Office of Net Assessment

The Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, "the Pentagon's internal think tank,"[1] was "created and Andrew Marshall was named its first director in 1973, and Marshall has been reappointed by every administration and Secretary of Defense since then. The accomplishments of the office are legion. In the 1970s, it produced the analyses of U.S. and Soviet military investment that compelled the Carter administration to reverse the decline in American military spending. It produced the analysis that moved the U.S. nuclear posture away from massive retaliation and towards a strategy that would better deter Soviet nuclear aggression. It was also the office that persistently called attention to the vast overestimates of the Soviet GNP that were put out by the CIA during the Cold War. It was the first to develop the idea that the American military can be transformed by the revolution in information technology. Every Secretary of Defense for twenty-five years, regardless of party, has kept Andrew Marshall close to him, because Marshall spoke truth to power." --Gary J. Schmitt, Project for the New American Century, November 10, 1997.[2]