Science, Technology, And War (Alex Roland)

7/16/2019 Science, Technology, And War (Alex Roland)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/science-technology-and-war-alex-roland 1/19

Science, Technology, and War

Author(s): Alex RolandReviewed work(s):Source: Technology and Culture, Vol. 36, No. 2, Supplement: Snapshots of a Discipline: SelectedProceedings from the Conference on Critical Problems and Research Frontiers in the Historyof Technology, Madison, Wisconsin, October 30-November 3, 1991 (Apr., 1995), pp. S83-S100Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of TechnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106691 .

Accessed: 07/04/2012 16:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Society for the History of Technology and The Johns Hopkins University Press are collaborating with JSTOR

to digitize, preserve and extend access to Technology and Culture.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=shot

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106691?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3106691?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=shot

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup



Science, Technology,and War

ALEX ROLAND

I introduced the military technology session at the Madison confer-

ence by noting that the history of technology and war differs in many

significant ways from other fields within the history of technology.'The papers and discussion that followed, however, suggested just the

opposite. They demonstrated that in most ways technology and war

behave much the same as technology elsewhere. Jon Sumida made

that point explicitly, stressing that the history of military technologymust be based on detailed examination of technical records informed

by wide-ranging contextual analysis. This is surely a prescription for

good history of technology in any field. Daniel Headrick echoed the

point, emphasizing the need for social context. Barton C. Hacker

presented a sweeping survey of the historiography of military tech-

nology that was both penetrating and ecumenical.2 Indeed, one pointthat recurred throughout the session was the need for universal his-

tory of the kind practiced by William H. McNeill, the scheduled com-mentator for the session, whose travel to Wisconsin was arrested bythe weather.

DR. ROLAND is professor of history at Duke University.1This session focused primarily on technology and war, a category that many partici-

pants understood as subsuming science and war. Most of the observations here maybe construed as applying to both topics. Separate reference is made to science and war

only when it seems to differ in some significant way from technology and war. In the

discussion in Wisconsin, Jon Sumida placed science in a category of culture and society,

only indirectly related to his primary focus. Barton Hacker expressed interest only inapplied science, i.e., science that brings about technology. In reviewing the same topic,I made an argument for a significant benchmark in the literature in the 1980s. See

Alex Roland, "Technology and War: The Historiographical Revolution of the 1980s,"

Technology nd Culture34 (January 1993): 117-34. Nothing in that article is inconsistent

with the views expressed in Wisconsin.

2The following papers were presented at the history of military technology session

at the Conference on Critical Problems and Research Frontiers, University of Wiscon-

sin-Madison, Fall 1991: Jon Tetsuro Sumida, "Historical Presentations of 20th-

Century Naval Invention"; Daniel R. Headrick, "The Sources of Technological Innova-tion in the Armed Forces: The Case of the U.S. Navy, 1865-1915"; Barton C. Hacker,

"On the History of Military Technology: Past Accomplishments, Present Problems,Future Directions."

? 1995 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved.

0040-165X/95/3602-0011 $01.00

S83



S84 Alex Roland

The essay that follows is really stimulated by the session more than

it is shaped by it. It grants the participants' point that the history of

technology and war is similar to other kinds of history of technology.

It focuses, nonetheless, on the differences, for these seem to be moreinteresting than the similarities and more germane to the concept of

having such a session in the first place. The article will conclude with

some observations on the similarities and what these portend for the

future of scholarship in this area.

* * *

Among the distinguishing characteristics of this subfield is an aver-

sion in scholarly circles to things military. This tendency is not pecu-

liar to the history of technology; it is pervasive. Many scholars simplyfind war and its associated activities distasteful. Comparable distaste

has not stopped historians of medicine from studying epidemic dis-

eases, nor has it stopped historians of science from studying eugenicsor historians of technology from studying sewers. But it does seem

to deter many scholars from studying war or things military.More important in this regard, perhaps, is the suspicion that those

who study war are themselves closet Napoleons-"war lovers," in

John Hersey's term, who vicariously experience in their scholarshipthe lives of the great captains. There is abundant military historiogra-

phy to support such an inference. The great bulk of it is still opera-tional history, drum-and-trumpet narrative weak on analysis and in-

terpretation. So too has the history of technology and war producedits fair share of loving appreciations of the arms and armor of bygoneeras. Naturally, these studies are more often history of technologythan history of science, but both fields have their exemplars. Coffee

tables throughout the English-speaking world groan under their

weight.Not even this guilt by association, however, has entirely deterred

serious scholars from studying the topic. The field now boasts a hugeand growing literature, and distinguished books have received their

share of recognition from both the History of Science Society (HSS)and the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). Merritt Roe

