Barry Watts

Barry D. Watts is senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, "where he concentrates on net assessments, airpower and the emergence of guided munitions, transformation, and the military use of space." He is the author of "The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment" (2001); "Meeting the Anti-Access and Anti-Access Challenge" (2003) with Andrew Krepinevich and Robert Work; and "Long Range Strike: Imperatives, Urgency and Operations" (2005) published by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.


 * Watts is a "former director of the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center and now [2001] the director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Program Analysis and Evaluation. [He] has written an assessment of military competition in near-earth space and how that competition may evolve over the next twenty-five years. Aside from the importance of its subject, [Watt's] book is of particular interest because it explicitly attempts a "net assessment." Watts worked for Andrew Marshall, director of the OSD Office of Net Assessment (ONA) from its establishment in 1973."

Watts took office in May 2001 as Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

"Prior to his new position, Watts had been the director of the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center in Arlington, Va., his employer since 1986. His duties included analysis of military capabilities, strategy and operational doctrine. From 1991 to 1993, he headed the Gulf War Air Power Survey's work on operations and effectiveness.

"Previously, Watts served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1986. His military career included an F-4 combat tour in Southeast Asia with the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, subsequent assignments in Japan and Okinawa as an F-4 Wild Weasel aircraft commander, and an instructional assignment, teaching philosophy and mathematical logic, at the U.S. Air Force Academy. During his military career, he also served in the Office of Net Assessment, working on Korean and NATO-Warsaw Pact balance assessments, and in the Air Staff's Project Checkmate as a Soviet threat specialist.

"Watts' published writings span such topics as air-to-air combat tactics, measures of effectiveness, and coalition air power in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, among other subjects. He recently completed an assessment of military competition in near-earth space for the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments (February 2001).

"The new director is a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with a bachelor's degree in mathematics; he also holds a master's in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh (1974).

"The Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation advises the secretary and deputy secretary of Defense about the relationship of defense programs and budgets to U.S. defense objectives, projected threats, allied contributions, estimated costs and resource constraints."

In 1984, Lt. Col. Barry D. Watts was "Red Team Chief for Project Checkmate at Headquarters USAF."

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