Trillions for military technology: How the Pentagon innovates and why it costs so much
Abstract
Trillions for Military Technology explains why the weapons purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense cost so much, why it takes decades to get them into production even as innovation in the civilian economy becomes ever more frenetic, and why some of those weapons don't work very well despite expenditures of many billions of dollars. It also explains what do about these problems. The author argues that the internal politics of the armed services make weapons acquisition almost unmanageable. Solutions require empowering civilian officials and reforms that will bring choice of weapons "into the sunshine" of public debate.
... By the end of the Cold War, there was a growing view that the military had become isolated from commercial technology and production as a result of technological and economic changes as well as the particularities of contracting with government. Some analysts suggest that a "wall of separation" now divides commercial and military production (Alic et al., 1992;Markusen and Yudken, 1992;Alic, 2007;Gansler, 2011). This argument, though not tested with systematic, recent data, has created great worry in national security circles about the risk that the United States might lose the technological edge that underpins its military power. ...
... Several authors argue that Cold War military R&D and procurement stimulated the emergence of general-purpose technologies such as those used in military and commercial aircraft (Mowery and Rosenberg, 1993); nuclear power reactors (Ruttan, 2006); computers and semiconductors (Flamm, 1988;Langlois and Steinmueller, 1999;Fong, 2001); and electronics (Clippinger and Gaier, 1998;Lorell et al., 2000). They often claim that early in the Cold War, commercial success was a "spin-off" benefit of the U.S. defense effort, but later the military and its contractors became isolated from commercial technology and production as a result of technological and economic changes as well as the growing regulatory burden imposed on contracts with government customers (Alic et al., 1992;Markusen and Yudken, 1992;Gansler, 1995;Ruttan, 2006;Alic, 2007;Gansler, 2011). Thus, they argue that the military has lost much of its ability to exploit the national innovation system (Alic, 2007); notably, the innovation performance of specialized defense suppliers has been compared unfavorably with that of commercial Silicon Valley firms (Alic, 2007;Gansler, 2011;Kendall, 2014). ...
... They often claim that early in the Cold War, commercial success was a "spin-off" benefit of the U.S. defense effort, but later the military and its contractors became isolated from commercial technology and production as a result of technological and economic changes as well as the growing regulatory burden imposed on contracts with government customers (Alic et al., 1992;Markusen and Yudken, 1992;Gansler, 1995;Ruttan, 2006;Alic, 2007;Gansler, 2011). Thus, they argue that the military has lost much of its ability to exploit the national innovation system (Alic, 2007); notably, the innovation performance of specialized defense suppliers has been compared unfavorably with that of commercial Silicon Valley firms (Alic, 2007;Gansler, 2011;Kendall, 2014). At the same time, policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the consequences of these changes for the capacity of the military to gain access to advances in commercial technologies that may be "dual-use" (i.e., have applications in both commercial products and weapon systems) (Cowan and Foray, 1995;Molas-Gallart, 1997;te Kulve and Smit, 2003), including, but not limited to, the electronic components and software that are critically important to the performance of modern weapon systems (Alic, 2007;Hartley, 2007;Gansler, 2011;Davies and Long, 2014). ...
Systems integration encompasses both system design and management of supplier networks. We examine the “second face” of systems integration related to the organization and management of supplier networks. We analyze a unique dataset on the supply chains for three major U.S. weapon systems to examine how systems integrators balance the economies-of-scope benefits of general-purpose technologies and the benefits of horizontal supplier specialization. We show that horizontal specialization – an establishment's focus on a particular market – differs with distance from the systems integrator. Systems integrators derive the benefits of specialization primarily (though not exclusively) from their direct suppliers, and they access general-purpose technologies from lower-tier suppliers. Some of the lower-tier suppliers themselves integrate complex subsystems, belying the image of the supplier network as a “production pyramid” with simple firms at its base. We further find that the supply chains of the three weapon systems that we study are dominated by facilities whose main line of business is in non-defense markets, because of the large number of lower-tier suppliers that serve commercial markets. This demonstrates the importance of the supply chain as a source of commercial-military integration, linking defense production to the wider economy and casting doubt on the view that there is a “wall of separation” that prevents the U.S. defense effort from gaining access to civilian technologies.
