3 THE HEYDAYS OF SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

Systems analysis came into its own as a means of controlling American command technology in the early 1960s under the active encouragement of the Secretary of Defense and became institutionalized in 1965 as the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis. The purpose of this office was to help the Secretary decide future military investments both in weapons technology and in acquisition of weapon systems incorporating those technologies. Its creation ushered in an era of more explicit concern for the key assumptions driving military decisions and focused attention on the corresponding need to match technology acquisition to the overarching national interests the Department was expected to secure. Upon that conceptual foundation, systems analysis introduced the practice of guiding analysis by means of an explicit planning scenario and developed a number of quantitative tools with the help of which a more open and precise discussion could be conducted about how these technological choices would play out against the background offered by the planning scenario.