The Last Warrior

Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy

De: Andrew Krepinevich, Barry Watts

Narrado por: Malcolm Hillgartner

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 12 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.

©2015 Andrew F. Krepinevich, Barry D. Watts (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

An In Depth Look at National Defense Decisions from Ford to Obama

This work should have been excruciatingly boring. Somehow the reader’s presentation and the depth of the story kept me focused throughout.

Top of the profession.

If you have made it this book you have read all the mainstream strategy books and are now separating yourself to the top of the profession.

Best strategy book I have ever read

While it is a biography, I found it to be the best instruction on strategic thinking I have ever found. Brilliantly done.

Great book if you already appreciate the subject matter

Many times I’ve walked by the ONA office on the A-Ring and wished I could work there. Not so much because I knew exactly what they did, but because of the office’s reputation — and especially that of its leader. In this book, Krepenivich tells the story of a quiet giant. A man most outside the defense establishment have never heard of, but whose influence has been inestimable over the course decades and a long line of defense secretaries.

To really enjoy this book, I believe the reader already must possess significant interest in the defense analysis and assessment field and have some depth of understanding of how the Pentagon and DoD work. Without that foundational knowledge at the outset, the book would devolve into a morass of initialisms and defense jargon. But properly forearmed with knowledge and keen interest in the subject matter, the book is a gold mine of history, not just of personalities, but of national strategic evolution and the bureaucracy that produces it.

Well read throughout.

Recommended for those who already understand DoD and have interest in strategic analysis.

Thanks to Audible for providing this volume free of charge.

Will definitely be listening this book again

incredible book on one of the most brilliant minds of US Defense policy and strategy.

Asking the right questions

Insightful book about aspects of the Cold War little known to the public.
A biography of Andrew Marshall's little know life but impressive feats.

Move over Chris Brose; Andy is my new spirit animal.

In all seriousness, this "intellectual history" was long overdue for such a giant of our times. Thank you, Andrew and Barry, for putting this together. I hope it will inspire another Andy.

Quite educational and worth the time!

I was never part of the military although I spent some time in Afghanistan as a contractor. But this book is not typical in that is not about equipment but about long term strategy and how to avoid war.

amazing insight into policy thinking

amazing insight into policy thinking I loved every second of it. I hope to find more books like this one.

Great look into an exceptional man’s insight

Great account of a strategic thinkers timeless influence on political and military affairs. We need more visionaries advising our nations.