustrial complex in the United States<\/a> the soviet version of that. The 3rd, a failure to properly anticipate and see at the time the scale of the collapse. I were addressed the Strategic Nuclear<\/a> during the cold war briefly 1st. Mr. Marshall put together some thoughts on the future. Not particularly that has been declassified. The letter assessment of the strategic warfare between the United States<\/a> and the soviet union, very highly classified. Seventysix he basically the dice to be adequate the sense that the question was the force and Strategic Policy<\/a> adequate to determine same and watch an allout Nuclear Attack<\/a>. He thought that things were adequate. There adequate. There were some disturbing trends, at least worrisome trends at that time but i do not think even if you go forward that he changed his mind about the adequacy of the strategic goal. So i do not think that is exaggerated, exaggerated whatever people outside the office or others academia have thought at that particular time. The other questions relate to the floor what is called the economic burden with the soviets to engage in a longterm military confrontation. I would anticipate the hidden story, the fundamental issue that popped up. Up. It was fundamental in terms of how he viewed our chances to prevail and what president kennedy called the long twilight, and the genesis is in the early 70s the 70s the cra was estimated at the service was penniless 6 percent of the gdp on defense. If the situation worse for senator cia staff at the time, and calling him over. The soviets how can this be . There producing a couple hundred times a year. You know, were producing a few hundred times a year. They they are producing a couple thousand. Artillery pieces and so on. Martial arts lessons are come to believe that this is bull ship. This cannot be right. And so they start what is called the numerator problem and the denominator problem. The numerator problem is just how much they are spending. And marshall by the mid70s mid 70s comes to the conclusion that they are spending more and defense than the cia thinks that they are. The economy is not that efficient. They cannot produce is cheaply and efficiently as we can. This is going after the denominator problem. Is it half the size of ours . And he starts talking. No all these issues in terms of productivity of production. Its about the middle 70s the cia mystically says, well, its 6 percent from a small percent. By the tunnels working for secretary weinberg in the middle 80s it was up to 16 percent. Marshall just keeps pounding away. It is it is not 6 percent, 12 percent were not 16 percent. More like 25 or 30 percent. So they are spending more of the economy. You look at demographic trends for productivity trends georgetown. Go over to the soviet union. The the fundamental. From this Strategic Perspective<\/a> is that the cia was right always been a 6 percent and are producing time is on their side of the longterm. They would keep widening the gap between ourselves and themselves. leisure and marshall were right that time was on our side and we did not have to take risks. Where we could with longterm. The fundamental strategic question. [inaudible conversations] you know, if you look at a lot of discussions going on the midtolate 80s on this particular subject marshall was talking in terms of the soviet economy going into chapter 11 repeatedly. That is one aspect of it. To help that he could have predicted that anyone could have predicted the downfall the soviet union the way it imploded particularly the timing that was well beyond what you could expect a reasonably expect. He was certainly right command after mentioned in the late 80s the defense bills going up to 30 percent. Consider 40 percent. That that was more than we spent on defense at the height of world war ii and 44 and 45. So maintaining upper over a couple of decades was not going to do good things to your Competitive Position<\/a> economic we you to think differently about the Strategic Defense Initiative<\/a> star wars teaching on the faculty at west point when president reagan made a speech. We dont have the technology. And we still dont have the technology to do it extremely well. Of the matter was that if you thought that this was a rival their economy was really straining them by as much as anything fdr was about Information Technology<\/a>. You can differentiate between decoy warheads and real warheads. So very information intensive. Well the soviet laptop computer or a soviet television set. No. These guys did not do that. We could. We were pushing the competition into an area where they could not compete the felt that they had to. This is where you get people like gorbachev to say we need perestroika, restructure the perestroika restructure the economy, and industrial era economy enthusiasm making this compete in the knew age Information Technology<\/a> economy. So an area where they are not comfortable less about can we intercept missiles and more can we put them in an area where they are uncomfortable the idea that these guys in the the longhorn our economy cannot stand the strain. So you get perestroika. And and perestroika does not make it because the country collapses. Again, that is a good description of Competitive Strategies<\/a> which became dod policy under the 2nd reagan administration. Weinberger signed up and post it pretty hard in the late 80s. I think that should be the last question from me and is time to your questions from the audience. Thank you very much gentlemen. [applause] right outside both general and will be available to sign copies the mobile we we will