This post examines net assessment, a framework for evaluating strategic competition that evolved to inform U.S. defense policy during the Cold War. We explain what net assessment is, its methods and principles, and how some of its tools can be applied to reason about highly uncertain, long-term tech competitions with potentially existential stakes.

What is net assessment?

In the late 1950s, the Cold War slid into an especially dangerous period. Nuclear stockpiles swelled and delivery capabilities advanced, while a decades-long buildup by the Soviet Union challenged the United States’ conventional military dominance. Defense analysts needed to reframe the way they looked at military competition: the U.S. could not overpower the Soviet war machine with brute force, and the prospect of nuclear war both elevated the stakes of conflict and created a need for new metrics and principles of strategy for engaging in limited competition. It was in this context that the framework of “net assessment” began to develop.

Andrew Marshall, who founded and then directed the DoD’s Office of Net Assessment for forty-two years, described net assessment as follows:

"Our notion of a net assessment is that it is a careful comparison of U.S. weapon systems, forces, and policies in relation to those of other countries. It is comprehensive, including description of the forces, operational doctrines and practices, training regime, logistics, known or conjectured effectiveness in various environments, design practices and their effect on equipment costs, performance, and procurement practices and their influence on cost and lead times. The use of net assessment is intended to be diagnostic. It will highlight efficiency and inefficiency in the way we and others do things, and areas of comparative advantage with respect to our rivals."

Generalizing from its original military context, the core idea of net assessment is to create comprehensive (hence the “net” in the name), objective, and informative comparisons between competitors: be they states, companies, or other political or ideological coalitions. Insights drawn from these comparisons can inform more sustainable strategies and help build beneficial competitive dynamics instead of disastrous ones on tech and policy subjects of high importance.

Such analyses tend to zero in on crucial considerations. In a particularly salien...

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