Implications of military engineering

Abstract

The issues examined in the paper can be summed up in one question: Is the industry which has grown up around the defence requirements of the UK in danger of strangling the very society it is meant to defend? Engineering skills have always been vital to defence. But the catapult, the longbow and the rifle were all controlled by the soldiers who carried them. Ships, missiles and aircraft are now controlled by computer, and it is the skill and ingenuity of the software and hardware engineers who create these systems, as much as the courage and training of the front-line troops who deploy them, that influence the outcome of modern warfare. In evaluating the engineer's impact on society, we should question to what extent the operation of the system which produces these weapons is driven by engineering innovation (technology push) rather than by perceived military needs (market pull). Published analyses have shown that there is a strong self-perpetuating tendency within the defence technology industry. If this is so, what effect is the defence sector having on the overall performance of UK industry? Although it competes for much the same pool of skill and financial resources, there are many factors which separate the defence sector from civilian industry. Lengthy timescales, design for performance rather than cost, and lack of commercial market disciplines characterise the military side. There is an often expressed hope that military innovations will ‘spin-off’ to civilian applications, but it appears that this phenomenon is becoming rarer. It is taken for granted that every nation has the right to a strong defensive capability. The question is whether the capability in defence technology which the UK expects is achieved only at the expense of a decline in civilian industrial capability on which our economic security depends. Because of the technical nature of technological capability, many aspects of this question can best be addressed by engineers and technologists themselves.