open it up for questions. A comment of one of Andrew Marshall<\/a>s 1st positions or 1st tasks within the white house in evaluating the cia intelligence reports for president next. Next and pres. Nixon and Henry Kissinger<\/a> were very unhappy with the kind of foreign intelligence that was coming into the white house when they became they start working with the white house. Andrew marshall have a long history of dealing with intelligence agencies in the air force and then later with the cia trying to improve the quality of the analysis comprehension. But it was a natural for kissinger to bring him in to try to look at the quality of the Intelligence Committee<\/a> and to the white house. As i said earlier, but eventually lead led to a reorganization of the Intelligence Community<\/a> but as andrew recalls the one of the things that he started doing was reading the president s daily brief from the agency and one of the things that emerged nixon would tend to write notes and comments. And as marshall at the overtime the initial study for kissinger it became apparent that there were fewer and fewer comments from the president. When it led to was the implication that fixed it was unhappy and just stopped reading the things which made a strong case for trying to reshape the committee to provide intelligence that really was a two or go with the interest of the president and his National Security<\/a>. It is almost hysterical. He goes to the cia. The daily intelligence report, i mean that was there earlier document. The president will read this. You know, you need to do Something Different<\/a> you. This is our primary document. President is not reading it. That is our pride and joy. Find out what he is interested in. For example, kissinger was intensely interested in personality profiles some of the people he would have to negotiate with other hobbies, likes to walk risktakers. What what can you tell me about this person . And kind of a take it or leave it. The cia. We dont worry about this, but you do. And the other thing is increases the cia would often emphasize intelligence that kind of post pushed to toward a quick sort of safe resolution of the crisis whereas next kissinger wanted to look at all options. Talk about the whole deal with the arabians, they were looking at, there may be a shortterm gain. You are providing information. So we sort of pushed the problem down the road. The worst in history now. The nsa staff is providing nixon was stuff that he was reading by the time doing the workaround. Dia tried to make an effort to find out what the pres. Was interested president was interested in them actually provide them with intelligence on the floor but it is a testimony to innocence i dont want to say belligerents of the absence of certain bureaucracies. The president what is simply asking for. Some of the things associated with these kind of issues are almost comical in retrospect. And 73 the start of the 1st National Assessment<\/a> of other and his organization the nsc. It was to compare the us and soviet ground forces. Moreover while the findings that came out of that with the soviets had know allegiances. In particular every six months they were bringing in new cohort of conscripts, and the official dia position is basically that it did not affect anything. Come on. Anything. Come on. You bring recruits seven conscripts, half of them dont speak russian there interested in the soviet army command you are telling me it does not affect readiness . They would serve three years in the military. I have to take the time and people who have been here for three years in training for three years, getting to know each other. They rotate out of i get in conscripts. Starting from scratch. A bit of his location. This unit of conscripts while conscripts that is sure to is as effective as these people who have been three years of experience. This was the stuff. Later on i was working for secretary of defense much to marshalls displeasure. We get so fed up with this stuff really from the Intelligence Community<\/a> command get a better result by going to the assessment. That office of 15 people and asking them for their opinion. He thought he had more important things to do with the time and try to compete with the cia over things like that. He was right. Anyway, that is how bad it got in some respects. Question over here. During the 1960s secretary of defense Robert Mcnamara<\/a> emphasized the assured destruction as a major means of deterring nuclear war. We would target the soviet union cities and its economy on january 101934 secretary of defense James Schlesinger<\/a> caused a stir when he announced that we would be moving away from this. Our targeting were not necessarily be in the cities of the soviet economy. It it was marshall did he have an input this decision . Please. Right now marshall did not have discussions our decisions. The story goes back really to the kennedy administration. The single integrated Operations Plan<\/a> the Nuclear Attack<\/a> plan for execution is the soviet other communist countries. Basically kennedy comes in his advisers mcnamara and so one and it is throw everything out there but the kitchen with the kitchen sink. Kennedy was plotting his concept of flexible response i i want options. I want an option other than do nothing or armageddon. So kennedy and macular have to get depressed the military to come up with a flexible nuclear option. The problem is by the time nixon is in his 2nd term we still dont have flexible nuclear options. Last years attempts to actually begin to realistically provide such options one rationale for his no one and this