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Net assessment is one of the principal frameworks for analyzing the national security strategy of the United States. It has been used by the Department of Defense for many years. Understanding net assessment-what it is and what it can do-is important for two reasons. First, it has general application to many military issues. Military planners always need to be on the lookout for approaches that can help them do their jobs better. Net assessment should be in that tool kit.
A second reason for getting a better understanding of net assessment is that it has become an important part of the language spoken by leaders in the higher levels of DOD. Any officer who doesn't understand this lingua franca will be at a disadvantage in communicating with the civilian leadership. Senior officers need to comprehend the language used-if one receives a staff assignment to Russia, he would be a lot better off if he spoke Russian; likewise, if one anticipates a senior military or civilian assignment in the Pentagon, he or she needs to understand net assessment.
But net assessment remains something of a mystery to many people. This article aims to demystify net assessment by examining its key features. With this basic starter kit, one should be able to listen to briefings that use net assessment; comment intelligently on those briefings; and become a contributing member on a team that takes net assessment as its framework.
A useful exercise is to take the points made in this article and apply them to one of the major problems in your current assignment. Net assessment isn't applicable to all problems, of course. No set of tools or frameworks ever is. But any problem involving competition (e.g. Red vs. Blue for the military, or Army vs. a contractor) merits taking a look at net assessment to see what insights it can bring.
What is Net Assessment?
There are several published histories of net assessment.' Most focus on defining it in the negative-that is, how it differs from other analytic approaches. Thus, net assessment is not systems analysis. Nor is it operations research, or strategic planning.
Describing what net assessment isn't, is a useful thing to do. But it isn't helpful for someone who is trying to learn...