Notes:
[1] James R. Schlesinger (Director of Central Intelligence, 1973, and Secretary of Defense, 1973-1975), Andrew W. Marshall (Director of the Office of Net Assessment, 1973-2015), and Fritz W. Ermarth (CIA and NSC strategic analyst) offered the sharpest critiques of early Cold War strategic analysis. See Schlesinger, “Address by Former DCI,” in Watching the Bear: Essays on CIA’s Analysis of the Soviet Union, eds. Gerald K. Haines and Robert E. Leggett (Central Intelligence Agency, 2003), 253-260; Marshall, “Arms Competitions: The Status of Analysis,” in Soviet Power and Western Negotiating Policies, Vol. II: The Western Panacea, Constraining Soviet Power Through Negotiation (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1983), 3-11; and Ermarth, “Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought,” International Security, vol. 3, no. 2 (Fall 1978): 138-155.
[2] Lawrence Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 66-67 and John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Soviet Military Strength (New York: The Dial Press, 1982), 38-50.
[3] For the missile gaps, see Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), chapter 4 and John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis and Soviet Military Strength (New York: The Dial Press, 1982), chapters 4 and 8.
[4] Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1992), 111-112 and National Reconnaissance Office, The Corona Story (Chantilly, VA: Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance, 2013), 59-61, 126.
[5] Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat, 78
[6] Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002), 60-61.
[7] Colin S. Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Press, 1986), 33.
[8] Reina Pennington, “Military Culture, Military Efficiency, and the Red Army, 1917-1945,” in The Culture of Military Organizations, eds. Peter R. Mansoor and Williamson Murray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 226-246 and Tsypkin, “Soviet Military Culture and the Legacy of the Second World War,” in Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe, eds. Frank Bless and Robert G. Moeller (New York: Bergahn Books, 2010), 269-286.
[9] Jeremi Suri, “America’s Search for a Technological Solution to the Arms Race: The Surprise Attack Conference of 1958 and a Challenge for ‘Eisenhower Revisionists,’” Diplomatic History, vol. 21, no. 3, 439-443.
[10] For the influence of geography and historical experience on strategic culture, see Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ch. 5.
[11] Colin S. Gray, Nuclear Strategy and National Style (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Press, 1986).
[12] For the Soviets’ comparatively weaker power-projection capabilities, see Norman Polmar, Thomas A. Brooks, and George E. Federoff, Admiral Gorshkov: The Man Who Challenged the U.S. Navy (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019). For the expectations of American naval analysts, see Christopher A. Ford and David A. Rosenherg, “The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan’s Maritime Strategy,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 28, no. 2 (April 2005): 381-382 and John B. Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy (Newport, RI: Naval War College), 23-24.
[13] Marc Tratchenberg, David Rosenberg, and Stephen Van Evera, An Interview with Carl Kaysen, MIT Security Studies Program, 8-11.
[14] Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword, 18.
[15] I have drawn the concept of “strategic narcissism” from H. R. McMaster, who was influenced by political scientist Hans Morgenthau and historian Zachary Shore. See McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (New York: Harper, 2020), 9-17; Hans Morgenthau and Ethel Person, “The Roots of Narcissism,” Partisan Review 45, no. 3 (Summer 1978): 337-347; and Zachary Shore, Zachary Shore, A Sense of the Adversary: The High-Stakes History of Reading Your Rival’s Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014),
[16] Robert S. McNamara, “The Dynamics of Nuclear Strategy,” speech delivered 18 September 1967, reprinted in The Department of State Bulletin, LVII, no. 1475 (9 October 1967): 443-451.
[17] James Cameron, The Double Game: The Demise of America’s First Missile Defense System and the Rise of Strategic Arms Limitation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 62-66, 97-98.
[18] Gen.-Col. Andrian A. Danilevich interview, Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985; Vol. II: Soviet Post-Cold War Testimonial Evidence, eds. John G. Hines, Ellis M. Mishulovich, and John F. Shull (McLean, VA: The BDM Corporation, 1995), 33.
[19] Danilevich interview, Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985; Vol. II, 30.
[20] At the RAND Corporation, Schlesinger’s coterie included perceptive analysts like Fritz Ermarth who acknowledged the distinctive national style of the Soviet Union. For Ermarth’s seminal work on the subject, see “Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought,” International Security, 3, no. 2 (Fall 1978): 138-155.
[21] James R. Schlesinger, “Arms Interaction and Arms Control,” Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, P-3881, 1967, 1-2. As of 25 October 2022: https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3881.html.
[22] Graham Allison, “Remembering Andy,” in Remembering Andy Marshall: Essays by His Friends, (USA: Andrew Marshall Memorial Foundation, 2021), 99-100.
[23] Andrew W. Marshall, “The Origins of Net Assessment,” in Net Assessment and Military Strategy: Retrospective and Prospective Essays, ed. Thomas G. Mahnken (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2020), 7.
[24] A. W. Marshall, Long-Term Competition with the Soviets: A Framework for Strategic Analysis, April 1972, R-862-PR, RAND Corporation, ix.
[25] For the establishment and maturation of the Office of Net Assessment, see Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts, The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy (New York: Basic Books, 2015).
[26] Westwick, Stealth, 4-5, 194, 234. For the PVO-Strany in the early Cold War, see Dmitry Adamsky, “The Art of Net Assessment and Uncovering Foreign Military Innovations: Learning from Andrew W. Marshall’s Legacy,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 43, no. 5 (2020): 611-644.
[27] For the Maritime Strategy, see Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, chs. 3-5; John E. Lehman, Command of the Seas (Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2001); Steven T. Wills, Strategy Shelved: The Collapse of Cold War Naval Strategic Planning (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021) chs. 2-3. .
[28] Aaron L. Friedberg, Getting China Wrong (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2022).
[29] Donald H. Rumsfeld, testimony, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, The National Security Implications of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, hearings, 107th Cong., 2d sess., July-August 2002, 11.
[30] For the Chinese strategic nuclear posture, see James M. Smith and Paul J. Bolt, Chinas Strategic Arsenal: Worldview, Doctrine, and Systems (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2021).
[31] Zachary Shore, A Sense of the Adversary: The High-Stakes History of Reading Your Rival’s Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 258.
[32] “The Dragon’s New Teeth: China’s Military,” The Economist, 403, no. 8779 (7 April 2012) 27-32.