is a complicated and arcane topic but one point was that they began to realize that this was almost like the doctor strangelove movie the soviets were building deep underground bunkers to protect the leadership. We want we want to have an option to make sure that the leadership knows that matter what happens will take up the leadership. There is no flooding a nuclear war because your going to survive. It gets really weird. So again, the idea was we may be wipeout china. So these sorts of considerations and what they are trying to do maryland matter of escalation. No way the soviets can use Nuclear Weapons<\/a> spasmodically of the threshold that allows us to get an advantage that encourages the fact that they could somehow use these weapons effectively and have some kind of political gain. That is it i think. It is also the case that if you go back through a detailed history of the single integrated operational fire which was Nuclear War Plan<\/a> it was purely cities or soviet forces. If if you think about it, a lot of soviet Strategic Forces<\/a> might want to attack located in populated areas. So you are currently to have kind of getting a twofer if you will. Both target categories persisted over time kind of independent of what decisions like germany as as germany as secretary of defense. That is not likely understood but i think the reality of the system. And it also illustrates the difficulties of sitting in the white house with the National Security<\/a> council and making sure the system down below you really does what he had directed to do. That that is a major issue and strategy within any government. A question. No extra credit, sorry. [laughter] i think we can agree that plays a crucial part understanding defense and security. Under which pres. Do you think math assessment is most beneficial were utilized . Aside from slush in in your sort of joined at the hip with marshall probably held brown secretary of defense who understood with the assessment was. Any of the secretaries of defense. That was part of the Carter Administration<\/a>. Initially the hope that we can do something somewhat similar to what occurred in terms of unflinching fists and extending your hand the adversaries. But you know, if you talk to harold brown about this what he would emphasize was the he raised questions that pointed to broader Strategic Issues<\/a> that did not fit drug down and provided a perspective that was virtually nonexistent. So you so you have a different perspective in talking to anything you got from the surface the. Discussion of trying to put our strength and weaknesses is working overtime was really centric that this is the was. As andrew has already suggested if you are in the military service you want to underplay as much as you can blow up the Threat Research<\/a> going to congress get larger defense budgets. It is human nature. His work is continuing even today unfortunately. There were also defense secretarys didnt have much of an impact. I work with sec. Wild bird. When i left the office on to work for mr. Marshall. Portraits of all the former defense secretarys. They they came with are going to have a ceremony. They did have all they can relationship. It wasnt on his calendar and the marshall really was the guy who gave the insight to think about this new structure. There are professors at ivy league schools, people in the business community. One of the deans in Business Strategy<\/a> teachers at ucla this strategy, that strategy, talks about marshall. Marshal from the defense world. And so of course people like. Myself, there is this innocence been touring that he has done. One of the quotes of the final chapter, chapter, someone asked marshall what he thought his greatest contribution was. He said, the people i think ive help on the way to have an understanding of how to do analysis better and so on so it is that. On the other thing is whatever a defense secretary grumbles about this guy some secretaries of defense what the politically correct answer. Whatever that issue has been raised for once in the late 90s, raises again ten years later it was remarkable three republican, three democrat your crazy if you question with this guy is trying to help. Republicans and democrats, both sides of the aisle it really isnt there a way things are so politicized they have this individual who is respected enormously respected by the academic community, a strategic studies community the former defense secretarys. And i think that is a remarkable accomplishment in itself. A question for the back. High. The question i have you alluded briefly has anyone ever bought for russian computer . During this time and i dont think i would put a percentage of it but but how much of Russian Research<\/a> and technology was databased how much would be called industrial has been lost . Stealing Us Technology<\/a> . G, i am not sure i can give you a percentage. It is certainly the case if you read cia assessments that was something said about the agency. Where the soviets were in highspeed Computing Technology<\/a> in the 70s and 80s. Generally the assessments would suggest they are eight or ten years behind us. If you if you think about how fast this kind of technology has evolved even just pay for five years behind the significant. Yeah, they were stealing as much as they could. There was a huge scandal in the late 80s firms were involved. It basically was i am not the smartest guy in the world. It had to do with ball bearing technology. A lot to do with summary. Toward the end of the cold war we were really starting to run into a problem because the soviet submarines really very much