Made possible by support from the Ax:son Johnson Foundation, the Net Assessment Programme is the first academic initiative of its kind dedicated to the study, teaching and practice of net assessment.
The Net Assessment Programme honours the intellectual tradition of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), operating as a hub for an international network of net assessment practitioners and scholars of long-range strategy. The programme provides policymakers and experts with the space to challenge conventional wisdom, delve deeply into underexplored topics, and drive provocative strategic thinking.
Since its inception in the early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) has played a leading role in U.S. national security and strategic culture across the whole Western alliance. ONA’s work on discerning relative military capabilities, competitive dynamics, and future warfighting scenarios has long informed the Pentagon’s strategy development. It was ONA’s influence that helped shape U.S. economic strategies that undermined Soviet power during the Cold War, and it was ONA that identified China’s eventual rise as major military and economic competitor to the United States.
Given the office’s reputation for long-range foresight and comprehensive analysis, interest in net assessment as an approach to strategy development has spread across Europe in the first decades of the 21st century. The United Kingdom established the Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC) in 2022, NATO has been cultivating a similar function since 2018, and several countries – including Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia – are in the process of developing their own net assessment units.
In early 2025, when the U.S. Office of Net Assessment was temporarily disestablished, CSNS envisioned the Net Assessment Programme as a measure toward preserving the net assessment network and promoting European efforts toward strategic autonomy. Since its commencement in October 2025, the Net Assessment Programme has grown into a valued resource both for scholars of national security strategy and practitioners seeking to develop their own government’s net assessment functions.
Today, the CSNS Net Assessment Programme advances three aims:
- Convening net assessment experts and across allied and partner states.
- Training the next generation of scholars and policymakers in the art of net assessment.
- Contributing to the work of long-term strategy development through rigorous scholarship and tailored programming.
Past Events
29-30 October 2025
First Annual Net Assessment Workshop: ‘The Past and Future of Net Assessment’
Hosted in conjunction with the Journal of Strategic Studies, the inaugural Net Assessment Workshop marked the official start of the CSNS Net Assessment Programme and brought together leading scholars and policymakers from Europe and the United States. Early discussions centred on the scope and parameters of net assessment and looked to previous work undertaken by the Office of Net Assessment in the United States. The second half of the day focused on more practical concerns, specifically how certain net assessment studies relating to Russia and China might be designed in the coming years. The impact of AI and machine learning was a popular topic, and participants wrestled with the capabilities and drawbacks of these emerging technologies as they relate to net assessment studies. The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion about the ways that we can – and should – teach net assessment techniques to students and practitioners.
11 November 2025
Net Assessment and Strategy Development: A Roundtable with Eliot Cohen and Seth Jones
CSNS hosted Prof Eliot Cohen and Seth Jones of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) for a discussion on American and Western approaches to net assessment and grand strategy. The meeting was an invitation-only, off-the-record conversation covering various subjects, including net assessment, defence industry, policy planning, and the strategic outlook of the Trump administration to date.
8 October 2026
How Transactional Diplomacy Shatters a World Order: From Napoleon to NATO – A roundtable discussion with Ziyi ‘Emily’ Wang
Drawing on historical research from her forthcoming book The Concert Is Over: Shattered World Order from Napoleon to Bismarck and a recent article in Engelsberg Ideas, diplomatic historian Ziyi ‘Emily’ Wang of the Hoover Institute joined us to discuss the transactionalism and collapse of the 19th-century world order. During an event with students and faculty in the Department of War Studies, Dr. Wang examined the enduring lessons that history offers for diplomacy and strategic alliances at a reordering juncture today.
