The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy

by Andrew F. Krepinevich, Barry D Watts

Andrew Marshall is a Pentagon legend. For more than four decades he has served as Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank, under twelve defense secretaries and eight administrations. Yet Marshall has been on the cutting edge of strategic thinking even longer than that. At the RAND Corporation during its golden age in the 1950s and early 1960s, Marshall helped formulate bedrock concepts of US nuclear strategy that endure to this day; later, at the Pentagon, he pioneered the development of "net assessment" -- a new analytic framework for understanding the long-term military competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Following the Cold War, Marshall successfully used net assessment to anticipate emerging disruptive shifts in military affairs, including the revolution in precision warfare and the rise of China as a major strategic rival of the United States.

In The Last Warrior , Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts -- both former members of Marshall's staff -- trace Marshall's intellectual development from his upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to his decades in Washington as an influential behind-the-scenes advisor on American defense strategy. The result is a unique insider's perspective on the changes in US strategy from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day.

Covering some of the most pivotal episodes of the last half-century and peopled with some of the era's most influential figures, The Last Warrior tells Marshall's story for the first time, in the process providing an unparalleled history of the evolution of the American defense establishment.

Genres: History, Biography, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, Politics, Military History, War

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 6, 2015

Reviews

[Kameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great as an audiobook. I feel bad never hearing of Andrew Marshall; he was an important (but humble) voice for a long time on strategy. Good antidotes about fighting bias and bureaucracy, especially during the Cold War period. Young officers complain about never being heard... This guy was at the highest levels and wasn't always heard either.

Definitely worth reading for an appreciation of the folks thinking the big thoughts in national military policy.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew Marshall worked for years at the Rand Think Tank, doing strategic assessments for the Air Force before doing the same thing at the Pentagon. During the Cold War he was the one trying to figure out, how powerful the USSR was and how powerful the USSR thought that the USA was.

Why I started this book: I wanted a non-fiction audio and as a bonus this was on the new Navy Professional Reading list.

Why I finished it: Fascinating to learn about a man who focused on the long term threats to the United States. Good reminder that people don't act like rational models and that it is necessary to think long term. Ironic that Marshall who spent his professional life thinking long term, spent his personal life stressing that his life in DC was temporary and that he would be moving back to California in a year or two.

[YourManJeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent insight into the minds and actions that shaped the world we see, the struggles that were had, the number of time we lost focus despite having been handed insight years ahead of time. I'm glad the ONA exists, hopefully they are incorporating the lessons and guidance of Marshall and his students to provide us with a clear picture of the risks we face in the future so true planning and mitigation can occur.

The book itself is potentially too in depth for even an average lover of history, but from my personal experience in the military, it clarified a lot of what was driving the strategic decisions from the moment I first swore in to the moment i left the military.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a biography of an influential US strategic thinker during the Cold War and afterwards - Andrew Marshall. Marshall was suggested in the course of Brand’s recent book on geopolitics and global strategic studies. I had not heard of Marshall before, but he seemed to know everyone else at the time and was good at being influential without being out for publicity or prominence - so I learned something from the book. Marshall’s notoriety lies with the idea of “National Assessment” - based on the need to cast US national strategy on a rigorous comparison of the strengths of the US and the Soviet Union such that a competitive strategy can be developed that focuses on American capabilities and matching them against Soviet weaknesses. Along with Cold War strategy, the book is fascinating for a host of data issues concerning how to best craft and validate military and national security strategy. I am familiar with many of the “experts” who distinguished themselves in the Cold War and went on to careers in academia or consulting. Marshall changed the institution of strategic analysis at the Pentagon and was one of the few who understood the dynamics behind the collapse of the USSR that effectively brought about the end of the Cold War.

MORE TO FOLLOW

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my new favorites. I only stumbled upon this book and since I’m at the Pentagon, I might as well learn a bit about “Yoda”. His prescient analysis was literally 50 years ahead of its time, and went unnoticed for about 30 of those years once he completed his “Military Technological Revolution” (MTR) assessment in 1992.