quieter. A big edge we havent been lost in part because of industrial espionage. Now, they were fantastic in terms of the basic sciences and that medical theory, but once you went beyond theory to have to apply is manufactured, these guys just could not compete particularly when you got into the area of Information Technology<\/a> sensors coatings, all of these things have become products. These guys were really struggling to try and adapt to that. We have time for one more question. One of doctor hers students. Yes. So the basis of this question comes from taking the class on Global Security<\/a>. In the beginning we focus on more traditional Global Security<\/a> threats, particularly with regard to the rising powers of china and by multi polar system will increase instability. However, we have transitioned to more nontraditional security threats. In the conclusion of your book for particularly on page 250 dash 251. [laughter] what did you say . [laughter] according to this addition a lot of questions that means security has been applicable to addressing in trying to comprehend and effective ways. A lot of these are in regard to the soviet union and china. My question from the my introduction is particularly with regard to Cyber Security<\/a> and less traditional or abstract threats do you think that security will have a place in addressing and quantifying . How do you think it will adapt to deal with close concrete threats . What do you think . [laughter] all right. When the revolution in military affairs got started in the early 90s and he will interesting for 93 i think it was and he talked about longrange precision strike big one of the things that might emerge over time. The the other was what we call Information Technology<\/a>. I will tell you, the assessment has tried at least three times than i can think of to try to do an assessment of the Information Warfare<\/a> and Information Operations<\/a> area. The assessments frankly failed. Of a failed for a specific reason. Ultimately it would prove possible to try to properly constrained the analysis because if you Start Talking<\/a> about information you may go off down you may look at processing speeds. I mean it goes in so many different directions. Actually, the summer study that is anticipated for this coming july is about the role of information and precision strike. The hope is that it will constrain the topic enough to where we can make a little progress on the longterm patient and the kind of assessment in woodbridge in that that particular area, but this is just poorly from start to finish it very hard to contain in a manageable way. Along those lines there is a paper from yale in the late 90s the kind of addresses the question of how much damage can ten determined ten determined people cause. There is a graph of it starts out from roman times, pretty flat. And, you know through the middle ages and so on but the curve starts to sweep up last 20 years or so. Like cyber robotics Unmanned Aerial Systems<\/a> and so on access the biotechnology and biosciences. So one of the problems analysis does in this particular area particularly if youre to cyber you could have a lot of competitors hundreds competitors that you dont know. So, again, three attempts to start to put your arms around this but it has been to be difficult. There is a huge attribution problem associated with cyber warfare in terms of identifying a high degree of confidence exactly who attacked you. So there is that aspect. Concern about the catalytic war so you have a crisis between two countries and all of a sudden one is being hit hard by a cyber attack and it assumes the other country, country, but it could be a 3rd party. You have that kind of issue. The iranians can Nuclear Weapon<\/a> and over time they build a possible. North koreans are going. Missile flight times are about five or six minutes. Early warning is you know the problem is what happens if you are the israelis are irradiance do you have confidence there Early Warning<\/a> system is not being corrupted . System is not telling you, hey, the israelis are attacking you have to watch a counterattack when in fact it is just cyber warfare. So how do you begin this problem scheduled to pick a knew director for the office sometime soon. Doing well the office of that assessment will be the place to go to. One of the enduring strength has been even when some of these earlier assessments fail they will have the capacity overtime to come back to these issues and try a different approach to solve the problem or doing decent where this is going deal. I think that has been the strength of the organization something hopefully there will be preserved whoever takes over so thank you for a great. [applause] thank you very much. In the lobby to sign books. Please check our website for our upcoming events. Thank you very much. [applause] here is a look a look at the current bestselling nonfiction books according to National Public<\/a> radio. David brooks recounts the lives of several historical figures. What is interesting about this particular line of 18 athletes took multiple different classes in the early 1990s if you study carefully the gps they are in regular courses which you will find here. 194, 152 175, 2. 01, 179","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia902706.us.archive.org\/33\/items\/CSPAN2_20150510_004500_Book_Discussion_on_The_Last_Warrior\/CSPAN2_20150510_004500_Book_Discussion_on_The_Last_Warrior.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20150510_004500_Book_Discussion_on_The_Last_Warrior_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240621T12:35:10+00:00"}