Welcome to War Quants. We’re a group of national security practitioners, observers, analysts, and sometimes writers who were fortunate to be brought together on active duty. With War Quants, we aim to bring a much-needed quantitative perspective to discussions of national security issues.
Historian John Lewis Gaddis defined grand strategy as “the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.” The growth of national security issues reflects these “potentially unlimited aspirations.” But while unbounded lists of priorities proliferate freely, effective decision frameworks, compelling data-driven discussions, and rigorous analyses for allocating resources and making trade-offs often prove elusive.
The War Quants project exists to address this gap. We will examine the crowded list of national security issues and inject quantitative reasoning that drives the alignment of capabilities to the achievement of aspirations. Not every issue we discuss will be a matter of grand strategy, but we believe the effective allocation of resources will remain central to military decision-making. Quantitative decision support will therefore continue to serve as a powerful tool for defense leaders everywhere.
We are not quantitative imperialists - we do not hold our methods above other forms of human creativity and decision-making. However, we recognize mathematics as the language of the scientific method and have a special appreciation for the formal rigor it can provide to certain decision processes. We will also draw inspiration from the achievements of luminary war quants such as Thomas Schelling, Andrew Marshall, Wayne Hughes, and others whose contributions to the science of warfare have shaped our past, present, and future.
If you are a national security practitioner, policy wonk, defense entrepreneur, or any other stakeholder, we invite you to follow our work, learn with us, and let us hear your feedback.
The views and opinions expressed on War Quants are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or organization.
