Abstract
Lake analyzes US security policy since the beginning of the Cold War, demonstrating the pattern of trying to leverage or develop superior technology to solve military problems. After considering the possibility that the search for technological superiority is a rational choice, Lake argues that it is really rooted in American culture. American culture has a strong pro-technology bias, and the establishment of a large peacetime military after World War II allowed the military to import the general American pro-technology orientation into American strategic culture and the service cultures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Air Force also deployed a variety of sensors to detect Vietnamese insurgents and infiltrators as part of the Igloo White program (Werrell 2003, pp. 37–38).
- 2.
See Chap. 4 for a more extensive discussion of Air Force tactical aircraft and the F-15 and F-16 programs.
- 3.
Laser-guided bombs were famously used to take out the Thanh Hoa bridge, which had previously been ineffectively attacked dozens of times. Unfortunately, taking out the bridge had little or no effect on North Vietnamese supply routes.
- 4.
The bombers of Strategic Air Command and the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the Navy were both thought to be more secure from a “first strike” than land-based missiles.
- 5.
The Yom Kippur war also made clear that the battlefield environment had become much more lethal thanks to new technological developments like anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) (Hallion 1992, pp. 58–59).
- 6.
The attempt to develop PGMs began at the beginning of the age of airpower, during World War I, but it was not until the Vietnam War that there was a serious effort by the US military to improve the accuracy of air-delivered munitions.
- 7.
It is noteworthy that the A-X development program (which resulted in the A-10) was pushed by the civilian leadership of the Pentagon over the objections of the Air Force, who did not want a specialized close air support aircraft like it.
- 8.
The Marines, and to some extent the Army, were notably skeptical about how “revolutionary” the RMA was.
- 9.
However, as Eliot Cohen points out, the majority of US equipment deployed in Desert Storm represented mature technologies that had been in service for decades, not new cutting edge technologies. To the extent that superior US technology contributed to the victory in the Gulf War, it has more to do with the obsolescent Iraqi military than the use of cutting edge technologies by the United States (Cohen 1994).
- 10.
The heavy use of communications technology to improve military effectiveness has also been called “Network-Centric Warfare” (Harris 2009, pp. 43–60).
- 11.
During this period the search for advanced weapons seemed to be more about seeing what new technology could do than dealing with any identified threats to US national security (Dombrowski and Gholz 2006, pp. 6–7).
- 12.
The difficulty of converting raw data into useful information is one of the reasons the promise of the RMA may never be achieved (Gentry 2002, p. 96).
- 13.
- 14.
The critical role played by the Northern Alliance forces is often ignored, but was essential to the US victory (Jackson and Long 2009, p. 145).
- 15.
This view was not uncontroversial, though, and there was significant pushback against the notion that it was US superior technology rather than the poor Iraqi troops and equipment that explains the lopsided result (see Shimko 2010, pp. 159–161, 171–172).
- 16.
See Chap. 4 for a more detailed discussion of both programs.
- 17.
They also cooperate with each other to some extent because by working together they find it easier to get Congress to fund desired programs (Hampson 1989, pp. 27–47).
- 18.
During the Cold War it is clear that Congress was not willing to provide the funds necessary to match the Soviets in quantity even if the procurement unit cost was low enough.
- 19.
For a discussion of the role science fiction has played in American culture, see (Franklin 2008).
- 20.
This is consistent with a larger “Western Way of War” (Freedman 1998, pp. 15–16).
- 21.
Nye describes this in terms of conceptualizing America as “second creation,” built by the settlers in harmony with God’s first creation, Earth, by improving upon it (Nye 2003).
- 22.
Colin S. Gray characterizes American strategic culture as including an “engineering style” of searching for a technical fix to problems and notes that military successes and abundant resources have reinforced the predisposition to military materialism (1994, pp. 591–593).
- 23.
- 24.
For example, none of the armed services recognized the value of cruise missiles or pursued their development until the Department of Defense forced the issue (Builder 1989, pp. 41–43).
References
Adams, T. K. (2001). Future warfare and the decline of human decisionmaking. Parameters, 31(4), 57–71.
