Changes In Military Technology Research Articles

STRATEGY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MILITARY-TECHNICAL COOPERATION, ARMAMENTS AND MILITARY EQUIPMENT: UKRAINE PERSPECTIVES

This article considers military technological change and its relation with politics. This relation actually represents an entwined evolution of military technology, politics, and scientific analysis by conducting an in-depth analysis of military technological innovation. The article considers the main directs and perspectives in sphere of forming the strategy for the development of military-technical cooperation, armaments and military equipment. The proposals about the content of strategy for the development of military-technical cooperation, armaments and military equipment are presented. Key words: Armed Forces, armaments and military equipment, military-technical cooperation, state military-industrial policy, strategy.

“Our Age”: Frederick the Great, Classical Warfare, and the Uses and Abuses of Military History

Abstract Whereas the long-running Military Revolution debate has focused primarily on changes in military technology and the growth of states in early modern Europe, the example of King Frederick ii (“the Great”) of Prussia highlights how changes in the character of war were perceived by contemporaries, and how they used narratives of change for rhetorical purposes. Frederick and his contemporaries saw their own time as more intellectually advanced than any previous age, and this narrative of intellectual progress existed alongside a narrative of states bringing order. Frederick articulated largely consistent ideas about military history, but also used concepts of the superiority of “our age” to extoll the virtues of his own oblique order of battle, and manipulated narratives of technological change to apologise for his own mistakes. Frederick also turned to an idealised classical world – particularly Julius Caesar – to envisage conquests that went beyond the limits of his own day.

When a Spiel is not a Game

The nineteenth century saw dramatic changes in military technology that profoundly changed the nature of warfare, and integrating the performance of that new technology into the existing operational and tactical thinking became hugely important. In Prussia, from 1824 onwards, the Kriegsspiel, the world’s first professional conflict simulation in official use, became a key element for learning how to make best use of the new technology. Between 1824 and 1871, the rules went through several different editions, each one revised according to the latest technological and tactical developments. The paper will provide a brief historical introduction, then concentrate on the impact of technological innovations on the rules, and finally show that the Kriegsspiel and its non-Prussian counterparts are essential for understanding how military establishments in and beyond Europe reacted to the impact of technology on war.

'Fields of Battle' as 'Fields of Perception': Examining Technological Speed and Public Opinion During the Persian Gulf War

Public perception of the military and what happens in war is often considered in the disjunctive: as either complacent detachment of the informed or apathetic ignorance of the uninformed. Technological changes undeniably impact the ability of media to communicate with its patrons – and of the government or military to utilize media to communicate with citizens. Technological changes in military technology also impact public opinion.Humans respond to visual stimuli in varying ways. However, visual learners make up the majority share of the total population. Because so many people get their news from television today, war photography is one medium that pervasively informs the public not only of happenings during war, but of what the public should think of televised events from the particular war – or sometimes about the military, generally. Increasingly, public receipt of such images and similar broadcasts can be near simultaneous with the event itself because of the drastic advances in communications technology.The linkage between public perception and technological change – military technology or communications devices – is oft-studied and leaves little room for doubt as to impact. However, discussion of speed is not always included in academic writing – outside Paul Virilio, his supporters, and critics. Measuring the impact of speed on public opinion in any empirical sense is beyond the scope of this Paper. Instead, this Paper seeks only to provide a landscape of prevailing thought on the importance of speed in terms of public influence.

Private Military and Security Companies and the Liberal Conception of Violence

The institution of war is the broad framework of rules, norms, and organizations dedicated to the prevention, prosecution, and resolution of violent conflict between political entities. Important parts of that institution consist of the accountability arrangements that hold between armed forces, the political leaders who oversee and direct the use of those forces, and the people in whose name the leaders act and from whose ranks the members of the armed forces are drawn. Like other parts of the institution, these arrangements are responsive to changes in military technology and needs, to geopolitical facts, and to moral and political norms. In particular, they are sensitive to the forms that military organization takes. Since the emergence of modern states in Europe some 500 years ago, there have been three main such forms: private providers—in the form of mercenaries, in early modern Europe—then professional standing armies, which in turn developed into citizen armies. Although elements of the three organizations have coexisted in many armies, the citizen army model has dominated until recently. That model brought with it a particular conception of the accountability relations between the army, the state, and the people. The state had authority over and directed the army, which was accountable to it. In turn the state was accountable for its use of the army to the people, on whose behalf it acted. The dominance of state authority over the military is now under strain, with the professional and private elements—in the form of private military and security companies (PMSCs)—having increasing importance. As those elements increase in power and presence, so it becomes more difficult to make the state accountable to the people for its use of the military, and more difficult for the people to act as a restraining force on the way in which the military used. In this essay, I outline and assess these developments—with particular emphasis on the emergence of PMSCs—in the light of a liberal view of (political) violence. The essay focuses on the situation in the United States, which possesses by far the most important military force in the world today, and in which the use of PMSCs is most developed. The paper has three main sections and a brief conclusion: the first section sketches the liberal view of violence and its implications for organizations dedicated to its use; the second outlines the salient characteristics of the three historically dominant forms of armies; and the third looks at the current situation in which the three forms coexist uneasily.

The Point of the Bayonet

This article investigates the continued presence of the bayonet in the face of rapid and sustained military-technological change, and argues that the technical characteristics of this simple weapon are minimally implicated in its longevity. Rather, the bayonet’s continuing military effectiveness is conjured out of a collection of social practices amongst which the physical artifact is embedded during the process of training soldiers. The purpose of these practices is to forge strong associations between bayonet and aggressive behavior, thereby bolstering the moral fortitude of soldiers in times of battlefield crisis. The real “point” of the bayonet is therefore psychological, as opposed to material, in character.

Politics and Higher Military Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Missed Opportunity

IntroductionDeveloping higher military education (HME) is embedded in the overall development of modern armed forces. This development normally reflects adaptation to changes in the external strategic environment, changes in military technology and doctrine, and changes in the societal environment of the armed forces.While this is true for armed forces with an unbroken tradition, the pattern differs when a given military's development had been interrupted by historical events. This article will focus on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), which constitutes a unique case in itself. The particular political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the break-up of Yugoslavia, the ensuing war of 1992-95 and the Framework Agreement on (Dayton Agreement) of December 1995 had led to a rather de-centralized state structure, with two largely autonomous political Entities that each kept the armed forces they had established during the war, leading to the de facto military division of BiH. Thus, when the West initiated a defense reform process in BiH in 2002, it aimed first at establishing state-level control over these armed forces (2003), and then at merging them into one single military force for the nation (2005), with other issues mostly put on the back burner.1This was also the case with regard to military education. While a coherent system for the training and education of the now joint state-level armed forces of BiH would have been a key element for completing defense reform, it has not yet been established. There have been serious attempts, but up to this point they have failed. Thus, this article will:\* Briefly outline the political and military situation in BiH, including the lack of a coherent system of military education* Present early initiatives within the context of defense reform as well as parallel to it* Describe the initiatives undertaken in establishing higher military education as well as the resistance they met* Assess the process with respect to its impact, including the causes of its failure.The Situation in Bosnia-HerzegovinaThe break-up of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) also meant the break-up of the former Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija, or JNA)2 and the establishment of national armed forces by the successor states. While Serbia inherited the mostly intact military system of the JNA (including its high-quality military academy), the seceding states 3 in most cases achieved their statehood through wars of independence,4 with forces mostly derived from the JNA's territorial defense system, but at least in a coherent structure.In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the war following the declaration of independence in April 1992 was both a war of secession from Yugoslavia but also between the three major ethnic groups in BiH (Bosniaks, or Bosnian Muslims; Serbs; and Croats),with ongoing intervention by neighboring Serbia and Croatia.5Fighting between Bosniaks and Croats ended when the United States brokered a between them in 1994. After Western intervention in 1995, the Serbs also accepted a cease-fire, which then led all parties involved to agree on the General Framework Agreement on Peace (the Dayton Agreement, or DPA) in late 1995. The DPA established a rather decentralized state structure,6 with two highly autonomous political entities, the (Muslim-Croat) Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the (Serbdominated) Republika Srpska.7 Furthermore, the DPA allowed the two entities to maintain their wartime forces. Thus, for ten years there were two separate armies within one state, implicitly pitched against each other, but also following different models of doctrines and education. Only in 2002 was a reform process initiated that led in stages to the creation of unified armed forces in 2006.The Lack of a Coherent System of Military Education and its Impact on the Military SituationDuring the armed conflict that lasted from 1992 to 1995, the various armies had almost no training and education systems of their own. …

An Accelerating Divergence? The Revisionist Model of World History and the Question of Eurasian Military Parity: Data from East Asia

Over the past few years, this journal has hosted a debate central to world history and historical sociology: Joseph M. Bryant’s bold assault on the revisionist model of global history and the revisionists’ equally trenchant defense. A key point of disagreement concerns Europeans' relative military advantages vis-a-vis Asians. Both sides cite literature from historians’ Military Revolution Model, but each takes different lessons from that literature. The revisionists see a slight military imbalance in favor of Europe but deny that it reflects a general European technological lead. Bryant believes that the European technological lead is significant and reflects a more general modernizing trend. This article tries to resolve the disagreement by appealing to data from East Asia. First, it argues that recent work in Asian history points to what we can call a Chinese Military Revolution, which compels us to place the European Military Revolution in a larger, Eurasian context: not just western European but also East Asian societies were undergoing rapid military change and modernization during the gunpowder age. Second, it adduces evidence from a new study of the Sino-Dutch War of 1661-1668 (a war that both Bryant and the revisionists cite, each, again, taking divergent lessons) to come to a more precise evaluation of the military balance between China and western Europe in the early modern period: western cannons and muskets didn’t provide a discernible advantage, but western war ships and renaissance forts did. The article concludes that the revisionists are correct in their belief that Asian societies were undergoing rapid changes in military technology and practices along the lines of those taking place in western Europe and that the standard model Bryant defends is incorrect because it presumes that Asian societies are more stagnant than is warranted by the evidence. At the same time, the article argues that counter-revisionists like Bryant are correct in their belief that military modernization was proceeding more quickly in Europe than that in Asia, which may indicate that the counter-revisionists are correct on a basic point: there was an early divergence between the west and the rest of Eurasia. At first this divergence was slight – so slight, indeed, that it probably left little clear evidence in the noisy and poor early modern data we have available. But the divergence increased over time. Thus, we can speak of a small but accelerating divergence.

The Strategic Implications of Changes in Military Technology

Proponents of offense/defense theory often attribute the changes in a nation's offense/defense balance (ODB) to alterations in its military strategies. They assume that when a nation's technological capabilities favor offense, the state will be inclined to adopt an offensive military strategy; similarly, when a nation's armed forces have a defensive advantage, the state will be disposed to pursuing a defensive strategy.1 In essence, offense/defense theory views adjustments in military doctrine as the product of changes in the balance of military capabilities. Detractors of the theory argue that its predictive capacity is limited, and are quick to point out the many historical examples of changes in ODB that have failed to produce the strategic adjustments predicted by the theory. This essay examines how changes in the ODB affect the development of military doctrine, and investigates the circumstances under which nations adopt new strategies. It also explores how offensive and defensive advantages influence the strategic choices of a nation's armed forces, and what effects the advent of informationalized warfare will have on the development of military doctrine.

Book Review: War and Power in the 21st century

Paul Hirst Oxford: Polity, 2001, vi + 170pp., 11.99 [pounds sterling] (paperback). This is a comparatively slight book that attempts the daunting task of predicting the major developments in war, armed conflict and international relations in the 21st century. In particular it explores the potential impact of changes in military technology; information and communications technology; economic and environmental conditions; demography; international relations and trade; and political regimes and systems of governance. Despite its brevity it seeks to provide some historical depth to its analysis by reviewing major changes in warfare since the 1500s, pointing out that the present revolution in military affairs is but one in a series of similar events over the past 400 years. Central to this analysis is the role of the state and of the international system of states. The author rejects the notion that we are witnessing the terminal decline of the nation-state--quite the contrary in fact, as he foresees the status of the state as the principal political actor in international affairs being enhanced by the imperatives of a globalized system based on economic liberalism. He also argues that the present concern with human rights was presaged by earlier campaigns to abolish the slave trade and establish rights of national self-determination. Similarly, he points out that globalization has its roots in the expansion of the international economy prior to World War One and should not be considered as a unique contemporary phenomenon. Overall, Hirst's prognosis is rather bleak, with future conflict being seen as inherent in the present global system of inequality of wealth and power, while the chances of conflict will increase if the global system of economic liberalism breaks down. This book might have been regarded as a good primer on its subject matter prior to 11 September 2001. Indeed, Hirst was prescient enough to remark that terrorist groups are highly likely to carry out major attacks using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the advanced countries, and that `one such action may lead to a campaign of extermination against such groups sanctioned by the major powers' (p. 98). This prediction has largely come true. Unfortunately, Hirst did not foresee that it would be highjacked aircraft full of aviation gasoline and suicide squads of prospective martyrs rather than WMD, as such, that would accomplish the outrage on such a scale. What 9/11 has revealed is the potentially catastrophic vulnerability of advanced societies to attacks on infrastructure and civilian targets utilizing non-military and opportunistic means of assault. …

Rivalry, Reaction, and Weapons Proliferation: A Time-Series Analysis of Global Arms Transfers

This article analyzes the competitive dynamics in global arms transfers from 1951 to 1995. I discuss the enduring forces behind the proliferation of military capability during the Cold War and other historical periods, and then consider the competitive dynamics characteristic of the superpower rivalry itself. The process of military-technological advance, along with the dynamics of enduring interstate rivalry, lead us to expect certain patterns in quantitative data representing arms-transfer levels over time. Concepts in time-series analysis—cointegration and error correction—are helpful for understanding competitive arms-transfer policies during the Cold War, and I apply the relevant analytical tools to test for the hypothesized patterns in the empirical data. American and Russian, as well as NATO and Warsaw Pact, arms transfers are examined at three levels of regional aggregation: the Third World as a whole, the Middle East security complex, and the Persian Gulf subcomplex. The evidence shows that arms transfers by the Cold War rivals moved together in patterns consistent with competitive policy making in an environment of military-technological change, and that one or both sides adjusted their supply policies to correct for deviations from a moving equilibrium. This describes an action-reaction process, but a loosely coupled one deriving from military-technological uncertainties, the complexities of regional security dynamics, and the multidimensional character of the Cold War competition.

Military Technology and World History: A Reconnaissance

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS, like other social institutions, organize major areas of values, attitudes, and interests in the service of critical social needs. Unlike most social institutions, however, military institutions appear only in state or near-state societies. They are closely linked with the origin of civilization, may in fact be a necessary if not sufficient cause for the transition to state organization and civilized life. Whatever their causal role, military institutions lie very close to the core of civilizations as they have developed, both the armature around which complex societies have shaped themselves and the model they have often followed in organizing social action.1 Institutions of such importance deserve a good deal more study than they have usually received. Relationships between military institutions and technological change have also regularly made history. Understanding technological change requires paying attention to interactions between technology and social institutions, because social change impacts technology no less than technological change impacts society. And just as military institutions are but varieties of social institutions, so too military-technological change is but a variety of social change. Technological innovation of almost every kind has historically answered more to military purpose than commonly allowed. This is not simply a matter of technological change fostered by

Rezensionen

This book contains papers and comments given at a Symposion held by the MaxPlanck-Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena (FRG) in August 1996. The main theme of this Symposion was the confrontation of an important hypothesis of the New Economic History with empirical evidence from selected periods of history. The hypothesis, which the editors call the Kant-Gibbon-WeberNorth hypothesis, is about the role of institutional competition as a decisive factor for shaping economic development and fostering economic growth of nations. It has been put forward, in particular, for the explanation of the "European Miracle" (Eric Jones) and says that the struggle for survival among the fragmented European political units, accentuated by changes in military technology, forced rulers to seek more and stable revenue by undertaking credible commitments to restrain their self-serving inclination to arbitrarily seize assets. Competition for mobile factors of production such as qualified human capital and loanable funds for investment compelled the state to bind its coercive power by securing private property rights and respecting impersonal rules of just conduct. Continuous shackling of arbitrary behavior of rulers in their relationships with merchants, entrepreneurs, and the citizen in general promoted, in particular, the evolution of efficient capital markets and risk spreading thus making innovation, production, and trade more profitable. Owing to the unprecedented growth in scale and scope of economic activity, eventually wide sections of the population got the only real chance to escape poverty and destitution. This sketch of the Kant-GibbonWeber-North hypothesis makes it clear that the hypothesis can also be seen as pattern prediction of a specific interplay between institutional and economic evolution. Elaborating this pattern prediction, the papers and comments are divided into "Part I: Theory" (pp. 3-81) and "Part II: Case Studies" (pp. 83-304), dealing with "The Rise of Nations" and, less extensively, with their "Decline". In addition to the editors' "Introduction and Overview", the theoretical part contains three commented papers. The opening paper by Douglas C. North provides a short account of his view of "The Rise of the Western World". To begin with, he asks the question why it happened that throughout history (and even in much of the modern world) societies have failed to make the "proper" investments by which they could reasonably expect to reach a sustainable path of innovation and growth. His answer diagnoses a fundamental kind of institutional failure (p. 13):

The evolution of agrarian institutions: The case of medieval and Ottoman Serbia

This paper synthesizes several existing models of manorial organization and describes the evolution of land tenure regimes in Serbia from the 14th through the 17th centuries in order to evaluate the theories. The relative scarcity of labor, growth of population and trade, and changes in military technology (which served to shift the locus of power between central and local authority) are identified as important factors which affected the evolution of agrarian institutions. In addition, the particular institutions which arose in the two main periods of change were influenced by situation-specific institutional factors which account for variations in outcomes arising from similar sets of initial conditions.

The Weapons Succession Process

The weapons succession process is an analysis of military-technological change that draws upon classical economics and recent theories of bureaucratic politics. The analysis focuses on the institutional mechanisms for reconciling the demand for weapons with the supply of weapons. In wartime, the demand for weapons, determined in battle, shapes military-technological change. In peacetime, different styles of military-technological change depend on different types of supplier institutions; military-technological change is described as “baroque” in the West and “conservative” in the Soviet Union. The essay speculates about the implications of different styles of military-technological change for economic development and for arms limitation.

The Patterns of War since the Eighteenth Century by Larry H. Addington (review)

646 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE II. What distinguishes the post—World War II period is not that science and technology propel the arms race—military-technological change, I repeat, has normally had external sources—but that military authorities have come eagerly to accept or even promote (rather than usually to resist) the introduction of new weapons. Although several of the articles make the same mistake, they offer compensating virtues. The introductory essay does not. It takes almost no advantage of the insights provided in the articles it purports to introduce. It is fortunate that the reverse is also true: The articles entirely ignore the structural-functional explanatory model posited in the introduction. In short, forget about the introduction, use the articles that may be relevant to your particular needs, and wait for the book that will really address the interactions of science, technology, and the military. Barton C. Hacker Dr. Hacker sometimes teaches courses in the history of technology and other subjects at Oregon State University and is completing his latest book, Elements of Controversy: Nuelear Weapons Testing, Radiation Safety, and the AEC, 1947—1974, which continues The Dragons Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942—1946 (Berkeley, 1987). The Patterns of War through the Eighteenth Century. By Larry H. Adding­ ton. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Pp. xii+161; illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $22.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). There has long been a need for a one-volume textbook covering the history of warfare from prehistory to Napoleon. Such a book should note the changes in strategy, tactics, logistics, and technology that affected early warfare. At the same time, it should be easy to read, to satisfy its undergraduate readers, and comprehensive enough to present a good and accurate survey for scholars. To try to fill this void, Larry H. Addington has written The Patterns of War through the Eighteenth Century. Unfortunately, Addington’s book is so filled with errors, misinterpretations, and mishandled secondary sources that we must still wait for an adequate survey of this important subject. The factual errors are especially conspicuous. Many statements made by Addington are highly questionable, and some are simply wrong. These are too numerous to mention in this review; however, it should be noted that Addington seems to be particularly lost when referring to military technology. For example, a Roman shield was a scutum, not a scrutum (p. 26). Most castles were not built in the 13th and 14th centuries (pp. 61—62). In fact, more castles were built in England, Germany, and France during the 12th century than in the 13th and 14th centuries combined. The trebuchet was not only a counterweight stone-throwing machine, but more often a traction- TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 647 powered artillery piece that relied on the pull of several burly men for its power (p. 62). The Swiss army was not the only army that held its own against cavalry in the 14th century (pp. 64—65). The Scots, English, and Flemings all had success against cavalry-based armies. Hand-held gunpowder weapons did not appear for the first time in the 16th century (p. 68), nor were the Spaniards the first to use them (p. 75). They were certainly known at the end of the 14th century and were used by Burgundian, French, English, German, Italian, and Swiss troops before the Spanish army used them. Finally, Charles VIII was not the first to mount his gunpowder artillery on wheeled carriages (p. 74). This, too, was a product of the mid-15th-century Burgundian army. Other statements show a simple lack of understanding of early warfare. Addington often accepts without reservation the inflated numbers of soldiers mentioned in original sources. He states uncrit­ ically that there were more than 200,000 Persian soldiers, 1,200 warships, and 3,000 supply ships attacking Greece under Xerxes in 480 (p. 12), more than 200,000 Roman casualties in the First Punic War (p. 30), more than 20,000 Moorish cavalry at the battle of Tours (p. 50), more than 8,000 Viking warriors at the battle of Stamford Bridge (p. 53), and more than 4,500 knights and 30,000 foot composing the...