McNair Paper Number 52, About the Author, October 1996

Barry D. Watts has been a senior analyst for the Northrop Grumman Corporation since retiring from the U.S. Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1986. His Air Force career included a combat tour in Southeast Asia in F-4s, F-4 assignments in Japan and Okinawa, faculty duty teaching philosophy and mathematical logic at the U.S. Air Force Academy, two tours in the office of the Director of Net Assessment, and 3 years as a Soviet threat specialist with the Air Staff's Project Checkmate.

Since joining Northrop Grumman, Mr. Watts' duties have included analyses of U.S. military capabilities, operational doctrine, and military strategy for corporate headquarters and operating divisions, as well as work on corporate strategy and long-range planning. From 1991 to 1993 he headed the Gulf War Air Power Survey's work on operations and effectiveness, and he has continued to do pro bono work for the Office of Net Assessment on such topics as military innovation during the interwar years and the revolution in military affairs.

Mr. Watts holds a B.S. in mathematics from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. His initial foray into the subject of Clausewitzian friction was in his 1984 book, Foundations of US Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War, published by Air University Press.