... Algunos ejemplos son especialmente ilustrativos. El avión B-24 de la II Guerra Mundial contenía unas 30.000 piezas (Alic, 2007), el sistema de guiado inercial del misil Peacekeeper contenía 19.000 piezas (Kelley y Watkins, 1995), el motor de un avión de transporte actual contiene más de 22.000, muchas de las cuales se fabrican a medida (Hobday, 1998) y el avión B-747 contiene un 1.000.000 de piezas (Utterback, 2001). ...
... La innovación es un proceso lento (Freeman, 1986, 123), que puede sobrepasar una década en el caso de sistemas complejos (Alic, 2007). Su lentitud hace necesario una planificación para obtener, en tiempo, las capacidades deseadas. ...
RESUMEN
Este ensayo tiene como fin mostrar el papel clave que desempeña la innovación para hacer frente con éxito a los riesgos y amenazas que se ciernen sobre la sociedad y garantizar así su seguridad. Para ello se examina su facultad para mejorar las capacidades operativas de las fuerzas armadas, los mecanismos a través de los cuales se materializa esta innovación, la influencia de los incentivos sobre el comportamiento innovador de los ejércitos y de las empresas, los efectos de esta actividad sobre la economía y sus dificultades intrínsecas. Por último, se exploran las implicaciones prácticas que se deducen de las cuestiones tratadas.
Este ensayo presenta una visión amplia y coherente del papel de la innovación en defensa, lo que ayuda a comprender mejor su importante papel para proteger a la sociedad. El documento tiene especial interés para todos aquellos relacionados de una u otra forma con esta actividad, así como para aquellas personas interesadas en conocer, con mayor detalle y profundidad, esta importante faceta de la defensa.
RESUME: This essay shows the key role of innovation in defence for facing the risks and threats that hang over the society and in this way warrant its security. With this aim, it explores the power of innovation to improve the operational capabilities of the armed forces, the mechanism through which innovation is realized, the incentives that shape the innovative behaviour of armies and firms, the impact of this activity on the economy and its intrinsic difficulties. Lastly, the document explores the practical implications that derive from the addressed questions.
This essay displays a comprehensive and coherent view of the role of innovation in defence, which aids to better understand, its key role to protect the society. The document has special interest to those personsrelated to this activity as well as people interested in knowing, with further detail and deepness, this important side of our defence.
... Broader civic engagement in public projects could potentially be measured by grouping together a number of different civic groups-academic researchers, advocacy groups, unions, etc. Figure 2 suggests a high preference of these actors for vocabularies associated with accountability and military operational capability in the case of defence projects. This is interesting, as a case has often been made that defence projects and policy lie outside the public purview (Alic 2007;Eckles and Schaffner 2011). At the same time, one could point out that academic researchers and think tanks, even if external to the military, represent specialists in the domain 8 . ...
... As a consequence, the single most well-funded and richly-rewarded modalities for discussing issues around 'the direction of innovation' tend (despite best intentions) to support the most powerfully-favoured forms of innovation more than others. This is how political-economic dynamics come to the fore, for instance, especially around military domination (Alic 2007), profit maximisation (Rikap 2021), intellectual property (Greenhalgh and Rogers 2010), market share (Jolly 2005), infrastructure rents (Christophers 2020), product synergies (Chataway, Tait, and Wield 2004) and control over supply chains (Tang, Teo, and Wei 2008). Such currently entrenched patterns yield manifest mismatches between relative scales of innovative activity associated (for example) with: genetic more than ecological approaches in agronomy (IAASTD 2009); curative molecular biology more than preventive interventions in public health (Rajan 2017); centralised supply more than distributed service models in energy (Funcke and Bauknecht 2016); hierarchical, segmented, proprietary, more than horizontal open source architectures in computing (Kling 1996); and military projections of mass violence more than institutionalised human security and conflict resolution (Glasius and Kaldor 2006). ...
