Jan van Tol Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.) is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Prior to his retirement from the Navy in 2007, Captain van Tol served as special adviser in the Office of the Vice-President. He was a military assistant to Andrew W. Marshall, the Secretary of Defense's Principle Adviser for Net Assessment from 1993–96 and again from 2001–2003. At sea, he commanded three warships, the last of which, USS Essex (LHD-2), was a major participant in post-tsunami relief efforts off Sumatra, Indonesia. Captain van Tol's analytic work has focused mainly on long-range strategic planning, military innovation, and wargaming. He holds degrees in philosophy and logic from the University of Massachusetts and in operations research from the Naval Postgraduate School, and graduated with distinction from the Naval War College. His provocative analyses have been featured in Proceedings.