Smith, for example, won the HSS Pfizer Award (along with the Fred-

erick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Histo-

rians) for HarpersFerryArmoryand the New Technology:The Challenge

of Change.3Geoffrey Parker, now the Robert A. Lovett Professor of

Military and Naval History at Yale University, won SHOT's 1990Dexter Prize for TheMilitaryRevolution:MilitaryInnovationand theRise

3Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers FerryArmoryand the New Technology:The Challenge of

Change (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977).



Science, Technology,and War S85

of theWest.4One could easily make a long list of books on militarytopics that have been well received in recent years.5

Yet much of the literature on technology and war succeeds in the

academy by presenting a decidedly antimilitarytone or interpreta-tion. Indeed, part of its successmay be derived from resonance withthe antimilitarysentiment within the academy. The model of this

genre is Lewis Mumford's classic Technics and Civilization (1934),6which introduced many of the important concepts in the literaturethat followed. Mumford'spioneering essayon the evolution of West-ern technology identified four villains in modern civilization,forcesthat turned humans from a natural and ecologicallysound relation-

ship with nature toward an artificial and destructive one, which

opened "the rift between mechanizationand humanization."7Thesewere the cleric, the accountant,the miner, and the soldier. The sol-dier was singled out for imposing on us regimentation and dimin-ished regard for the sanctityof human life. In his train came not onlyincreasinglydeadly engines of war but also mindless and automated

applicationof these engines to purposes of destruction. Mumford's

cynicismand outrage grew through the 20th century, culminatinginhis two-volumestudy of the late 1960s, TheMythof theMachine.Thesecond volume, The Pentagon of Power, excoriated the military-industrial complex and its excesses, seeing them as the naturaloutgrowthsof the sorry trend that Mumford had identified decadesearlier.8

The most successfuland influentialstudy of militarytechnology inrecent yearspicksup manyof Mumford'sthemes, without,however,adopting his strident tone. William McNeill'sThe Pursuitof Power:

Technology,ArmedForce, and Societysince A.D. 1000 depicts the mili-

tary as a macroparasiteon Western civilization.9McNeill specifically

equatesit with the

microparasiteshe described in

Plaguesand Peo-

4Geoffrey Parker, The MilitaryRevolution:MilitaryInnovation and the Rise of the West,1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988).

5See, e.g., Richard Rhodes, TheMaking of theAtomicBomb(New York, 1986); Donald

MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy:A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cam-

bridge, Mass., 1990); Barton C. Hacker, TheDragon's Tale: Radiation Safety in theMan-

hattan Project, 1942-1946 (Berkeley, 1987); Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of

Images (Cambridge, Mass., 1988); Daniel Headrick, TheInvisibleWeapon:Telecommunica-tions and InternationalPolitics (New York, 1991).

6Lewis Mumford, Technicsand Civilization(New York, 1934; reprint, 1963).7Ibid., p. 50.

8Lewis Mumford, The Myth of theMachine, 2 vols. (New York, 1967, 1970), esp. vol.

2, The Pentagon of Power.

9William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology,ArmedForce, and SocietysinceA.D. 1000 (Chicago, 1982), esp. pp. vii-ix.



S86 Alex Roland

pies,'l the other book that flowed from his 1963 world history, TheRiseof the West." McNeill had concluded from the larger study thatneither the historyof disease nor the historyof militarytechnology

after A.D. 1000 had received the attention they deserved.In ThePursuitofPower,McNeillargues that one reason for the rise

of the West to world hegemony after 1500 was its superior militarytechnology. That technology, he believes, emerged from the free-market economy and the hothouse of war that characterized Euro-

pean civilization n the late medieval and earlymodern periods. Gun-

powderweaponsgave princesthe powerto reduce the castles of theirvassalsand change their feudal obligation of service to a tax. Withtax revenues, princescould buy more artillery,subdue more vassals,

and generatemore income.Thus, saysMcNeill,arose a feedbackloopconsisting of military power, political power, and new technology.The militarytechnologythat fed the loop went to the highest bidder.Forthat reason, free competitionbid it up to higher levels of sophisti-cation.When the Europeanstook this arsenal on the road, beginningin the 16th century, it swept the whole earth before it.

