Strategy of Technology
Encyclopedia
The Strategy of Technology doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...

 involves a country using its advantage in technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

 to create and deploy weapons of sufficient power and numbers so as to overawe or beggar its opponents, forcing them to spend their limited resources on developing hi-tech countermeasures and straining their economy.

In 1983, The US Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...

 established a classified program, Project Socrates
Project Socrates
Project Socrates was a US Defense Intelligence Agency program established in 1983 within the Reagan administration. This classified program, founded and directed by physicist Michael Sekora, was designed for the purpose of identifying the root cause of the United States' declining ability to...

, to develop a national technology strategy policy. This program was designed to maintain the US military strength relative to the Soviet Union, while also maintaining the economic and military strength required to keep the US as a superpower.

The Strategy of Technology is described in the eponymous book written by Stefan T. Possony
Stefan Thomas Possony
Stefan Thomas Possony was an Austrian-born U.S. economist and military strategist who conceived the U.S...

, Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....

 and Francis X. Kane (Col., USAF, ret.) in 1970. This was required reading in the U.S. service academies, the Air War College
Air War College
The Air War College is a part of the United States Air Force's Air University, headquartered at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. Air University's higher headquarters is Air Education and Training Command headquartered at Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. The Air War...

, and the National War College
National War College
The National War College of the United States is a school in the National Defense University. It is housed in Roosevelt Hall on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., the third-oldest Army post still active. It was officially established on July 1, 1946, as an upgraded replacement for the...

 during the latter half of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

.

Cold War

The classic example of the successful deployment of this strategy was the nuclear build-up between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

.

Some observers believe that the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 was a necessary attritive component to this war — Soviet industrial capacity was diverted to conventional arms in North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

, rather than development of new weapons and nuclear weapons — but evidence would need to be found that the then-current administration of the US saw it thus. Current consensus and evidence holds that it was but a failed defensive move in the Cold War, in the context of the Domino Doctrine
Domino theory
The domino theory was a reason for war during the 1950s to 1980s, promoted at times by the government of the United States, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect...

.

The coup-de-grace is variously opined to be Stealth technology
Stealth technology
Stealth technology also termed LO technology is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive electronic countermeasures, which cover a range of techniques used with personnel, aircraft, ships, submarines, and missiles, to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection...

 especially as embodied in the cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...

, which would have required an unattainable number of installations to secure the Soviet border; the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, which proved stealth and easily overcame Soviet-doctrine Iraqi forces; or Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

's Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...

, a clear attempt to obsolesce the Soviet nuclear arsenal, creating an immense expense for the Soviets to maintain parity.

Opposing views and controversies

It is argued that the strategy was not a great success in the Cold War; that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 did little to try to keep up with the SDI system, and that the War in Afghanistan caused a far greater drain on Soviet resources. However, the Soviets spent a colossal amount of money on their Buran
Shuttle Buran
The Buran spacecraft , GRAU index 11F35 K1 was a Russian orbital vehicle analogous in function and design to the US Space Shuttle and developed by Chief Designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy of Energia rocket corporation...

 space shuttle in an attempt to compete with a perceived military threat from the American Space Shuttle program
Space Shuttle program
NASA's Space Shuttle program, officially called Space Transportation System , was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011...

, which was to be used in the SDI.

There is a further consideration. It is not seriously in doubt that despite the excellent education and training of Soviet technologists and scientists, it was the nations of Europe and North America, in particular the United States, which made most of the running in technical development.

The Soviet Union did have some extraordinary technical breakthroughs of their own. For example: the 15% efficiency advantage of Soviet rocket engines which used exhaust gases to power the fuel pumps, or of the Squall http://www.periscope.ucg.com/mdb-smpl/weapons/minetorp/torpedo/w0004768.shtml supersonic cavitation torpedo. It was also able to use both its superlative espionage arm and the inherent ability of central planning to concentrate resources to great effect.

But the United States found a way to use its opponent's strengths for its own purposes. In the late 1990s, it emerged that many stolen technological secrets were funnelled by an arm of American intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...

 to the Soviet Union. The documents were real. They were of versions of the product which contained a critical but not obvious flaw.

Such was the complexity and depth of the stolen secrets that to check them would have required an effort almost as great as developing a similar product from scratch. Such an effort was possible in nations of the West because the cost could be defrayed by commercial sales. In Soviet states this was not an option. This sort of technological jiu-jitsu may set the pattern of future engagements.

External links

  • The Strategy of Technology by Stefan T. Possony, Ph.D.; Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D. and Francis X. Kane
    Francis X. Kane
    Colonel Francis X. "Duke" Kane, Ph.D., USAF, retired, is the space planner and engineer responsible for the design concept of the Global Positioning System . Colonel Kane was General Bernard A. Schriever's Chief for Space and Ballistic Missile Planning at the U.S. Air Force Systems Command from...

    , Ph.D. (Col., USAF Ret.) [The full text, free, with a suggested contribution.]
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