Last week, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced, as part of his larger reorganization, the downgrading of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, headed by legendary strategist Andy Marshall. For more than two decades, every secretary of defense from Melvin Laird through William Perry has counted on Marshall's tiny team of defense intellectuals for long-range strategic thinking in an otherwise sclerotic and short-sighted bureaucracy. In the 1980s, Marshall's office provided key insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet military and economy. In the 1990s, Marshall and his whiz kids have been at the forefront of thinking about the strategic threats likely to emerge in the coming decades. Guess we don't need that anymore. And imagine the money that can be saved by moving a dozen thinkers out of the Pentagon!
Just about everyone who knows the Pentagon has denounced this attempt to eviscerate our strategic braintrust. Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman has declared the planned move a disastrous mistake. Sens. Dan Coats, Charles Robb, and Rick Santorum joined Lieberman in warning Cohen that he will lose the " bold, innovative, and controversial thinking" previous secretaries of defense have depended heavily on. Prominent figures in the defense community like former undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz have also weighed in on Marshall's behalf. The destruction of Marshall's office is being pushed by the new deputy secretary of defense and former bean-counter John Hamre, who apparently wants no challengers to conventional wisdom in-house. For, as Harvard professor Stephen P. Rosen notes, Marshall has for two decades " spoken truth to power."
Cohen has so far stood by Hamre's decision with a tenacity he has not shown on other controversial issues. Maybe Marshall's best chance to change the defense secretary's mind is to file a discrimination suit.