This provocativethesis, like Mumford'searlier, is driven by pres-entism. McNeill seeksto explain not only the rise of the Westbut alsothe military-industrial omplex. He views with great alarm the gripon Americanlife held by war and preparationfor war. In his historyof the past millennium,he seeks the originsof that militarization.Heconcludesthat the "commandeconomies"of the modern period,bred

by the feedback loop he discerned in the previous era, had led to abureaucratizationand rationalizationof war that threatened humanexistence. Our abilityto destroy had outrun our ability to manageourselvespolitically.He advocatesworld governmentand hopes thathistoriansin some future age willbe able to look back"in wonder-

tinged

withawe-at the recklessrivalriesand restlesscreativityof themillennium of upheaval, A.D. 1000-2000."12

This is historyseen from the depthsof the Cold War.It is nonethe-less valuableand insightful for that, but it is tendentious and confus-

ing in its purposefulness.McNeill is at pains earlyon to contrastthecommand economy of Sung China with the free-marketeconomiesof medieval Europe. The former, he asserts, closed down Chinese

technological and militarydevelopment, while the latter stimulatedinvention and production.But McNeill'sanalysisturns backon itself

'?William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Garden City, N.Y., 1976)." William H. McNeill, The Rise of the West:A Historyof theHuman Community Chicago,

1963).12

McNeill, Pursuit of Power, p. 386.



Science, Technology,and War

and finally contradictsitself. In the modern period, he asserts, theWest sacrificedits free-marketsystem for modern command econo-mies. True, these command economies were bent on force-feedingthe development of military echnology;the Chinese commandecon-omy of the MiddleAges had been bent on suppressingit. But McNeilluses the same term-command economy-to describe both phenom-ena. In his enthusiasmto explainand condemn the military-industrialcomplex, McNeill contradictsthe thesis he had spent two-thirdsofhis book developing.

Readersappearto havebeen little troubledbythe inconsistencies nMcNeill's hesis and by the loose constructionof the terms"command

economy" and "free enterprise."The reason, one suspects, is that

most are in sympathywith McNeill's sentiments about the military-industrialcomplex. If the proper icons are being smashed, there islittle interestin contestingfine pointsof logic or usage. Instead,read-ers are inclinedto agree with the conclusionand blink at the inconsis-

tency. As Hackersaid at Madison:"No one who reads [ThePursuitofPower]thoughtfully can fail to recognize that the long-term relation-

shipsbetween militaryand economicinstitutions,and their persistentinterplaywith technology, go a long wayto explain the basic featuresof Western and world history."13This is surely true, but it hardlyseems to accountfor the remarkableappeal of McNeill'sbook or the

unstinting praise it has received.Other works on science and war and on technology and war have

been even more political.Paul Forman's"BehindQuantumElectron-ics: National Security as Basis for PhysicalResearch in the United

States, 1940-1960" views all things militarywith undisguised con-

tempt.'4 It subscribesto a conspiratorial nterpretationof the rise ofthe military-industrial omplex, implicatingscientistsand engineers.Stuart W. Leslie's The Cold War and American Science

explainsthe rise

to prominenceof StanfordUniversityand the Massachusetts nstituteof Technology by a willingnessto do the Pentagon'sbidding.15DavidNoble's Forcesof Production eveals the extent to which the air forcecontrolled the development of numericallycontrolled machine toolsin the United States.16

13Hacker, "On the History of Military Technology" (n. 2 above).

14PaulForman, "Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physi-cal Research in the United States, 1940-1960," Historical Studies in the Physical and

Biological Sciences 18 (1987): 149-229.15Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold Warand AmericanScience:TheMilitary-Industrial-Academic

Complexat MIT and Stanford (New York, 1993).16David Noble, ForcesofProduction:A SocialHistoryofIndustrialAutomation New York,

1984).