I literally can’t go a day without someone stating one of his concepts, whether they know it or not.

If anyone wishes to understand our strategic direction, look at this man.

Shoot, even the Chinese have adopted his strategy and are executing it well through its “Informationalized Warfare” strategy.

Must-read for anyone at mid-level in their career or above.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this a couple of years ago. Marshall clearly had a dedicated group of mentees, and for that I think he should be commended. But I’ve found that those acolytes are probably not well placed to bring a dispassionate analysis of his life and work. For example, Marshall’s signature work at Rand that is often heralded as foundational to net assessments with co-written with Loftus….and while there is a nod to the fact of the collaboration, all of the credit goes to AM. The entire book was about singing the praises of AM, while not looking critically at Marshall or Net Assessments shortcomings.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book for any students of defense history or those participating in our national defense. Andrew Marshall may not be a well know name but he has arguably done more behind the scenes to defend our nation than any other individual in US history. Take his saying to heart - “there is no limit to the good a person can do if he does not care who gets the credit.”

[Andrew Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

While virtually every bookshop has a large section on military history, it is surprisingly rare to find books on Defence. This is especially true of the ideas and people who shape policy. The Last Warrior is an enjoyable, insightful intellectual biography of an iconoclastic influential figure in US defence policy and strategy over the last half-century.

Andrew Marshall is in my personal pantheon of first-rate strategic minds. Marshall led the US Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment from 1973 to 2015. This office did not exist when he joined the government, indeed the very idea of Net Assessment was defined and given life by Marshall. From this position he helped drive the US government to think seriously about the strategies it pursued against the Soviets in the Cold War, the changing impact of military technology in the 1980s and 1990s and the rise of China at the turn of the century.

While Marshall's legacy is vast, on my reading of American strategic culture, he remains in a distinct minority. He was deeply sceptical of quantitative models based on presumably rational people. He was willing to directly challenge conventional wisdom and stand apart even alone on big issues. And he insisted on finding good, creative questions, rather than barrelling towards an answer to the first question that seems viable. In these regards, as well as his humility and willingness to let others propose and seek credit, he is an admirable role model.

Written by two astute scholars, (especially Krepinevich) who worked with Marshall, this is a soft and sympathetic biography, but this is -rightly - an intellectual biography. There is no tawdry effort to find scandals or regal long personal anecdotes. It is the ideas, debates and bureaucratic infighting around those ideas which is the central focus of this book.

The Last Warrior (a slightly odd title, referring to his greatest generation origins) is a very useful insight into how to think about defence strategy, the way defence intellectuals can make their mark, and US defence strategy from the 1950s to mid-2000s. I enjoyed it via audio-book, though would recommend the paper copy to carefully think through Marshall's profound ideas.

*NB - Returned to in 2021 after first reading in 2019. Still holds up. Indeed, the re-reading helped me think through some of the foundational assumptions about Marshall's approach. Their merits and their potentially limited applicability beyond the situation he worked within.

*NB - Returned to read a third time in 2022. I'm slowly coming to see the deeper wisdom of this book, and certainly Marshall's contribution.

[Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was very boring, and not particularly enlightening. If you work inside the US government and your job directly deals with foreign relations, perhaps this book will have some practical tips that you can take away.

Personally, I just found the entire thing too long, too dry, and frankly not very important. The book is about a bureaucrat that writes a report every year for the DOD. He's been around for ages, and apparently is quite well respected in Washington.

It seems to me that if these people spent more time in the immersed in the foreign countries, speaking the foreign, eating the foreign food, enjoying the foreign entertainment and ingratiating themselves to the foreign leadership, you wouldn't need some old guy locked in a room making up a new report each year. You would actually have INTELLIGENCE about what is going on in the world.

If I had known more about the subject in advance, I certainly wouldn't have spent my time reading through this. I kept expecting there to be some interesting geopolitical revelation just around the corner, instead we get more congratulations to Mr Marshall for his amazing reports.

After finishing this book, I can only conclude that the author is a huge fan of Marshall and has some vested (consulting?) interest in currying favor with him, or the people around him.

