Andrew Marshall, Pentagon's Threat Expert, Dies at 97

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Andrew Marshall, Pentagon’s Threat Expert, Dies at 97

By Julian E. Barnes
March 26, 2019

Andrew Marshall, a Pentagon strategist who helped shape American military thinking on the Soviet Union, China and other global competitors for more than four decades, died on Tuesday in Alexandria, Va. He was 97.

His death was confirmed by Jaymie Durnan, his executor.

Mr. Marshall, as director of the Office of Net Assessment, was the secretive futurist of the Pentagon, a long-range thinker who both prodded and inspired secretaries of defense and high-level policymakers. Virtually unknown among the wider public, he came to be revered inside the Defense Department as a mysterious Yoda-like figure who embodied an exceptionally long institutional memory.

In the early 2000s, at a time when the Pentagon was focused on counterinsurgency and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Marshall urged officials to focus on the challenge of China — a view that many considered outdated. But today, national security officials are increasingly adopting Mr. Marshall’s view of China as a potential strategic adversary, an idea now at the heart of national defense strategy.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/us/politics/andrew-marshall-dead.html

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Also: Andy Marshall, the Pentagon’s ‘Yoda,’ dies at age 97 (Defense News)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Thanks. Adding a link to the Washington Post

I read an article about him that appeared in the Washington Post magazine years ago.

Obituaries
Andrew Marshall, Pentagon’s gnomic ‘Yoda’ of long-range planning, dies at 97

By Matt Schudel
Obituary writer
March 27 at 7:31 PM

For more than 40 years, Andrew W. Marshall presided over a little-known office deep in the bowels of the Pentagon as the Defense Department’s designated deep thinker. A civilian scholar who had never served a day in uniform, he was charged with pondering the imponderable and with devising the country’s long-range strategies for fighting — and surviving — future wars. ... Drawing on a variety of disciplines, from statistics and business management to nuclear physics, he was credited with foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union and with prodding reluctant U.S. leaders to adapt to changing military and technological needs.

Mr. Marshall, who guided the Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment for 42 years, had access to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence secrets and worked directly for the secretary of defense. He was known for challenging established ways of thinking and for acquiring a reputation as the Pentagon’s “Yoda,” after the wise, gnomic Jedi master of “Star Wars.” ... Mr. Marshall inspired such loyalty and near-reverent devotion that his former staffers called themselves graduates of “St. Andrew’s Prep.” He was 97 when he died March 26 at a hospice facility in Arlington, Va.
....

He distributed more than $10 million each year in grants to think tanks, universities and defense contractors to imagine future conflicts, then devised “war games” to test hypothetical military strategies. ... Mr. Marshall had a staff of only about 10 analysts, including military officers and civilians, working in windowless offices on the third floor of the Pentagon. They held the highest levels of security clearance.
....

Mr. Marshall was a political appointee who often expected that a change in administration would send him packing. (He never sold his house in California, expecting that eventuality.) In 1997, Defense Secretary William Cohen attempted to have him transferred out of the Pentagon, but the outcry was so strong that Mr. Marshall stayed put for another 18 years. ... After he retired, Mr. Marshall continued to consult with military experts until a week before his death.
....

Matt Schudel has been an obituary writer at The Washington Post since 2004. He previously worked for publications in Washington, New York, North Carolina and Florida. Follow https://twitter.com/MattSchudel

He probably died at the same hospice where my mom died.

I didn't see this comment until now:

What_The_Covfefe 13 minutes ago

"The death was confirmed by Jeffrey McKitrick, a friend and former employee."

McKitrick is the name of Dabney Coleman's character in War Games.

The article in the Washington Post magazine dealt with the Cohen incident. From 2015:

Military
Available: The $183,300 ‘Yoda’ job at the Pentagon
By Dan Lamothe
January 2, 2015

How is the Pentagon going to replace its very own Yoda? We’re about to find out. ... The Defense Department just advertised that is searching for a new director for its Office of Net Assessment. The position was held for decades by Andrew W. Marshall, 93, who founded the Pentagon’s internal think tank in 1973 and was the only leader it ever had. Marshall, who decided to retire this past fall, was widely known by the nickname Yoda, after the wise alien character in the “Star Wars” franchise.

A job advertisement on the Web site USAJobs.gov says the position pays up to $183,330 per year, with a base of $121,957. The position will remain a Senior Executive Service job, putting it on par with other senior Pentagon jobs. It’s basic “futurist” function is the same: Consider crises and apocalyptic scenarios that could occur, and possible responses.
....

As noted in this 2013 story in The Washington Post, Marshall had a variety of advocates who argued that maintaining his independence was critical to ensuring that his ideas would not be undermined by rivals. Critics said it was difficult to scrutinize the intellectual value of his reports, most of which are classified, because of his reluctance to share them with others in the Pentagon.

Marshall was profiled frequently as he advanced in age. In a February 2003 profile in Wired magazine, he predicted that precision weapons, the ability to better coordinate separate military units and the rise of drones and other robots would have a big role in the future of warfare.
....

Dan Lamothe joined The Washington Post in 2014 to cover the U.S. military and the Pentagon. He has written about the Armed Forces for more than a decade, traveling extensively, embedding with each service and covering combat in Afghanistan numerous times. Follow https://twitter.com/danlamothe