S87



S88 AlexRoland

None of these works,of course, is wrong, or even weak. All are im-

portantpiecesof scholarshipby scrupulousand ablehistorians.Whatis unusual aboutthem, what is unusualabout much of the scholarship

on the historyof technologyandwar, s thattheyare soheavilyflavoredbya manifest distastefor the military-industrialomplex.All trajector-ies of the science and technology of war seem to end in the military-industrialcomplex, and everythingabout that phenomenon seems to

beg condemnation. Conversely, condemning the military-industrialcomplex virtuallyassurespraiseand precludescriticism.

Now that the Cold War s over and the military-industrialomplexis

shrinking,thisgenre of the historyof technologyand warmaywellgointo eclipseas well. No doubt the military-industrialomplex willsur-

vivein someformuntil the appearanceof the worldorder thatMcNeillanticipates.But for the immediatefuture, the threat of nuclearArma-

geddon is in remission,and the peril of armed conflictin the world,however real and appallingit may stillbe, is changing for the better.This seems sure to alter our scholarshipaswell,asa new generationofhistoriansbegins to write a version of historythat answers tsneeds. Itremains to be seen if bashingthe military-industrialomplexwillholdthe allurefor tomorrow's cholars hat it has for today's.

What is remarkableabout this body of literature is not that the au-

thorswereappalledbythe military-industrialomplex. It is rather thattheir concern and even revulsion were allowed to enter theirhistorical

writingas agiven,as apremise,withoutevidenceor argument.Indeed,the concern has so far proved counterfactual.However much it mayhave seemed that the nuclear arms race couldlead nowhere but to Ar-

mageddon, it did not, and it seems less likelyto now than at any timein the second halfof the 20thcentury.Still,the dangerseemed so greatto some that a kind of moral mperativeappearedto settleon them. Towrite abouttechnologyand warwithoutgivingcentralplaceto the

perillooming over mankind, without addressing, in Jonathan Schell's

phrase,"thefate of the earth,"seemedirresponsibleand finally mpos-sible. In the science and technology of war, the rise of the military-industrial complex was the great historical event of this era, and itwanted explanationand denunciation. No generation that had lived

through the nightmareof Vietnam could concoct much confidence inour militaryor politicalinstitutionsto use its unprecedented armedforce wisely.Smallwonder, then, that the military-industrialomplexhasplayedsuch aprominentrole inthehistoriographyof this field over

the lastquartercentury.'7

17There are some refreshing exceptions.In additionto Weart;Hacker,TheDragon'sTale;Rhodes;and MacKenzie alln. 5 above),see alsoRichardG. Hewlett and Francis



Science,Technology,nd War S89

Not all those who have studied the military-industrial omplex di-

rectlyhave chosen to denounce it. Manyshare the views of the critics

already discussed,18but at the other end of the spectrum, there are

even some who defend the military-industrial omplex.19 n betweenare a varietyof views. The range of opinion is best captured in Ste-

phen Rosen'sTestingheTheory f theMilitary-Industrialomplex.20heconsensus there seems to be that there is a military-industrial om-

plex, but it is not quite so monolithicor powerful as its worst critics

suggest.

* * *

Another characteristicof the historiographyof technologyand war

is that it is often more deterministicthan other work. Determinismwas a hot issue in the 1960s and 1970s, when JacquesEllul was pro-ducing TheTechnologicalociety nd LangdonWinner wasrespondingwithAutonomousechnology.21ith the rise of social constructivism nthe 1980s, however, it seemed that the debate had run its course.22

Surely,most scholars now allowthat contextual forces shaped scienceand technology just as much as did the internal dynamics of the

technology itself. But the continuing importance of this issue, andthe inabilityof the field to put it to rest, has been demonstratedof

late by Roe Smith and Leo Marx.23Mumford wasrichlydeterministic.Technics nd Civilizations a book

of great subtlety, imagination, and insight. It can hardly be calledreductionist in the way that most technologicaldeterminismtends tobe. Yet, in his dogged insistence on the defining influence of the

cleric,the accountant,the miner,and the soldier,Mumfordsuggested

Duncan, AtomicShield, 1947-1952 (University Park, Pa., 1969), and TheNuclear Navy,

1946-1962 (Chicago, 1974).18H. L. Nieburg, In the Name of Science (Chicago, 1966); Carroll W. Pursell, ed., The

Military-IndustrialComplex New York, 1972).

19John Stanley Baumgartner, The LonelyWarriors: The Casefor theMilitary-Industrial

Complex(Los Angeles, 1970).

20Stephen Rosen, ed., Testing the Theoryof theMilitary-IndustrialComplex Lexington,Mass., 1973).

2lJacques Ellul, TheTechnologicalSociety New York, 1964); Langdon Winner, Autono-

mousTechnology:Technicsout of Controlas a Theme n Political Thought(Cambridge, Mass.,

1977).22Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, LaboratoryLife: TheConstructionof ScientificFacts,

2d ed. (Princeton, NJ., 1986); Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch,eds., The Social Constructionof TechnologicalSystems:New Directions in the Sociologyand

Historyof Technology Cambridge, Mass., 1987).23Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, eds., Does TechnologyDrive History?The Dilemma

of TechnologicalDeterminism(Cambridge, Mass., 1994).



S90 Alex Roland

that societywaspowerlessto resisttheir impetus.Furthermore,Mum-ford attached to the characteristicmaterialsof an age the power to

shape the era for good or ill. His "eotechnicphase"(A.D.1000-1750)

was dominated by water and wood, the "paleotechnic" 1750-1900)by coal and iron, and the "neotechnic"(1900-) by electricity and

alloys.Writing n the 1930s,he hoped that these new forms of energyand material would usher in a cleaner, healthier, more ecologicallysound epoch in human existence. By the time he wrote ThePentagonofPower,such hopes had crashed,leaving him with a bittercynicism.The determinism of the military-industrial omplex received muchof the blame.

A less bitterbut equallydeterministichistory s CarloCipolla'sGuns,

Sails,andEmpires.24n economic historian,Cipolla argued that twotechnological developments, the cannon and the side-gunned sailingvessel, allowed the West to establishhegemony over the world's litto-ral. This thesis has been taken up by others, such as McNeill and

Parker,and remainspowerful today.Even more famous is the stirrupthesis of LynnWhite,jr. In Medi-

eval Technologyand Social Change,White argued that the introductionof the stirrupin Europein the yearsimmediatelyfollowingthe battleof Poitiers n A.D.733 made the heavilyarmedand armoredmounted

warrior the dominant force on the battlefield.25 ocietythus came tobe organized around the mounted knight. The feudal system, saidWhite, entailed a bargainbetween lord and vassalin which the latterwas given the land necessaryto support the equipment and retinueof the mounted warriorin return for a commitmentto appear everyyear in the feudal array at the lord's bidding. In short, the stirrupdetermined feudalism. More accurately,White was actuallyarguingthat the addition of the stirrupto the social, economic, and politicalsoup of 8th-centuryEurope precipitatedout the set of arrangementsthat came to be called feudalism.

White's argument is exhaustively documented and carefullyworded, the latter to ensure that it not be construedas deterministic.It has, nonetheless, been construed as exactly that and attacked ac-

cordingly. Medievalists such as Bernard Bachrach have repeatedlychallenged the White thesis, noting that the preconditionsof feudal-ism existed long before 733 and that feudalism itself appeared longafter that date. Synthetic works on the period now conclude that

24Carlo Cipolla, Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological nnovation in the Early Phases

of EuropeanExpansion, 1400-1700 (1965; reprint, Manhattan, Kans., 1985).

25Lynn White, jr., Medieval Technologyand Social Change (Oxford, 1962).




the White thesis is discredited,26but readers must form their ownconclusions. Surely, an argument for technological determinism-that the stirrup produced feudalism-has been disproved, but

White'sargument was alwaysmore complex than that.Military opics may appear more deterministicthan those in other

branchesof technology because war itself and the factorsshaping itsoutcome often appear deterministic.The world wars were wars ofindustrial production. World War I was the chemist's war; WorldWarII the physicist'swar. Both changedthe courseof historyinalter-

ably. The mushroom cloud has become the great icon of the secondhalf of the 20th century, symbolizingboth the awesome power ofscience and the terriblepower of militaryforce to shape events. The

green revolution or the discovery of penicillin may have farther-reaching effects on history,but the technologyof war has about it an

immediacyand a vividnessthatdemand attention.Perhaps they seemmore deterministicbecausewe wish they were less so.