Developing earlier work, this paper explores analytic and political implications of ideas about direction in innovation. Unduly hidden in mainstream innovation and sustainability transformations literatures, crucial issues arise for responsible innovation. Although essential to both rigour and effectiveness, key realities tend to be concealed by general hegemonic forces in contemporary global colonial modernity, as well as by more specific expediencies to power and privilege in particular settings. To help resist these obscuring pressures, three contrasting (frequently conflated) meanings are distinguished. Directing innovation involves driving narrow motivating processes towards some given end. The direction of innovation concerns broader steering of pathways towards more openly chosen ends. Directionality of innovation entails grasping deeper political potentialities spanning pluralities of ends. Seriously eroding innovation policy and research alike, much current governance activity fails appropriately to focus or act on these distinctions. To assist greater policy robustness and legitimacy, this paper points to important (but often neglected) practises in each regard. To properly address social and ecological sustainability imperatives, greater attention is advocated to irreducibly political aspects of responsible innovation. This entails renewed emphasis not only on precaution, participation and accountability, but on actively supporting emancipatory struggle towards plural ‘directions for progress’ in innovation democracies.
... Meanwhile, resources are relatively stagnant as the rising cost of military equipment exceeds inºation and growth in the defense budget. 167 The shift to great power competition in U.S. foreign and military policy has animated a range of promising and innovative proposals, but their perils should be explicitly recognized. With China as the pacing threat, the United States has incentive to reorganize its force structures, concentrate on weapon technologies for high-end conventional warfare, and develop new operational concepts to counter Chinese anti-access/area-denial military forces in the Indo-Paciªc region. ...
Prevailing wisdom suggests that innovation dramatically enhances the effectiveness of a state's armed forces. But self-defeating innovation is more likely to occur when a military service's growing security commitments outstrip shrinking resources. This wide commitment-resource gap pressures the service to make desperate gambles on new capabilities to meet overly ambitious goals while cannibalizing traditional capabilities before beliefs about the effectiveness of new ones are justified. Doing so increases the chances that when wartime comes, the service will discover that the new capability cannot alone accomplish assigned missions, and that neglecting traditional capabilities produces vulnerabilities that the enemy can exploit. To probe this argument's causal logic, a case study examines British armor innovation in the interwar period and its impact on the British Army's poor performance in the North African campaign during World War II. The findings suggest that placing big bets on new capabilities comes with significant risks because what is lost in an innovation process may be as important as what is created. The perils of innovation deserve attention, not just its promises.
... Un modesto exceso de capacidad en las plantas de energía eléctrica resuelve el problema de una estimación precisa de los picos de carga en el consumo de energía y permite enfrentarse mejor a fluctuaciones de la demanda haciendo innecesaria la predicción ajustada (Simon, 1996: 149). Alic (2007: 124 y 186) señala que el amplio catálogo de material de las fuerzas armadas les permite disponer de mayor flexibilidad táctica, aunque éste sea excesivo o inapropiado. Los gobiernos pueden autorizar el desarrollo de capacidades solapadas y redundantes cuando se desconoce su eficacia en tiempos de guerra. ...
This article addresses the cost associated to defence, i.e., the resources that societies shall allocate to provide security to their members. It examines the methods and ways for setting and distributing these resources to obtain enough military capabilities for sustaining the perception of security of the citizens. The choice of an allocation that optimises social welfare is rather old and of constant concern. The main novelty of this article is exploring this problem from the bounded rationality of the human being, the imperfect information available, the choices unsupported by economic rationality and the constrained effectiveness of institutions and norms. These issues may drive to allocations that do not necessarily achieve the largest welfare.
