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The Pentagon May Retire "Yoda," Its 92-Year-Old Futurist
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Of all the weapons the Pentagon relies on to defend the United States, one of the strangest and most secretive is Andrew Marshall, a 92-year-old man who's spent the last 40 years staring into the future trying to predict the next big threat to America. Known fondly as "Yoda" to his many fans in Washington, Marshall heads up the Office of Net Assessment—the Defense Department's think tank tasked with taking a long view, out-of-the-box approach to defense strategy. In his role as the Pentagon's visionary sage, Marshall is credited with predicting the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of China's global prominence, the role of autonomous weapons and robots in warfare, and even helping end the Cold War. Now, facing budget cuts, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is considering reorganizing or possibly even shuttering the futurist think tank, Defense News recently reported."
He never saw it coming
uh the title makes it sound like they are going to uh assassinate the nice old man
So, now we know who Yoda is, as well as the Jedi Knights.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
He's been trying to predict the future for the last 40 years. Unless everything he writes gets stamped 'above top secret: incinerator's eyes only' surely we have enough material to evaluate his efficacy by now?
How did it go?
I'm truly interested. He either called it and they ignored him, in which case he's not useful, or he didn't call it, in which case he's not useful.
I'm sure he costs less than a redundant engine for the F-35, but everybody who says that each of the thousands of useless programs don't need to be cut because they don't cost too much is ignoring the rest of those other thousands.
If he's as smart as the ethos contends, many think tanks would be glad to hire him on. I only hope I'm fortunate enough to be in such a position when I'm 92. Also cool that he was already 60 before he picked up his nickname - most career military are outta-there at that point.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Ugh, this is so stupid. This is the only long view think tank in the Pentagon, the only one who looks at the entirety of a nation and tries to predict what will happen and more or less gets it correct. One of the big complaints about the military is they're "always fighting the last war"; this group was specifically designed to try to predict what a conflict 20 years from now will be and start preparing for it. Marshall needs to retire; he's damned old, but the group's purpose is still relevant.
The proposed move also has caught the attention of some in the think tank and consulting worlds. Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute, is as unimpressed with the idea as Forbes.
âoeThe decision to eliminate [Net Assessment] might make sense were it an expensive endeavor, employing a large staff that might be better deployed elsewhere,â he wrote.
The Net Assessment office is less than a dozen people, tiny when compared with the rest of the Pentagon sweeping bureaucracy, Goure noted.
âoeIts budget is a few million dollars annually, much of that devoted to outside studies and analyses, he wrote. âoeYou wouldnâ(TM)t save enough from this action buy even one tactical fighter. Furthermore, the loss of the intellectual energy NA provides at a critical time for the Pentagonâ(TM)s future could have negative effects far outweighing the utility of the few dollars that would be saved.â
Sounds ass backwards to me. I think the military need to do more thinking, and less invading.
which is totally what she said
"I also predicted this due to ever-growing social spending leading to increasing cost-cutting pressures on everything else. I'd like to claim authorship of this repeatedly successful prediction method, but I cannot."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Envisioning the implosion of a corrupt, bankrupt police state? Brilliant! Most populous country on Earth is in the ascent? Wizard!
The difference between someoldguy and "Yoda" appears to be that someoldguy is really good at predicting the exact same things in hindsight.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
When 92 years old you are, less senile you will be not.
Your 'economic warfare' is myopic. China doesn't want to hurt one of its most lucrative export markets, and Europe won't pick up any significant slack, especially since they don't have the same degree of combined consumerism and lax regulation. The US and China are very much codependent, and while each has to make a political show from time to time about how the other is the bogeyman, in the end they both want the status quo.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
That's how stunningly accurate were his predictions. Nobody at the time could figure out why he choose that name, but a mere 7 years later...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
How's that working out for them?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What effect do you think that would have on the US?
Perhaps you think that dumping the bonds would harm the dollar and raise US Treasury rates (the cost of borrowing)? Then the dollar would fall in value against the Euro and GBP, and maybe against the Renminbi itself. That makes US manufactured good cheaper compared to other nations. That reduces imports into the US, while increasing both exports and import-replacement. That slashes US spending on Chinese goods, which would be compounded by an aggressive boycott of Chinese goods by angry US consumers. It would also reduce the effective value of existing bonds (since they are paid only in USD at a fixed yield) to foreign investors, while the higher yields of new bonds would make them more desirable to domestic institutional investors (about 70% of Treasury bond buyers).
These effects would reduce the value of China's one-shot mass sell-off, both in absolute dollar terms and in those dollars' buying power against other currencies, effectively reducing China's real wealth. And that would reduce the size of the effect on the markets.
Frankly I doubt the Chinese leadership is anywhere near that stupid.
They are trying to displace the USD as a reserve currency, while building themselves up. It's a slow long term plan, not a pointless idiotic one-shot spasm.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Of all the weapons the Pentagon relies on to defend the United States, one of the strangest and most secretive is Andrew Marshall, a 92-year-old man who's spent the last 40 years staring into the future trying to predict the next big threat to America. In his role as the Pentagon's visionary sage, Marshall is credited with predicting the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of China's global prominence, the role of autonomous weapons and robots in warfare, and even helping end the Cold War.
His most recent predictions included "damn kids on the lawn", the loss of a his pants, and "there are 4 monkeys in the attic - I'm sure of it"!
Mr Marshall will be missed.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
Back in the 70s?
Sure - it's a very safe prediction to make if you had his job. There were basically three possible outcomes: the USSR lost, the US lost or there was a nuclear war and we all lost. In two of these outcomes he's probably out of a job or dead regardless of whether he was right or wrong but predicting that the USSR will lose is the one scenario where he gets to keep his job and so the only scenario where he has to worry about being correct. So what would you predict?
Cynicism aside what we would really need to know to see whether he is good at predictions is how many other "yodas" the Pentagon had making predictions and getting it wrong. If you toss enough coins you are likely to find one which comes up heads 10 times in a row.
That's silly.
It kills one of their main consumers, and causes umpteen Chinese citizens to riot when their jobs suddenly disappear and they no longer have a promised way to attain that middle class life they've been promised.
What we have currently is Economic MAD. Either side drops the economic bomb all at once, and kablooey!
And nearly 30 years ago by James Cameron.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife