[1] Deutsch studied war and peace, nationalism, co-operation, and communication,[2] as well as pioneered quantitative methods and formal systems analysis and model-thinking into the field of political and social sciences,[3][4][5] contributing to the development of sociological liberalism school in international relations.
[6] Born into a German-speaking Jewish[7] family in Prague on 21 July 1912 when the Kingdom of Bohemia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Deutsch became a citizen of Czechoslovakia after World War I.
[5] His father Martin Moritz Deutsch owned an optical shop on Prague's Wenceslas Square and was also active in the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Worker's Party.
[5] During World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services[8] and participated in the San Francisco conference that resulted in the creation of the United Nations in 1945.
He built upon earlier efforts at world modeling such as those advanced and advocated by authors of the Club of Rome such as Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows, et al. (1972).