... Our empirical setting includes two military projects and two (civil) infrastructure projects, and we also take the opportunity to explore whether there are any structural differences in public opinion towards military and non-military projects. It is often claimed that military projects and policy are less wellunderstood by citizens (Hartley and Russett, 1992;Eckles and Schaffner, 2011), operate with secrecy and urgency (Alic, 2007), and enjoy greater public legitimacy (Nelson and Langlois, 1983). We explore civil-military differences as a secondary research interest in this paper. ...
Megaprojects, due to their size, scale, and technical complexity are expensive and controversial, and how they proceed over time is a key topic of interest. This paper seeks to identify the issues surrounding changes in public opinion over time and discusses a larger question on whether such knowledge can be generalized across projects. An automated text analysis technique called ‘sentiment analysis’ has been used to plot trajectories for four UK megaprojects from newspaper articles. The empirical setting includes two military and two (civil) infrastructure projects, allowing the exploration of differences between the two fields as a secondary line of analysis.
... No dispêndio final de investimento em pesquisa e desenvolvimento, o financiamento à pesquisa básica não se compara ao financiamento à pesquisa aplicada, seja por meio do financiamento a laboratórios e institutos de pesquisa, ou de compras governamentais. Não obstante, a criação e viabilização de recursos orientados à pesquisa básica via National Science Foundation representou uma mudança na concepção do incentivo à pesquisa nos Estados Unidos, sobretudo ao "empoderar" uma agência governamental que definiria a direção do progresso tecnológico a ser conduzido por cientistas de universidades e laboratórios 31 . ...
Os Estados Unidos consolidaram durante o século XX um ecossistema de inovação responsável por garantir a liderança econômica do ciclo sistêmico do capitalismo mundial. A despeito das reformas nesse ecossistema implantadas durante as desregulamentações neoliberais do governo Reagan, o sistema nacional de inovações norte-americano continua competitivo em virtude da sólida trajetória institucional construída.
... Innovation pathways are tortuous. In the 1940s, to expand the jet engine example, these new power plants were far more costly to purchase and operate than piston engines; they were also unreliable and prodigious guzzlers of fuel [12]. No matter to militaries that adopted them, since jet fighters offered speeds and rates-ofclimb far superior to propeller-drive planes, which could not hope to survive in aerial combat against them. ...
While technological innovation is an implicit element of any plausible strategy for responding to climate change, the complexity of innovation processes has not been adequately accounted for in such strategies. Using many examples from different areas of technological innovation, we show that the inevitable unintended and unforeseeable consequences of innovation likely make it impossible to strategically steer the global energy system in desired directions. Given this conclusion, we then look at technological complexity in terms of a simple three-level schema of sociotechnical change. This perspective points towards innovation policies that focus on long-term, incremental advance at the level of individual technologies, and on public policies that use a public goods-public works rationale to justify government investments in the needed innovations.
... Technology and military doctrine are closely coupled and interdependent. 4 Blitzkrieg, the AirLand Battle and Carrier Strike are but three examples of how new technologies combined with organizational change led to new ways of warfare. 5 The Internet and its widespread application have created the possibility of a new form of warfare-cyber warfare-that was hardly imaginable 20 years ago. ...
“Emerging technologies” are the subject of considerable interest to academics and practitioners not only in the field of international security but also in the fields of economics and business. Emerging technologies are said to have the potential to change “the rules of the game” whether that “game” is the balance of military power between security actors or the balance of competitive advantage in a market between incumbent companies and new entrants.
... The US Air Force, for example, took delivery of its last B-52 bomber in 1962 and in 2006 chose this venerable system for its first round of acceptance tests on fuels blending petroleum jet fuel with biokerosene. DoD, with its demonstrated ability to drive technological advance toward commercialization, including technologies with major spinoffs in the civilian economy [10], is better placed than DOE to encourage practical innovation and scale-up of advanced biofuels. As outlined in a later section, the two agencies should collaborate. ...
... Innovation is a slow process (Freeman 1986, 123). In the case of complex defence products, it can easily surpass a decade (Alic 2007). Such slowness demands some sort of planning to obtain, on time, the desired capabilities. ...
This article reviews innovation processes in defence. It analyses the way and the context under which these processes are carried out. The article covers the features of defence goods with impact on innovation, the development of a new good, the institutional arrangements that support these processes and the effect of innovation on industrial market. The analysis helps to identify the causes of facts observed in practice, such as poor performance in terms of product quality, cost or delivery time, as well as to assess potential remedies. Some policy implications, which can be derived from this analysis, are finally outlined.
... This is true both across different domains of policy as well as within any given sector. For instance, the single largest area for public expenditure on research and innovation – in the UK as worldwide – is military (OECD 2013) (Alic 2007). Innovation towards less violent means for conflict resolution are relatively neglected (Parkinson et al. 2013; Kaldor et al. 2004; Kaldor 2007). ...
... It gave rise to the idea of the dual use technology with both military and commercial dimensions. 63 And as time went on, commercial leadership in IT innovation led to the idea of a reverse spin-on (movement of commercial technology to the defense sector). On the one hand, the new paradigm became the tacit way to cope with rising costs after the Cold War. ...
America's defense innovation, despite its resilience and superiority, exhibits structural erosion and relative decline. This is evident when U.S. defense innovation is set in international perspective and current trends are highlighted in the evolution of U.S. defense R&D, key defense R&D actors, and top defense contractors. America's defense innovation is at the crossroads, which is reflected by cost pressures arising from sequestration and limited budgets; the decline of the U.S. industrial base and its ability to support defense needs; the bias for short-term policies; erosion of domestic defense innovation; and growing competitive challenges from other nations in terms of defense industries, including from low-cost producers. Absent a change in course, U.S. superiority in defense innovation and its competitiveness-enhancing impact on the U.S. economy are fading. A policy to restore defense innovation and production in the United States would pay dividends on two fronts: continued U.S. defense strength through superior technology and broader U.S. commercial global competitiveness.
... The conceptual framework with its four modules was operationalized through a set of variables based on literature 87 review and stakeholder interviews. The innovation models are either currently in practice ( Author et al., 2013bAuthor et al., , 2014a88 Robinson, 2009) or are theorized as alternative approaches for how societies organize themselves to solve problems through 89 social and technological means (Alic, 2007;Almirall & Casadesus-Masanell, 2010;Balogh, 1991;Berglund, Johannisson, & 90 Schwatz, 2012;Boettiger & Wright, 2006;Bush, 1945;Kuhlmann & Edler, 2003;Mulgan, Steinberg, & Salem, 2005;Porter, 91 1990;Sampat, 2005;von Hippel, 1988). The enabling and constraining factors are a set of dynamic capacities that affect 92 nanotechnology innovation derived from earlier research ( Author et al., 2013bAuthor et al., , 2014aRobinson, 2009 projections detailed in Table 1. ...
... Indeed, that this is a basic feature of technological dynamics, is not necessarily a negative observation, even from self-identified technophile perspectives (Kelly 1991). But the lessons are more equivocal from many of the most canonical instances of engineering 'control', for instance, in nuclear technology Kim 2009), chemicals (Cranor 2006), military systems (Alic 2007) and genomics (Ridley 1999;Levidow 1998). All these areas provide many examples of failures of control (Taleb 2007;Starbuck and Farjoun 2005;Riddle 2002;IAEA 1991;May 1989). ...
... Two big lessons can be drawn from innovation experience during the cold war. Government procurement helps to guide and shape technology development, and competition among agencies within the government fosters innovation, in much the same way as competition in economic markets 5 . Government purchases of integrated-circuit chips in the 1960s fostered advances in microelectronics at least as much as did government-funded R&D. ...