Adamsky, D. (2010). The culture of military innovation: The impact of cultural factors on the revolution in military affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Adas, M. (2006). Dominance by design: Technological imperatives and America’s civilizing mission. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Boot, M. (2003). The new American way of war. Foreign Affairs, 82(4), 41–58.
Breslin, C. B., LTC. (2000). Organizational culture and the military. Carlisle Barracks: U.S. Army War College.
Brigety, R. E. (2007). Ethics, technology, and the American way of war: Cruise missiles and US security policy (Contemporary security studies). London/New York: Routledge.
Brogan, D. W. (1944). The American character. New York: A. A. Knopf.
Brown, M. E. (1992). Flying blind: The politics of the U.S. strategic bomber program. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Builder, C. H. (1989). The masks of war: American military styles in strategy and analysis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Buley, B. (2007). The new American way of war: Military culture and the political utility of force (LSE international studies). New York: Routledge.
Burbach, D. T., Green, B. R., & Friedman, B. H. (2009). The technology of the revolution in military affairs. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (pp. 14–42). London/New York: Routledge.
Cameron, C. M. (2002). The U.S. military’s “two-front war,” 1963–1988. In T. Farrell & T. Terriff (Eds.), The sources of military change: Culture, politics, technology (pp. 119–138). Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Chin, W. (2001). Technology, industry, and war, 1945–1991. In G. Jensen & A. A. Wiest (Eds.), War in the age of technology: Myriad faces of modern armed conflict (pp. 42–65). New York: New York University Press.
Cohen, E. A. (1994). The mystique of U.S. air power. Foreign Affairs, 73(1), 109–124.
Davis, G. H. (2006). Means without end: A critical survey of the ideological genealogy of technology without limits, from Apollonian Techne to postmodern technoculture. Lanham: University Press of America.
Dombrowski, P. J., & Gholz, E. (2006). Buying military transformation: Technological innovation and the defense industry. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dupuy, R. E., & Dupuy, T. N. (1956). Military heritage of America (McGraw-Hill series in history). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Echevarria, A. J., II. (2011). American strategic culture: Problems and prospects. In H. Strachan & S. Scheipers (Eds.), The changing character of war (pp. 431–445). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Ee, D. V. (1986). From the new look to flexible response, 1953–1964. In K. J. Hagan & W. R. Roberts (Eds.), Against all enemies: Interpretations of American military history from colonial times to the present (Contributions in military studies, pp. 321–340). New York: Greenwood Press.
Evangelista, M. (1988). Innovation and the arms race: How the United States and the Soviet Union develop new military technologies (Cornell studies in security affairs). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Fallows, J. M. (1981). National defense (1st ed.). New York: Random House.
Farrell, T., & Terriff, T. (Eds.). (2002). The sources of military change: Culture, politics, technology (Making sense of global security). Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Fox, J. R., & Field, J. L. (1988). The defense management challenge: Weapons acquisition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Franklin, H. B. (2008). War stars: The superweapon and the American imagination (Rev. and expanded ed.). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Freedman, L. (1998). The revolution in strategic affairs (Adelphi paper, Vol. 318). London/New York: Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Friedman, B. H. (2009). The Navy after the Cold War: Progress without revolution. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 71–99). London/New York: Routledge.
Gentry, J. A. (2002). Doomed to fail: America’s blind faith in military technology. Parameters, 32(4), 88–103.
Gillespie, P. G. (2006). Weapons of choice: The development of precision guided munitions. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Gray, C. S. (1989). U.S. strategic culture: Implications for defense technology. In A. A. Clark & J. F. Lilley (Eds.), Defense technology (pp. 31–48). New York: Praeger.
Gray, C. S. (1993). Weapons don’t make war: Policy, strategy, and military technology (Modern war studies). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Gray, C. S. (1994). Strategy in the nuclear age: The United States, 1945–1991. In W. Murray, M. Knox, & A. H. Bernstein (Eds.), The making of strategy: Rulers, states, and war (pp. 579–613). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gray, C. S. (1999). Modern strategy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haglund, D. G. (2009). What good is strategic culture? In J. L. Johnson, K. M. Kartchner, & J. A. Larsen (Eds.), Strategic culture and weapons of mass destruction: Culturally based insights into comparative national security policymaking (pp. 15–31). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hallion, R. (1992). Storm over Iraq: Air power and the Gulf War (Smithsonian history of aviation series). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hammond, G. T. (2001). The mind of war: John Boyd and American security. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hampson, F. O. (1989). Unguided missiles: How America buys its weapons. New York: Norton.
