The Center for Defense Information (CDI) was a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on independent analysis of U.S. defense policy, military spending, and arms control. Founded in 1972 by retired military officers, CDI positioned itself as a source of critical, non-partisan defense analysis outside the defense establishment.
CDI's significance to the Richards KB is as the publisher of a-swift-elusive-sword, Richards's early monograph applying john-boyd's strategic framework to military doctrine. Publishing through CDI placed Richards's work within the military reform and independent defense analysis tradition — the same tradition that produced chuck-spinney's Pentagon critiques and that defense-and-the-national-interest extended online.
The CDI publication of a-swift-elusive-sword occurred during the military-and-defense-period of Richards's career, before the swift-elusive-sword-publication gave way to the business-oriented certain-to-win published by xlibris. CDI's institutional imprimatur lent credibility to Richards's Boyd interpretation within defense circles.
CDI was later absorbed into the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) in 2012. Its archive represents an important record of independent defense criticism during the post-Cold War period, including the Boyd-influenced reform arguments that Richards and others advanced during the boyd-circle-period and its aftermath.