The US government must make the Department of Defense a key customer for energy technologies and make greenhouse-gas reductions a public good, say John Alic, Daniel Sarewitz, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian.
This paper explored South Asian security in the light of military applications and integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), focusing particularly on India and Pakistan. Various sectors have been transformed by the advent of emerging technologies such as AI. This study also examined the transformation effect of AI-based systems on military strategy, framework of operations and security architecture in a region fraught with geopolitical tensions and conflicts--South Asia. Through an extensive literature review and case studies, the author analysed the current status of AI in military operations as well as its potential for future development. This study investigated the risks and challenges involved with its implementation. It provided evidence of the rise of AI from its earliest inception to today's applications in autonomous systems, cybersecurity and intelligent decision-making processes. The research also examined the strategic competition between India and Pakistan: how AI technologies shape their defence capabilities, and what kind of impact these have on regional stability. The findings emphasized the importance of responsible AI deployment and getting a broader grasp on its implications for security in South Asia. This research enriched the ongoing dialogue about warfare and emerging technologies by aggregating valuable data regarding the ways that AI can enhance military capacity while also changing landscape of security in South Asia.
This article addresses the problem that societies face for properly allocating resources to grant security to their members. It examines the methods and ways for setting and distributing these resources to obtain enough military capabilities to face threats. The problem: the choice of an allocation that optimizes social welfare is an old and constant concern for public policies. The main novelty of this article is to explore this problem from the bounded rationality of human beings, i.e. choices made under imperfect information, preferences unsupported by economic rationality or the constrained effectiveness of non-market arrangements for deciding adequately. These issues may drive to allocations that do not obtain the largest welfare.
To what extent is military technology innovation emergent? This study answers this question by applying an emergence detection algorithm to roughly 300,000 technical terms extracted from military technology patents granted from 1980 to 2019. Emergence – instances of sudden and rapid growth of a technical term within the military patent corpus – is found to vary greatly over time. Military technology innovation during the period of 1996-2008 is found to be highly emergent. This period was found to be characterized by high organization-type diversity; non-traditional vendors, traditional defense contractors, large civilian-facing firms, and individuals generated military patents containing many novel emergent technical terms. However, in recent years, military technology innovation has exhibited markedly less emergence. The period of low emergence is characterized by reduced contributions by non-traditional vendors, defense prime contractors, and individual inventors to military patents containing emergent terms. These observations suggest that policies attempting to ensure a healthy defense innovation ecosystem should seek organization-type diversity and may benefit from employing promotion strategies targeted at distinct organization types.
I analyze the effects of economic and informational globalization on the diffusion
of military capabilities in the 20th and 21st centuries. To test these relationships, I use the KOF Swiss Economic Institute’s data on economic and informational globalization and the Correlates of War data on National Material Capabilities for all states of the international system from 1970 to 2011. Using an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression of all states with standard errors clustered at the state-level, I find that economic globalization negatively correlates with increases in military capabilities; while informational globalization positively correlates with increases in military capabilities. These findings suggest increases in economic globalization leads states to pursue an antithetical approach towards military capabilities, thereby lending support to the argument that economic interdependence decreases the likelihood of interstate conflict. However, the augmentation of informational globalization appears to validate previous arguments which posit that the prevalence of information technology systems is enlarging the military capabilities of states.
After 9/11 foresight studies show a shift in security thinking away from a focus on state-centric threats towards a much broader view of security risks recently. This expanded perspective includes risks presented by the vulnerability of European society to the failure of critical infrastructure, to pandemics, environmental change and resource-based conflicts. The chapter places a particular emphasis on the treatment of technological change in these defence and security foresight studies and argues that the growing importance of dual-use technologies is likely to mean that defence will play a declining role as a sponsor and lead user of advanced technologies in the future.