Complete waste of time.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hagiographic, for sure. But an interesting look at ONA. Have I become an Andy Marshall fangirl? Not yet, but I could still be convinced.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed hearing about the creation and evolution of analytics in the Pentagon via ONA

[Chad Manske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2015, this work is a masterpiece memoir of the life and influence of ‘the most famous man in defense circles’ you’ve never heard of! Andrew “Yoda” Marshall (who actually eschewed the nickname that stuck) passed away at the age of 97 in 2019. He retired from 60 years of public service influencing generations of defense and policy thinkers, and serving as the first Director of the Office of Net Assessment in OSD—a powerful strategic planning methodology organization he led for 42 years and spanning numerous presidents’ tenures from Nixon to Obama. He started his young career working in the heyday of RAND Corporation’s golden era of the 50s and 60s, developing nascent nuclear policy—after himself having witnessed a nuclear test—and assessments of Soviet capabilities through the Cold War. Before anyone else, Marshall’s astute observations and assessments led to his conclusions that the Soviet’s spending could not be sustained (which came true), as well as predicting China’s strategic rise decades before others were thinking about it (also coming true). I was privileged to work with Andrew during one of his famous summer studies at Newport, RI years ago, and was very impressed with the topic, conduct and outcomes of that study and how Marshall shaped dozens of these over his years. This is a fantastic tribute to a soft-spoken intellectual giant!

[Matt Hampton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essentially a poorly written love letter to Andrew Marshall...but it never became clear whether the story was about Marshall, the Office of Net Assessments, or the concept of net assessment, though we are subjected to endless assurances and reminders that Marshall created both. Still, the point of the entire volume remains obscure. The read is slow, clunky, and the flow choppy at best. The author claims that Marshall is brilliant, and has had unmatched influence on US strategic thought, but provides precious little evidence, certainly not in a compelling way. To wit, the author is often forced to admit, in what comes across as a bit of an apologetic tone, that no senior government leader with serious influence actually took meaningful action on Marshall's urging! That seems to contradict an entire pillar of the house the author seeks to construct, unless we are meant to infer that Marshall is so brilliant he was a man ahead of his time. This is neither biography, nor history. Unfortunately, it's not something that transcends both - rather, it's something that falls short of both. It's unclear why the book exists, other than the author's introduction. I struggle to recommend it, though perhaps it's got some value to a student of the broader history of US military intelligence and strategy.

[Tyler Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hagiography of a mentor disguised as an intellectual biography. A lot of the book is interesting especially the OG Cold War stuff concerning nuclear war, but I felt that the argument’s supporting claims of Andrew Marshall’s brilliance and far reaching influence that “shaped modern American defense strategy” were somewhat thin, but maybe that’s because so much of it is still classified apparently. I do agree and like his style of thought (his multi-disciplinary analysis and interest in bounded rationality applied to organizations is particularly interesting) but I don’t think that what he did seemed to be particularly remarkable or noteworthy, especially when considering his steadfast opposition to providing recommendations for action. It is probably easy to be seen as wise and sagacious when you refuse to allow for opportunities to exist where you can be proven wrong or be seen as having been wrong. It’s great that ONA focused on trying to accurately diagnosis things, which is obviously of fundamental importance, but avoiding having to make recommendations or decisions is a cop out in my opinion. Decision makers are always bound to get things wrong, obviously, and I think I view Marshall’s insistence on avoiding recommendations as a form of moral cowardice. Action is necessary and to excuse yourself from it in the way that he seemingly did is disappointing.

[Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting look at an under reported professional behind significant changes in military strategy over the year. Would of appreciated if the book was more brief. In addition, I think the title "The Last Warrior" is ridiculous. Not to undervalue Andrew Marshall's contribution which is significant by any standard, but considering analyst/strategist operating from the safety of state side as "a Warrior" is a bit of a stretch. Not to pile it on, but also take issue with the word "last" - do you want me to list all the KIA servicemen that honorably served in combat during the writing and publishing of the book and since and yet Andrew Marshall is considered "The Last" Warrior?

