Andrew Marshall (foreign policy strategist)
Andrew W. Marshall (September 13, 1921 – March 26, 2019)[1] was an American foreign policy strategist who served as director of the United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment from 1973 to 2015. Appointed to the position by President Richard Nixon, Marshall remained in office during all successive administrations that followed until his retirement on January 2, 2015.[2][3][4] He was succeeded in the role by James H. Baker.[5]
Andrew Marshall
Office established
September 13, 1921
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
March 26, 2019 (aged 97)
Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.
"Yoda"
Early life and education[edit]
Raised in Detroit, Michigan, Marshall pursued autodidactic interests in history, literature and the natural and social sciences from a young age. He graduated from Cass Technical High School (where he trained in machining and received the second-highest score on a citywide aptitude test for honors students similar in provenance to the SAT) in 1939. After briefly working in a factory and attending the University of Detroit for a year, he dropped out to take a position at the Murray Body Company, where he manufactured machine tools used in fabricating British airplane parts. Unable to serve in World War II due to a heart murmur, Marshall continued to work at Murray for the remainder of the war. He eventually resumed his formal studies at Wayne State University in 1943.
Marshall was admitted to the University of Chicago with graduate standing in 1945; under the chancellery of Robert Maynard Hutchins, students who were not enrolled in the generalist "Chicago Plan" undergraduate program pursued a course of study that led to a master's degree instead of the baccalaureate. Strongly influenced by Friedrich Hayek, he earned an M.A. in economics from the institution in 1949. His master's thesis was a sensitivity analysis of Lawrence Klein's econometric model of the US economy; influential for its methodology, it has never been published except for a short abstract.[6][7][8]
RAND Corporation[edit]
After electing to defer his studies in favor of eventually pursuing a Ph.D. in statistics (a program not yet offered by the University of Chicago), Marshall joined the RAND Corporation, the original "think tank," at the behest of mentor W. Allen Wallis in 1949. While he would briefly return to academia to cover Wallis's courses during the 1953-1954 term and continued to take statistics courses at George Washington University, Marshall soon gained the cachet of being part of "a cadre of strategic thinkers" that coalesced at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s, a group that also included Charles J. Hitch, Herman Kahn, James Schlesinger and Daniel Ellsberg. Notably, he worked with Kahn on developing and advancing Monte Carlo methods.
Death[edit]
Marshall died on March 26, 2019, in Arlington, Virginia, at the age of 97.[25][26] House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) announced his death during a hearing, saying, "I can think of fewer people who have had a bigger impact of focusing our defense efforts, our national security, in the right direction than Mr. Marshall. He has been before our committee I don’t know how many times over the years. So I wanted to note that passing, but also to honor his memory because he made such a difference."[27]