Rethinking Society for the 21st Century - by International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP) July 2018
For better or worse, science and technology are both deeply entangled in “social progress”. This is the case equally in discourse and practise around the world. In areas such as health, wealth, energy, mobility, and communications, it is widely recognized that remarkable historical improvements— at least for some— all owe much to science and technology. However, it is equally important to acknowledge that not all consequences of research and innovation are positive. Nor do any benefits unfold automatically — especially if they are to be fairly distributed.
The impact of national defense research and development spending on overall innovation depends on the extent to which the knowledge and technologies generated by defense funding diffuse. This article uses an original data-set of patents assigned to defense-servicing organizations to investigate the diffusion of military technologies. Contrary to the predictions of the prevailing scholarship, I find no difference in the rate of diffusion between civilian and military technologies. Neither do military technologies assigned to government agencies diffuse at different rates than those assigned to firms. The overall technological experience of the patent assignee is found to be a positive predictor of the diffusion of military technologies. The effect of the prevailing intellectual property rights regime is ambivalent: when US patents are included in the sample, the effect of patent protection is positive, when the US is excluded, the effect is either non-significant or negative depending on the model specification that is utilized.
This article analyses the defence case from the perspective of evolutionary economics. To this end, the key elements of this theory have been applied to the issue of defence; in other words, to the development of military capabilities for the purpose of efficiently protecting society from external threats within a framework of uncertainty and bounded rationality of the actors involved. The paper describes the evolving way through which such capabilities are developed, including the means required for their functioning. Finally, we present the conclusions drawn from this analysis together with its resulting practical implications.
In his Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned that the military-industrial complex (MIC) threatened to dominate American research, crowding out commercial innovation. Ironically, a number of analysts point to spin-off benefits of the 1950s' military effort as a crucial source of American high-tech competitiveness, often citing the key example of the relationship between military jet aircraft and the Boeing's 707. But the huge military investment in jet aviation had both benefits and costs for the commercial industry. This article compares the development of the Boeing 707 and its relationship to military projects like the KC-135 tanker to the contemporary development of commercial jet aircraft by other companies that were also integral parts of the military-industrial complex (MIC), including Douglas Aircraft and its commercial DC-8 and Convair and its commercial 880 and 990. Using evidence from archives, interviews with retired company executives, contemporary trade press, and academic studies, the article concludes that membership in the MIC did not offer firms a leg up in commercial markets. President Eisenhower was generally right about the costs of the military effort, but military spending remained low enough to allow commercial industry to thrive in parallel to the defense industry.
This paper makes three primary claims. First, the so-called military-industrial complex (MIC) has its roots in the United States during World War I, when the army and navy turned to private firms for design of aircraft, and not, as some analysts have proposed, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Second, the MIC took on its current shape during the 1950s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning, in effect, expressed recognition of and perhaps something like dismay at his own creation. Finally, despite the broad shift in responsibility for design, development, and production of military systems from government to industry in the middle of the last century, the armed forces remain the dominant partner in the MIC by reason of their control over the technical requirements that shape and constrain weapons system design. This leaves the defense industry a junior partner.
Management in government differs fundamentally from private sector management, the more so in defense, which differs from other US government missions in that very large sums are spent on high-technology systems and equipment to meet the unknowable contingencies of an uncertain future. Because of technological complexity, the difficulties of program selection, contracting, and oversight exceed those in other parts of government. An underappreciated set of problems aggravates these difficulties, notably a lack of metrics for assessing the performance of military systems. In the absence of such metrics, and given the elastic meanings attached to national security, civilian officials have been unable to exercise effective oversight of defense acquisition, leaving discretionary choices by military leaders largely unchecked. For such reasons, common prescriptions for acquisition reform, such as adoption of “proven business practices,” are unrealistic. Meaningful reform would begin by increasing the influence of civilian officials over acquisition decisions and reducing that of the armed forces.
