Thinking About America's Defense

An Analytical Memoir

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Lieutenant General Glenn A. Kent was a uniquely acute analyst and developer of American defense policy in the second half of the twentieth century. His 33-year career in the Air Force was followed by more than 20 years as one of the leading analysts at RAND. This volume is not a memoir in the normal sense but rather a summary of the dozens of national security issues in which Glenn was personally engaged over the course of his career. These issues included creating the single integrated operational plan (SIOP), leading DoD's official assessment of strategic defenses in the 1960s, developing and analyzing strategic nuclear arms control agreements, helping to bring new weapon systems to life, and many others. Each vignette describes the analytical frameworks and, where appropriate, the mathematical formulas and charts that Glenn developed and applied to gain insights into the issue at hand. The author also relates his roles in much of the bureaucratic pulling and hauling that occurred as issues were addressed within the government.

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Year:
2008
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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Available
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 282
  • List Price: $34.50
  • Price: $27.60
  • ISBN/EAN: 9780833044525
  • Document Number: OP-223-AF
  • Year: 2008
  • Series: Occasional Papers

Contents

  • Chapter One

    The Single Integrated Operational Plan

  • Chapter Two

    Nuclear Weapons: Strategy and Arms Control

  • Chapter Three

    Analysis, Force Planning, and the Paradigm for Modernizing

  • Chapter Four

    Modernizing Nuclear Forces

  • Chapter Five

    Modernizing Conventional Forces

  • Chapter Six

    Analytical Tools

  • Chapter Seven

    Summing Up: Kent's Maxims

This publication was sponsored by the United States Air Force and conducted by RAND Project AIR FORCE.

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