Yoda in the Pentagon
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Authors
Shore, Zachary
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2011-12-01
Date
Publisher
NDU Press
Language
Abstract
There are numbers that count, and numbers that don’t. Andrew Marshall has spent a
lifetime trying to assess which ones are which. In October 1973, Arab states attacked
Israel with overwhelming numerical dominance. The Egyptians deployed some 650,000
soldiers — a massive military force in its own right. Syria, Iraq and other Arab states
added another quarter of a million troops. Against these 900,000 enemies Israel could
muster no more than 375,000 soldiers, and 240,000 of those were from the reserves.
But the war was really a battle of tanks, and on this score, the numbers looked even
more daunting. Israel’s 2,100 tanks confronted a combined Arab fleet of 4,500. On the
northern front when the war began, Syria massed 1,400 tanks against 177 Israeli
vehicles — a crushing ratio of 8 to 1. Given the extraordinary disparity of force, after
Israel recovered from initial losses and decisively won the war, most Western observers
interpreted the conflict as proof of Israel’s unbreakable will to survive. Yet when
Marshall analyzed the numbers, he saw something else entirely.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
National Security Affairs
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
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NPS Report Number
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Format
6 p.
Citation
Shore, Zachary. "Yoda in the Pentagon: Andrew Marshall's lessons for strategic forecasting." Armed Forces Journal 149, no. 5 (2011): 28-29.
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.