* * *

Another distinguishingcharacteristic f the science and technologyof war is that they operate in a unique marketplace.To historiansof

technology it seems like no marketplaceat all. Because of its roots in

economic historyand its abidingconcern with the nature of techno-

logicalchange, the historyof technologyhas always ooked to marketforces as a powerful categoryof analysis.It was fundamental to themodel of invention, development, and innovationthat enjoyed greatcurrencyin the 1970s. It remainedimportantto model builderssuchas the late Hugh Aitken,whose histories of the development of radioassumed the operation of a free market.27Even a modeler such asEdward Constant,whose story of the origins of turbojetslies in thenetherworldbetween the

marketplaceand the

military,eaves unad-

dressed the different waysin which development worksin those tworealms.28

Historians of science, it should be noted, find the absence of atraditionalmarketplace essdisruptive,for theirsubjectshave seldom,

26Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (Oxford, 1984),

pp. 179-84; and Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology(Lewiston, N.Y., 1992),

pp. 95-110.

27Hugh G. J. Aitken, Syntonyand Spark: The Origins of Radio (New York, 1976), and

The ContinuousWave:Technology ndAmericanRadio, 1900-1932 (Princeton, N.J., 1985).This insistence is surprising in a scholar who had written so insightfully on technologi-cal change in the nonmarket environment of a government arsenal; see his Taylorismat WatertownArsenal: ScientificManagementin Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).

28Edward W. Constant II, The Origins of the TurbojetRevolution (Baltimore, 1980).



S92 AlexRoland

until recent times,been drivenby marketforces. Acrosstime, sciencehas been driven by church and state, by private patrons, by sheer

curiosity,and by education.Only in recent times has the commercial

marketplaceprovidedmuch incentive.In this regard,science is muchmore like the militarythan is technology.

Thus, historians of science and historians of technology havetended to handle the absenceof a marketplacedifferently. For histo-rians of science,militarysupportis simplyanother form of patronage.It carries all the questions that traditional forms of patronage havecarried.Whatautonomycan the scientistmaintain?Will the researchbe pure or applied? Is the level of support commensuratewith the

strings that are attached?What is the institutionalsetting of the re-

search-a private laboratoryor a government arsenal?To these areadded the increasingly urgent question of the morality of militaryresearch. From the moral certitude of FritzHaber to the moral am-bivalence of J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientistsin the 20th centuryhave ranged across the entire spectrumof ethics and politicsin theirsearch for a comfortable and defensible position.29While the search

goes on, some scientistsacceptmilitary unding, others eschewit, andmost worry about it.

For historiansof technology, the absence of a traditional market-

place has greater implications.How, for example, can one explainthe evolution of the computer without measuring the role of the

military?30n such a story,what forces are drivingevents?Surelynotthe marketalone, for some of the productsnever enter the market;furthermore, government subsidyof research and development, to

say nothing of government purchasingpolicies, distorts the market

irretrievably.Surely, it is not the public consumer alone, for oftenthe government is the only consumer, a situationof monopsony. Insuch an environment,evolutionary heoriesof

technologicaldevelop-ment may prove to have more power than markettheories, for theytreat the entire environment in tracing technological change and

29L. F. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud: ChemicalWarfarein theFirst WorldWar (Oxford,

1986); Herbert F. York, The Advisors:Oppenheimer,Teller and the Superbomb Stanford,Calif., 1989).

30I. Bernard Cohen, "The Computer: A Case Study of the Support by Government,

Especially the Military, of a New Science and Technology," in Science, Technologyand

the Military, ed. Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart, 2 vols.(Dordrecht, 1988), 1:119-54. See also Kenneth Flamm, Creatingthe Computer:Govern-

ment, Industry,and High Technology Washington, D.C., 1988); Herman H. Goldstine,The Computer rom Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton, NJ., 1993).




measure the results simply by the outcome, not by predeterminedtheories of which forces are going to dominate.3

* * *

A fourth distinguishingcharacteristicof the historyof technologyand war is thatdevelopmentin this field is often viewed as proceedingmore conservatively han in other fields.32The panel in Madison re-

vealed, however, no consensus on what to make of conservatism.Headricknoted in his presentationand in the discussionthatfollowedthat the U.S. military n the period he examined wassurelya conser-vative institution,as were the Britishand Germannaviesof the same

period. Hacker observed that through most of history people in-

volved in warsimplytakethe existing technologyfor granted.Sumidaconfessed that he was not sure what technological conservatismmeans.

