Abstract
A broad ‘correlation of forces’ between the US and the USSR clearly shows the US strength to be based on its technological and industrial advantages. ‘Innovativeness’ and ‘responsiveness’ are the essence of the American economy, particularly when compared with that of the Soviets. These characteristics have driven US military strategy in the post-World War II era towards ‘technological superiority’, and US international economic policy toward ‘free trade’ (except, of course, with military equipment to communist countries); in both areas, the US has believed that these postures will provide favourable results. And, in fact, this has been the case, so far. Today, the US is recognized as the strongest nation in the world, both in terms of military and economic power. However, this position is being challenged — in the military sphere by the Soviets (with the increasing quality of their weapon systems and their larger quantities) and in the economic sphere by the Japanese. These challenges place increasing demands on US resources. By the end of the 1980s there was growing concern that America’s military posture would not be ‘affordable’ in the future and that its industry was no longer internationally ‘competitive’. Clearly, the military and economic spheres are strongly interrelated and, while the focus here is on the military arena, we will constantly keep in mind this strong interrelationship.
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Notes
C. G. Danhof, Government Contracting and Technological Change, Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution, 1968.
As quoted in Walter McDougall’s Heavens and The Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, New York, Basic Books, 1986, p. 229.
J. W. Canan, The Super Warriors: The Fantastic World of Pentagon Super Weapons, New York, Weybright and Tulley, 1975, p. 14.
The author has written about this subject previously and some of the material in this area is derived from those works. Specifically, see: J. S. Gansler, ‘Managing Defense Technology: Problems and Needed Changes’, ch. 13 in A. Clark (ed.) Defence Technology, New York, Praeger, 1988
Franklin D. Marjiotta and Ralph Sanders (eds) Technology, Strategy and National Security, Washington, D.C., National Defense University Press, 1985
F. A. Long and J. Reppy (eds) Genesis of New Weapons: Decisionmaking and Military R&D, New York, Pergamon, 1980.
In the case of the Navy, it took over 20 years for the Harpoon missile to be fielded and that was even after the Elath was sunk in the Mediterranean. In the case of the Air Force and the Army’s resistance to remotely-piloted vehicles (RPV), it should be noted that the Israeli Scout vehicle and the US Aquila reconnaissance RPV both were initiated in 1973. The Israelis had theirs in their force structure by 1978 and used them extremely effectively in the 1982 battles in Lebanon against Syria, while in the late 1980s the US was still trying to decide if the Aquila should be developed and deployed. For a more detailed discussion of the history of these unmanned vehicles, see: S. Shaker and A. Wise, War Without Men: Robots on the Future Battlefield, Washington, D.C., Pergamon-Brassey, 1988.
The Army has been the most resistant to such changes (even maintaining a cavalry until the beginning of World War II). Perhaps the most clear evidence is their relatively low expenditure for R&D. (For example, in 1987 the Army R&D expenditure was $4.7 billion — only 30 per cent of the Air Force’s $15.2 billion.) For an excellent historical perspective on the military’s resistance to non-traditional technology, see: Elting E. Morrison, Men, Machines and Modern Times, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1966.
George Eads and Richard Nelson, ‘Governmental Support of Advanced Civilian Technology: Power Reactors and the Supersonic Transport’, Public Policy (Summer 1971) pp. 406–7.
For an extensive discussion of the relative benefits of smaller size in achieved innovation and growth, see F. M. Scherer, Innovation and Growth: Schumpeterian Perspectives, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1984
J. M. Blair, Economic Concentration: Structure, Behaviour and Public Policy, New York, Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, 1975
J. Jewkes et al., The Sources of Innovation, New York, Norton, 1971, pp. 71–85
See J. S. Gansler, ‘Integrating Civilian and Military Industry’, Issues in Science and Technology, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (Fall 1988) pp. 63–73.
A. Toffler, Future Shock, New York, Bantam, 1970.
For an excellent discussion of the history of the Manhattan Project, see Peter Wyden, Day One: Before Hiroshima and After, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1984.
Donald L. Hafner, ‘Assessing the President’s Vision: The Fletcher, Miller and Hoffman Panels’, Daedalus (Spring 1985) pp. 91–108.
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© 1990 Carl G. Jacobsen
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Gansler, J.S. (1990). Management of the Defence Industry: the United States. In: Jacobsen, C.G. (eds) Strategic Power: USA/USSR. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_28
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