Kevin N. Lewis

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Kevin Lewis (1955-2008), a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, was also widely regarded as a brilliant modern political satirist, though this was largely unknown outside defense analysis and Pentagon circles.

His lost classic work, "The Tumescent Threat", was vanished by RAND around 1980. Reportedly, thousands of copies made their way to DoD fans and libraries around the world, so we are hopeful someone will locate it and link here.

Here is a recent news story where Kevin's original tumescent concept is cleaned up and expanded. [1]

Commentary - G. Murphy Donovan: Iraq Study Group will follow a predictable path
WASHINGTON (examiner.com, Nov. 29 2006) - Another advisory group, this one chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, promises a “no-holds-barred” look at the Iraq conflict. Before we expect too much, we should review other bureaucratic post-mortems, including the recent 9/11 Commission Report. These ad hoc groups have one thing in common: They are a vote of “no confidence” in the official structure. But membership is drawn from the usual suspects, who keep turning up like bad pennies. The outcomes from such groups are predictable: platitudes, a deck chair shuffle and some variation of “bigger is better!” During the Cold War, the Rand Corp.’s Kevin Lewis christened all such arguments as the Tumescent Threat.

Another RAND spoof report by Kevin was called "The Glide-Tank" and had to be recalled because people took the satire seriously. It was about a modified Abrams tank dropped from a C-5A that would sprout wings and fly to the ground before shooting its target. According to one of his colleagues, Kevin believed the perfect specifications for a new weapons system would be: (1) Expensive, (2) Stupid, and (3) Piss everybody off. The "Glide-Tank" was designed to do exactly that...apparently no one got the joke.

Professionally, Kevin was compared to his Ph.D. advisor, William Kaufman, of MIT, as one of the most perceptive modern defense thinkers, able to understand the complex interrelationships between military services and systems. In one of his best printable utterances, Kevin said, "Freedom is like night baseball. Technology makes it possible."

He was the author of many influential publications on defense topics, highly respected inside the Pentagon, and by his colleagues. His RAND publication list is here][2]

[A biography] Kevin graduated from Yale and went to MIT, obtaining a doctorate in political science. During the summers of graduate school, Kevin interned at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. One of his fellow interns was Condi Rice. He has been with RAND in Santa Monica ever since (with a brief stint at RAND's Washington DC office in the early 80's). Kevin worked on national defense policy. In addition to numerous studies throughout his career, he published, soon after joining RAND, a fascinating article in Scientific American about the effects of nuclear war. His professional career spanned the Cold War, "Star Wars," the military downsizing that followed, and the response to global terrorism.

As many of us know, Kevin was interested in just about everything, and could speak with authority about literature, music, history, politics, science, medicine, psychology, and pop culture.

[In Remembrance of Kevin Lewis (From RAND Items, 15 May 2008)]

It is with sadness that we note the passing of Kevin Lewis, a senior defense analyst researcher in RAND’s Santa Monica office. Lewis graduated from Yale with a B.S. in operations research and received a Ph.D. in defense policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While a graduate student, he was a consultant to the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment and private organizations. He was a summer intern at RAND in 1978 and 1979, working with Carl Builder and others and has been associated with RAND since this time. He had been an instructor or adjunct faculty member at MIT, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, the University of Southern California, and the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Colleagues say that Lewis had a brilliant mind and an uncommon ability to weave together historical lessons and strategic thought, which he used to produce numerous reports and papers on defense strategy, force modernization, and resource allocation, among other issues. He was a prolific author, writing 27 articles and book chapters, 15 RAND reports, 34 RAND papers, and numerous internal documents. He analyzed and wrote on a range of topics, including the Soviet Union and its defense forces and strategies, joint maritime operations, ballistic missile defense, economic targeting in modern warfare, historical analyses of U. S. Air Force and U. S. Army force postures and budgets, and most recently, the dimensions of strategic posture and vision for U. S. defense. Lewis had a gift for being able to pull key strategic points and thoughts from vast amounts of data, often when others observing the same information could not, and then present them in ways that were clear and compelling. He will be missed by his friends and colleagues. Contributions may be made to Free Arts for Abused Children, 12095 W. Washington Blvd. #104 Los Angeles, CA 90066 in memory of Dr. Kevin N. Lewis.

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