Abstract
The relationship of new weapons in the American arsenal to research and development (R&D) has often been assumed to be characterized by a linear model of the dependence of technology upon science. According to this model, basic research leads to new scientific knowledge, which in turn is applied to the end of deyeloping new technologies. The linear model has a long history, but it has been specially emphasized since World War II by scientists justifying support for basic research on the grounds of its indispensability to the advance of civilian and military technology.
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Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America ( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978 ), p. 341.
Karl Compton to Robert Russell, December 26, 1950, Karl T. Compton and James R. Killian Papers, MIT Archives, Collection AC4, Box 246, folder 2; Herbert York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva ( New York: Basic Books, 1987 ), p. 168.
Paul Forman, “Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as a Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940–1960” HSPS: Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences [19871), pp. 31–32. The recent figure has been about 3 percent; Franklin A. Long and Judith Reppy, “The Decision Process for U.S. Military R&D,” in Kosta Tsipis and Penny Janeway (eds.), Review of U.S. Military Research and Development, 1984 ( Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984 ), p. 7.
Melvin Kranzberg, “Science, Technology, and Warfare: Action, Reaction, and Interaction in the Post — World War 11 Era,” in Monte D. Wright and Lawrence J. Paszek (eds.), Science, Technology, and Warfare (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1971), pp. 147–148. Vannevar Bush, the director of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, once reflected: “… science does not operate in a vacuum, but is conditioned by the political system that controls its operations and applications.… What science produces, in the way of applications within its own changing limitations, depends upon what is desired by authority, by those who rule or represent a people” (Vannevar Bush, Modern Arms and Free Men New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949[, pp. 5–6).
Project Hindsight, of course, missed militarily important technological innovations that emerged after 1965 from relatively undirected basic research in the twenty years prior to that date. Perhaps the most salient example would be the laser, but it must be remembered that the military became heavily involved in laser work very early in the history of that innovation and that it had a good deal to do with determining the direction taken by laser R&D; see Forman, op. cit., 1987 (3), passim.
Kranzberg op. cit.1971 (4), pp. 3–4.
Graham T. Allison and Frederic A. Morris, “Armaments and Arms Control: Exploring the Determinants of Military Weapons,” in Franklin A. Long and George W. Rathjens (eds.), Arms, Defense Policy, and Arms Control ( New York: Noron, 1976 ), pp. 101–102.
Gregg Herken, The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950 ( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980 ).
Herbert York Race to Oblivion: A Participant’s View of the Arms Race (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), pp. 230–231, 89–90. See also York op. cit.1987 (2), pp. 195–96.
York, op. cit.,1987 (2), pp. 90–92; Harvey Brooks, “The Military Innovation System and the Qualitative Arms Race,” in Long and Rathjens, op. cit.,1976 (7), p. 92.
Allison and Morris op. cit.1976 (7), p. 122.
Herbert York suggests that in the 1970s, for-profit think thanks became a major influence in the determination of defense posture. In recent years, these firms have advanced new strategies, tactics, and ideas about innovative weapons systems. They have also provided an important home for defense intellectuals associated with the out-of-government party and a source of members for such high-level committees as the Defense Science Board (York to the author, February 23, 1987 ).
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1984,p. 345; Solly Zuckerman, Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 27.
Franklin Long and Judith Reppy, “Introduction,” and Jacques S. Gansler, “The Defense Industry’s Role in Military R&D Decision Making,” both in Franklin A. Long and Judith Reppy (eds.), The Genesis of New Weapons: Decision Making for R&D (New York: Pergamon, 1980), pp. 3, 41; Long and Reppy, op. cit.,1984 (3), p.10.
Kranzberg op. cit.1971 (4), pp. 147–148; the distribution figures may be calculated from the data in Statistical Abstract of the United States 1985p. 575.
Long and Reppy op. cit.1984 (3), pp. 7–9; Gansler op. cit.1980 (4), p. 41.
David L. McNicol, “Defense Spending and the United States Economy,” in Thomas Lucid, Judith Reppy, and George Staller (eds.) The Economic Consequences of Military Spending in the United States and the Soviet Union (Ithaca, N.Y.: Report on the Conference Sponsored by Peace Studies Program, Committee on Soviet Studies, Cornell University, May 9 and 10, 1986 ), p. 39.
Gansler, op. cit.,1980 (4), pp. 41–66; Edwin A. Deagle, Jr., “Organization and Process in Military R&D,” in Long and Reppy, op. cit.,1980 (14), p. 163.
York op. cit.1970 (9), pp. 61–62, 66–74, 52–59.
Ibid.,pp. 55–56.
Ibid.,pp. 11–12; York, op. cit.,1987 (2), p. 87.
Kranzberg op. cit.1971 (4), pp. 147–148; Long and Reppy op. cit.1984 (3), P. 7.
Quoted in York op. cit.1987 (2), p. 175.
Author’s interview with the consultant, who would prefer to remain anonymous. See also York, op. cit.,1970 (9), pp. 234–235.
York op. cit.1987 (2), p. 76–77.
Ibid.,chap. 6, pp. 30–31.
Ibid.,chap. 15, pp. 26–27.
York, op. cit., 1970 (9), pp. 83–84. See also Michael Armacost, The Politics of Weapons Innovation: The Thor-Jupiter Controversy ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1969 ).
York, op. cit.,1970 (9), pp. 102–104.
Ibid.,p. 45; Brooks, op. cit.,1976 (10); Allison and Morris, op. cit.,1976 (7); Franklin A. Long, “Arms Control from the Perspective of the 1970s,” in Long and Rathjens, op. cit.,1976 (7), pp. 82, 99, 12.
Allison and Morris op. cit.1976 (7); Long op. cit.1976 (30); Brooks op. cit.1976 (10), pp. 12, 82, 99, 114–117.
Allsion and Morris op. cit.1976 (7); Long op. cit.1976 (30), pp. 12–13, 117–120; York op. cit.1970 (9), p. 176.
Allison and Morris op. cit.1976 (7), pp. 105, 120; York op. cit.1987 (2), chap. 13, pp. 14–15.
York, op. cit.,(2), chap. 6, pp. 29–30; Allison and Morris, op. cit.,1976 (7); Brooks, op. cit.,1976 (10); G. W. Rathjens, “Changing Perspectives on Arms Control,” in Long and Rathjens, op. cit.,1976 (7), pp. 100–101, 75, 205.
Allison and Morris, op. cit.,1976 (7), p. 119; Wiesner’s remark was quoted by Carl Kaysen, the former Kennedy national security advisor, in a conversation with the author.
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Kevles, D.J. (1988). R&D and the Arms Race: An Analytical Look. In: Mendelsohn, E., Smith, M.R., Weingart, P. (eds) Science, Technology and the Military. Sociology of the Sciences, vol 12/1/2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2958-1_7
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