Harris, B. F. (2009). America, technology and strategic culture: A Clausewitzian assessment. London/New York: Routledge.
Herspring, D. R. (2008). Rumsfeld’s wars: The arrogance of power. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Holland, L. H. (1997). Weapons under fire. New York: Garland Pub.
Howlett, D. (2006). The future of strategic culture. Fort Belvoir: Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Hull, I. V. (2005). Absolute destruction: Military culture and the practices of war in Imperial Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Jackson, C. (2009). From conservatism to revolutionary intoxication: The US Army and the second interwar period. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 43–70). London/New York: Routledge.
Jackson, C., & Long, A. (2009). The fifth service: The rise of Special Operations Command. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 136–154). London/New York: Routledge.
Johnson, J. D. (1991). Symbol and strategy: On the cultural analysis of politics. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Johnston, A. I. (1995). Thinking about strategic culture. International Security, 19(4), 32.
Keegan, J. (1993). A history of warfare. New York: Alfred A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, Inc.
Kier, E. (1995). Culture and military doctrine: France between the wars. International Security, 19(4), 65.
Kier, E. (1997). Imagining war: French and British military doctrine between the Wars (Princeton studies in international history and politics). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lake, D. R. (2009). The limits of coercive airpower: NATO’s “victory” in Kosovo revisited. International Security, 34(1), 83.
Lantis, J. S. (2009). Strategic culture: From Clausewitz to constructivism. In J. L. Johnson, K. M. Kartchner, & J. A. Larsen (Eds.), Strategic culture and weapons of mass destruction: Culturally based insights into comparative national security policymaking (pp. 33–52). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Legro, J. W. (1994). Military culture and inadvertent escalation in World War II. International Security, 18(4), 108–142. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539179.
Legro, J. W. (1995). Cooperation under fire: Anglo-German restraint during World War II (Cornell studies in security affairs). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Legro, J. W. (1997). Which norms matter? Revisiting the “failure” of internationalism. International Organization, 51(1), 31–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/2703951.
Lewis, A. R. (2012). The American culture of war: The history of U.S. military force from World War II to Operation Enduring Freedom (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Linn, B. M. (2007). The echo of battle: The Army’s way of war. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press.
Linn, B. M. (2013). The U.S. armed forces’ view of war. In D. M. Kennedy (Ed.), The modern American military (pp. 41–58). New York: Oxford University Press.
Long, A. (2009). The Marine Corps: Sticking to its guns. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 119–135). London/New York: Routledge.
Lupfer, T. T. (1984). The challenge of military reform. In A. A. Clark (Ed.), The defense reform debate: Issues and analysis (pp. 23–32). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Maddock, S. J. (2009). Ideology and U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy since 1945. In R. B. Mariner & G. K. Piehler (Eds.), The atomic bomb and American society: New perspectives (1st ed., pp. 121–152). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Mahnken, T. G. (2006). United states strategic culture. Fort Belvoir: Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Mahnken, T. G. (2008). Technology and the American way of war. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mahnken, T. G. (2009). U.S. strategic and organizational subcultures. In J. L. Johnson, K. M. Kartchner, & J. A. Larsen (Eds.), Strategic culture and weapons of mass destruction: Culturally based insights into comparative national security policymaking (pp. 69–84). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mahnken, T. G. (2013). Weapons: The growth and spread of the precision-strike regime. In D. M. Kennedy (Ed.), The modern American military (pp. 59–78). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mahnken, T. G., & FitzSimonds, J. R. (2003). The limits of transformation: Officer attitudes toward the revolution in military affairs. Newport: Naval War College.
March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2), 587–608. https://doi.org/10.2307/3003600.