National defense represents a significant share of most OECD governments’ R&D budgets and an even higher share of their mission-oriented R&D spending. This public R&D investment has focused on research and innovation supporting defense missions, and in many cases the military services of these governments have purchased weapons systems incorporating the resulting technologies. Defense-related R&D investment has influenced innovation in the broader civilian economy of several OECD nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The scope and nature of this influence remains uncertain and subject to considerable debate. Nonetheless, policymakers throughout the industrialized economies have expressed interest in “applying the lessons” of defense-related and other mission-oriented R&D programs to such challenges as climate change. This paper examines the characteristics of defense-related mission R&D programs in the industrial economies, with particular attention to the subset of nations for which reliable longitudinal data on defense R&D spending are available. I highlight the characteristics that distinguish mission-oriented R&D in this field from mission-oriented R&D in other sectors and to point out some significant differences among OECD economies in the structure of their defense-related R&D programs. The discussion also emphasizes the ways in which the unique structure of defense-related R&D limit its utility as a model for mission-oriented R&D programs aimed at other goals.
In his Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned that the military-industrial complex (MIC) threatened to dominate American research, crowding out commercial innovation. Ironically, a number of analysts point to spin-off benefits of the 1950s’ military effort as a crucial source of American high-tech competitiveness, often citing the key example of the relationship between military jet aircraft and the Boeing’s 707. But the huge military investment in jet aviation had both benefits and costs for the commercial industry. This article compares the development of the Boeing 707 and its relationship to military projects like the KC-135 tanker to the contemporary development of commercial jet aircraft by other companies that were also integral parts of the military-industrial complex (MIC), including Douglas Aircraft and its commercial DC-8 and Convair and its commercial 880 and 990. Using evidence from archives, interviews with retired company executives, contemporary trade press, and academic studies, the article concludes that membership in the MIC did not offer firms a leg up in commercial markets. President Eisenhower was generally right about the costs of the military effort, but military spending remained low enough to allow commercial industry to thrive in parallel to the defense industry.
Replacing the current react-and-regulate approach to managing the complex outcomes of technological change demands new institutional
arrangements for the production of knowledge and technology. Collingridge’s famous dilemma tells us that in the early stages
of technology development not enough is known about potential impacts to choose the most beneficial development paths – and
that once impacts do become apparent, it’s too late to shift to better paths because of technological lock-in and vested interests.
The dilemma assumes a linearity of technology development: first we innovate, then we respond. This view leads to the current
story of social conflict and regulatory gridlock. Yet linearity is not inherent in technology development, but rather it reflects
institutional arrangements in which technology development and technology governance are largely separate activities – organizationally
and temporally. These arrangements are neither inevitable nor immutable. Once technology is understood to be a product of
continual choices made by humans in politically mediated settings throughout the innovation process, the governance problem can be recognized as not one of prediction and control, but rather one of awareness, openness, and
course-correction. New institutional structures can be designed accordingly. At the Center for Nanotechnology in Society and
the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, both at Arizona State University, we have been developing and testing theories,
methods, tools, and institutional arrangements for making the implicit choice processes of research and development more explicit,
inclusive and transparent. We describe the activities themselves as “Real-Time Technology Assessment” and the cumulative effects
of these efforts as “Anticipatory Governance.” The goal is to improve the potential for desired social outcomes of technological
advance, and reduce the likelihood of undesired outcomes.
This article seeks to reconnect to scholarship from the 1970s and 1980s that emphasized significant discontinuities in the development of the US economy. Drawing on a unique data set of prize-winning innovations between 1971 and 2006, we document three key changes in the US economy. The first is an expanding role of inter-organizational collaborations in producing award-winning innovations. The second is the diminishing role of the largest corporations as sources of innovation. The third is the expanded role of public institutions and public funding in the innovation process. This leads us to the surprising conclusion that the USA increasingly resembles a Developmental Network State in which government initiatives are critical in overcoming network failures and in providing critical funding for the innovation process.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.