Otherwise portions of the book are interesting and serve as a great service to all those interested in strategy. In particular the analysis on the size of the Russian economy and strategy around Nuclear war is of significant interest and value.

Finally I appreciate the book bringing the Office of Net Assessment to my attention. Interesting portion of the DoD and wouldn't mind if my military career gave me the opportunity to serve in that office.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy by Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts is a revealing window into the one of the less well known titans of defense policy. Echoes of what I come across in this book were present in my education at Johns Hopkins, and I recently had a close encounter with some of the professional descendants of Marshall's legacy. The emphasis on asking the right questions over providing the right answers is something that dominated by time in Washington, with echoes of it coming from Mara Karlin, Thomas Rid, and others. A friend of mine is also particularly fond of invoking the phrase, and now that I am at the Sam Nunn school I've come across a couple down here who think so as well. I wonder if Marshall is the one that I have to thank for this? Maybe, maybe not. This book is too glowing of Marshall to be taken without a heavy dose of skepticism. Still, from what I've gathered, I am a bit of a fan of "Yoda" and the influence he has had. With any luck, I'll be able to bolster this impression with knowledge of my own as I embed myself into the world of strategy.

86/100

[Hj Reichen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great professional biography of a man who influenced American strategy during forty years. Can be bit a dry read, without prior knowledge of the second half of world history. It recalls the importance to consider economics, technological innovation and human behavior in developing future strategic trends. Marshall foremost underlined the importance of asking the right questions before finding the answers to the many people he mentored. Several of the latter have contributed by essential books. Marshall remarkably understood three of the main strategic évolutions of the last forty years: the economic burden of defense on the Soviet Union, the revolution in military affairs and the evolution of China into the USA’s next competitor.

[Alex Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a niche selection but a good one if you're looking for some background on the Office of Net Assessment. I'm sure it's hard to write biography on a person who intentionally shies away from the limelight and provides most of his impact through classified reports which is why I don't blame the author for the somewhat flat portrait of Marshall but it still can't earn five stars without more on the man himself.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting Book for a variety of reasons as a cover so much of the formative years of the United States as a global power. It is a useful book in the history I'll be it from one perspective but it's also useful to discern various strategic decisions made in the government over the past 6 decades.

[Christopher Reiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story about a ridiculously smart and modest person I had never heard of before. Telling that he could serve in an appointed position within the Pentagon for over 4 decades. Was a big believer in the use of mental models as a grounding technique to ensure the right questions were being asked before an analysis was undertaken.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a hagiography than a biography - but understandable given the kind of figure he is and role he has played. Definitely an excellent look at a little-known aspect of the national security and pentagon bureaucracy. I wish the book had spent a little more time on wider context and perspectives but still very worthwhile in my opinion.

[Brian Thorson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary insight into US defense strategy formation from post WWII to present. More importantly, the book informs the reader’s understanding of how to frame problems, think critically, and formulate proper questions instead of focusing on ‘solutions’. Informative and interesting read.

[Harv Rettberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good read for those who have a keen interest in the history of the Cold War. Andrew Marshall played a critical behind-the-scenes role in shaping the successful U.S. defense policy. This book is a slog to get through because it's loaded with information.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well crafted and compelling piece written by a student to laud his mentor. At times, lacks the depth of analysis and, when facing the need to balance analysis of Marshall and an opportunity to praise him, chooses praise to fill the page.

[Max Rudolph · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read in the past couple of years.

[Pete Zilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really phenomenal book on the brilliant mind and hidden hand behind US defense strategy who informed (and was sometimes ignored by) every president since Nixon.

[Ted Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good look at some of the analytical issues involved with cold nuclear war, but I found myself frequently wanting more.

[Timothy S Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep thinking about strategic thinking. Andrew Marshall was 2 steps ahead.

[Paul Grostad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book thoroughly fascinating.
Great biography of one of the sharpest strategic minds of the post WWII era.

[Lisa Biewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this one. However, I found the evolution & insight on the priorities & perspectives of various SecDef’s throughout the Cold War to be really interesting.