Stefan Thomas Possony
| Stefan Thomas Possony | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 15, 1913 Vienna, Austria |
| Died | April 26, 1995 (aged 82) Los Altos, California, U.S.A. |
| Nationality | Austrian American |
| Occupation | Economist, Military Strategy |
| Known for | Strategic Defense Initiative |
Stefan Thomas Possony (March 15, 1913 in Vienna – April 26, 1995) was an Austrian-born U.S. economist and military strategist and a Senior Fellow and director of International Studies at the Hoover Institution. Possony conceived the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative.
Possony graduated in 1930 from the University of Vienna in History and Economics, and with a PhD in Political Science. He was employed by the Foreign ministry and after 1934 assisted in the efforts of the Schuschnigg government to resist Hitler's anschluss. In March 1938 after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany he emigrated first to Czechoslovakia, and then when Germany occupied that country in March 1939, he fled to France. Prior to emigrating there, in August 1938 he was one of the participants in the Colloque Walter Lippmann, whose aim was to strive for the restoration of classical liberal ideas which had seen a decline in interest after the 1920s and 1930s. With this purpose in mind, Possony went to work with the French Foreign Affairs Ministry as a counselor in Psychological Warfare, and was active as a consultant with the French Armed Forces.
After France was occupied by the German Army in World War II, Possony, who had been on the Gestapo's wanted list due to his opposition to Austria's annexation by Germany, was taken into custody, but was subsequently able to escape. He planned to flee over the Spanish border, but was fortunate to gain passage for himself and his first wife to French Algeria as the Wehrmacht occupied Paris in 1940. From there he managed to get passage to the United States, where he worked with US Military Intelligence. He was appointed to a position at Princeton University. He later became a professor at Georgetown University and directed graduate studies for a number of students including active service military officers, while remaining a consultant to the Pentagon. Possony was one of the analysts who predicted the date of the first Soviet nuclear test.
Possony later worked at Stanford University. He was with William Kintner and Robert Strausz-Hupé a coauthor of the influential Cold War strategy treatise The Protracted Conflict, and in 1968 was co-author with Jerry Pournelle and Francis X. Kane of The Strategy of Technology. One of the chapters of Strategy of Technology was "Assured Survival", an argument against the prevailing strategy of "Assured Destruction," and argued strongly for strategic defense including defense against ICBMs.
...
Wikipedia