McNaugher, T. L. (1989). New weapons, old politics: America’s military procurement muddle. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Nye, D. E. (2003). America as second creation: Technology and narratives of new beginnings. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Owens, W. A., Admiral (U.S. Navy, ret.). (2002). Creating a U.S. military revolution. In T. Farrell & T. Terriff (Eds.), The sources of military change: Culture, politics, technology (Making sense of global security, pp. 205–219). Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Paarlberg, R. L. (2004). Knowledge as power: Science, military dominance, and U.S. security. International Security, 29(1), 122–151. https://doi.org/10.1162/0162288041762959.
Peoples, C. (2010). Justifying ballistic missile defence: Technology, security and culture (Cambridge studies in international relations, Vol. 112). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Perry, W. J. (1984). Defense reform and the quantity-quality quandary. In A. A. Clark (Ed.), The defense reform debate: Issues and analysis (pp. 182–192). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pursell, C. W. (2007). Technology in postwar America: A history. New York: Columbia University Press.
Roland, A. (1997). Technology and war. American Diplomacy (4). http://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/1997/04/technology-and-war/. Accessed 27 May 2016.
Rosen, S. P. (1991). Winning the next war: Innovation and the modern military (Cornell studies in security affairs). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Sapolsky, H. M., Gholz, E., & Talmadge, C. (2009a). US defense politics: The origins of security policy. New York: Routledge.
Sapolsky, H. M., Green, B. R., & Friedman, B. H. (2009b). The missing transformation. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 1–13). London/New York: Routledge.
Sapolsky, H. M., Green, B. R., & Friedman, B. H. (2009c). The RMA and the second interwar period. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (Vol. 24, pp. 182–194). London/New York: Routledge.
Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership (1st ed., A Joint publication in the Jossey-Bass management series and the Jossey-Bass social and behavioral science series). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Segal, H. P. (1985). Technological utopianism in American culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shimko, K. L. (2010). The Iraq wars and America’s military revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Slack, J. D., & Wise, J. M. (2005). Culture + technology: A primer. New York: Peter Lang.
Snyder, J. L. (1977). The Soviet strategic culture: Implications for limited nuclear operations: A Project Air Force report prepared for the United States Air Force. Santa Monica: Rand.
Sondhaus, L. (2006). Strategic culture and ways of war (Cass military studies). London/New York: Routledge.
Stevenson, J. P. (1993). The Pentagon paradox: The development of the F-18 Hornet. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
Stigler, A. L. (2002). A clear victory for air power: NATO’s empty threat to invade Kosovo. International Security, 27(3), 124.
Stubbing, R. A., & Mendel, R. A. (1986). The defense game: An insider explores the astonishing realities of America’s defense establishment (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Summers, H. G., Jr. (1986). The Army after Vietnam. In K. J. Hagan & W. R. Roberts (Eds.), Against all enemies: Interpretations of American military history from colonial times to the present (pp. 361–374). New York: Greenwood Press.
Thompson, W. (2010). Operations over North Vietnam, 1965–1973. In J. A. Olsen (Ed.), A history of air warfare (1st ed., pp. 107–126). Washington, DC: Potomac Books.
Tocqueville, A. d. (1835). Democracy in America. London: Saunders and Otley.
Tomes, R. R. (2006). U.S. defense strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military innovation and the new American way of war, 1973–2003. New York: Routledge.
Tomes, R. R. (2009). Defense strategy in the 1990s: Old wine, new bottles. In H. M. Sapolsky, B. H. Friedman, & B. R. Green (Eds.), US military innovation since the Cold War: Creation without destruction (pp. 155–171). London/New York: Routledge.
United States Congress: Senate Committee on Armed Services: Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel. (1981). Impact of technology on military manpower requirements, readiness, and operations: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Ninety-sixth Congress, second session, December 4, 1980. Washington, DC: U.S. G.P.O.
Van Creveld, M. (1989). Technology and war: From 2000 B.C. to the present. New York: Free Press.
Weigley, R. F. (1973). The American way of war; a history of United States military strategy and policy (The Wars of the United States). New York: Macmillan.
Werrell, K. P. (2003). Chasing the silver bullet: U.S. Air Force weapons development from Vietnam to Desert Storm. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lake, D.R. (2019). The Pursuit of Technological Superiority. In: The Pursuit of Technological Superiority and the Shrinking American Military. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-78681-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-78681-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-33062-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-78681-7
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)