Net Assessment: A Practical Guide

Abstract

Net assessment is one of the principal frameworks for analyzing the national security strategy of the United States. It has been used by the Department of Defense for many years. Understanding net assessment--what it is and what it can do--is important for two reasons. First, it has general application to many military issues. Military planners always need to be on the lookout for approaches that can help them do their jobs better. Net assessment should be in that tool kit. A second reason for getting a better understanding of net assessment is that it has become an important part of the language spoken by leaders in the higher levels of DOD. Any officer who doesn't understand this lingua franca will be at a disadvantage in communicating with the civilian leadership. Senior officers need to comprehend the language used--if one receives a staff assignment to Russia, he would be a lot better off if he spoke Russian; likewise, if one anticipates a senior military or civilian assignment in the Pentagon, he or she needs to understand net assessment. But net assessment remains something of a mystery to many people. This article aims to demystify net assessment by examining its key features. With this basic starter kit, one should be able to listen to briefings that use net assessment; comment intelligently on those briefings; and become a contributing member on a team that takes net assessment as its framework. A useful exercise is to take the points made in this article and apply them to one of the major problems in your current assignment. Net assessment isn't applicable to all problems, of course. No set of tools or frameworks ever is. But any problem involving competition (e.g. Red vs. Blue for the military, or Army vs. a contractor) merits taking a look at net assessment to see what insights it can bring. What is Net Assessment? There are several published histories of net assessment. (1) Most focus on defining it in the negative--that is, how it differs from other analytic approaches. Thus, net assessment is not systems analysis. Nor is it operations research, or strategic planning. Describing what net assessment isn't, is a useful thing to do. But it isn't helpful for someone who is trying to learn how to apply it to his or her problems. Net assessment, alternatively, is sometimes defined in terms of the individuals who have pioneered its advance. In particular, it is closely identified with its principal developer, Andrew Marshall, the founding and current Director of the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense. While this is important to know, this definition suffers from the same defect as defining it in the negative. Anyone who wants to use net assessment needs a more operational understanding. The best way to define net assessment is to understand that it is a practice. It isn't an art (like military judgment), nor is it a science (like chemistry). Rather, it's a way of tackling problems from certain distinctive perspectives that involve skills that can be improved. Any practice is made up of several skills. A business manager, for example, needs to know how to control costs, satisfy customers, and plan for where his company will be in the future. He uses accounting, marketing, and forecasting. Each of these elements offers a particular perspective on the business, and each also involves certain skills. For example, a manager can improve his marketing skills by taking courses in the subject, reading up on it on his own, or by joining a professional marketing association. By knowing the perspectives of net assessment, and sharpening the skills associated with each of them, one will be able to apply net assessment and also be able to speak an important language. This way of defining net assessment is positive and productive. It comes from many years of working with its practitioners, and from applying it in numerous studies. …