Eliminating the Pentagon’s think tank is a senseless mistake

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth last week ordered the “disestablishment” of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment and the “development of a plan to rebuild it in alignment with the department’s strategic priorities.” Its personnel will be reassigned to “mission-critical roles.”

Even by Hegseth’s confrontational and iconoclastic standards, this is a narrow-minded, vendetta-driven act of self-harm.

The Office of Net Assessment was set up in 1973 during Richard Nixon’s presidency to assess U.S. military capabilities and readiness and anticipate potential threats and scenarios that could emerge over the long term of 20 to 30 years. It was effectively designed by Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger to be the Pentagon’s think tank, and he chose eminent RAND Corporation strategist Andrew Marshall as its first director. Marshall went on to hold the position until 2015, retiring at age 93.

Killing the Office of Net Assessment is part of Hegseth’s deliberately confrontational and disruptive approach. During his confirmation hearing, he stated that his task was “to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense” and to create “a Pentagon laser-focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards and readiness.”

The “warrior ethos” is central to Hegseth’s conception of the armed forces. His supporters emphasize that Hegseth served with the National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning two Bronze Stars and rising to the rank of major. His detractors, with equal accuracy, point out that much of his active duty was guarding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, working in civil affairs and teaching counterinsurgency, and that he never held a senior command position. He has a disdain for international norms, for senior military and civilian leadership and for anything that is not immediately connected to the kinetic front-line of the armed forces.

The long-term strategic thinking performed by the Office of Net Assessment is a vital part of a sustainable and effective defense policy. The office was created to counteract that perennial accusation, popularized by Winston Churchill, that “the War Office is always preparing for the last war” — for example, as when the U.S. Army’s belief in overwhelming firepower and technological superiority led to the disaster of the Vietnam War. The Department of Defense desperately needs the ongoing work of critical thinkers to imagine how warfare might change and where conflicts might arise.

Many described the Office of Net Assessment as “the office that won the Cold War.” As director, Marshall perceived that the Soviet Union was weaker than many assumed and that American resolve could lead to its collapse. He also understood the emerging threat from China at a time when the defense establishment’s attention was consumed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence has belatedly attempted to emulate Marshall’s critical role. In 2020, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced the establishment of a Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge. It was intended to “ask uncomfortable questions of ourselves and ... learn from conflicts — both real and anticipated.”

Why is Hegseth sacrificing such a vital capacity? There was a clue in the Pentagon’s official announcement, that the closure “ensures that our resources are focused on the most pressing national security challenges.” Imbued with the Trump-Musk assumption that spending without an obvious and immediate output is likely to be wasteful bureaucratic feather-bedding, Hegseth does not value the office's role. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a long-time adversary of the office, has celebrated the move as saving $20 million. The Pentagon’s budget for 2024 was $841 billion.

Hegseth evinces no interest in the battlefield of 2050 or its geopolitical context. There is another, more personal game of retribution being played out. The Department of Defense’s rapid-response social media account lauded the closure of “the office that has been linked to the Russian collusion hoax.” Several Trump-friendly journalists have referenced the office's funding of Stefan Halper, an FBI informant in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

This is, characteristically for this administration, about settling scores and remaking history on Trumpian lines. Although the narrow charge of collusion with Russia was not proved, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report found “sweeping and systemic” Russian interference in the 2016 election. But for MAGA, it is still just a “hoax.”

The Office of Net Assessment was tangentially connected (though much of the funding it gave Halper was before Trump was even a candidate), and therefore became a target. As a bureaucratic and necessarily secret organization, it was easy meat.

With diminished strategic thinking and horizon-scanning, America will be less well prepared for future conflicts, less able to anticipate their nature and the kind of military forces that will be required. Hegseth’s demolition of the office is a combination of Trump’s vendetta, reflexive dislike of the department he oversees and a lack of interest or understanding of military strategy and preparedness.

None of this is surprising; it could have been foreseen from the moment of his nomination. The most malign effects will not bite for some years, by which time Hegseth and Trump will have shuffled off the stage. This is another element of a toxic, stupid and avoidable legacy.

Eliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

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