Elting Morison set the standard for evaluating this phenomenonin Men, Machines, ndModernTimes1966), especially n his influential

essay in that volume on "Gunfireat Sea."33 n this characteristicallythoughtful piece, Morison examined the institutional conservatism

against which his father-in-law,WilliamSims, abutted when he at-

tempted to introduce an innovative gunfire control system into the

U.S. Navy around the turn of the century.Resistingthe temptationtoview the navalbureaucracyas a peculiarlyconservativebody, Morisoncautioned that "militaryorganizationsare really societies, more rig-idly structured,more highly integrated, than most communities,butstill societies."34Their response to technological change, he believed,differed in degree but not in kind from that of other societies. Mili-

tary officers had good reasons to cherish proven technologies and toresist innovation; after all, naval officers in particularrisked their

3lGeorge Basalla, The Evolution of Technology(Cambridge, 1988); Joel Mokyr, The

Lever of Riches: TechnologicalCreativityand EconomicProgress(New York, 1990).32The troubled relationship between science and the military has also been docu-

mented. See, e.g., Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists:The Historyof a ScientificCommunityin Modern America (New York, 1978), esp. chaps. 10, 21, and "Scientists, the Military,and the Control of Postwar Defense Research: The Case of the Research Board for

National Security, 1944-1946," Technologyand Culture 16 (1975): 20-47.

33Elting Morison, "Gunfire at Sea," in his Men, Machines, and Modern Times (Cam-

bridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 17-44. Morison explored the same topic in a full-lengthbiography of his father-in-law, WilliamSims and the ModernAmericanNavy (New York,

1968). See also Lance C. Buhl, "Mariners and Machines: Resistance to TechnologicalChange in the American Navy, 1865-1869," Journal of American History 61 (1974):703-27.

34Morison, "Gunfire at Sea," p. 39.



S94 AlexRoland

livesand the livesof their subordinateson thattechnology.Arms and

equipment that had been proven in battle were bound to appearmore secureand trustworthy hannew technology yet to win its spurs.

Indeed, Morisonwent so far as to argue in another article that wewould do well to recognize"thedestructiveenergy in machinery."Hisexamination of the navy'sskepticismabout the revolutionarywarshipWampanoagfter the AmericanCivil Warpresentsnavalconservatismin a new light, almost as an early aversionto the dangers of autono-mous technology.35

The great irony about traditional military conservatism toward

technologicalchange is that it reversed itself completely after WorldWar II. This was the firstwar in which the weapons deployed at the

end were significantly different from those with which it waslaunched; the most familiarexamples are jet aircraft,ballistics mis-

siles, proximityfuses, and, of course, the atomic bomb. These devel-

opments convinced the services that the desideratum of modern warwas shifting from industrial production to technological develop-ment. The next war would be won in the researchlaboratory ully asmuch as the factory.Thus began the hothouse environment of mili-

taryresearchand development that produced the internationalarms

race, military-industrial omplexes here and abroad,and the expan-sion of military nterest and funds into new realms such ascomputers,communications, spaceflight, microelectronics,astrophysics, and ahost of other fields. Scientists and engineers took up positions of

power and influence in government, two of them-Harold Brownand WilliamPerry-rising to become Secretaryof Defense. Indeed,so enthusiasticand intemperatedid the servicesbecome in their questfor new technology that institutionalbarriers had to be erected be-tween them and their suppliers.36

* * *

The final distinguishingcharacteristicof this field of scholarship sa growing confusion about the boundaries of the topic. As Hackerhas noted in his presentationat Madisonand elsewhere,war and the

35Morison, "Men and Machinery," in Men, Machines,and Modern Times,pp. 98-122;

quotation at p. 120.

36The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in 1958 with just

this purpose in mind, as was the office of the Director of Defense Research and Engi-neering. Both institutions have survived numerous organizational transformations to

perform essentially the same function today, though ARPA has become more of a

promoter of technology than a screen.




militaryare not the same thing.37Military nstitutionsare those social

constructsput up by states to prepare for and conduct war. In turn,war is organized,armedconflictbetweenstates.Though practitioners

are wont to talk about militaryscienceand the art (i.e., the technique)of war, in fact there is very little science or technology in war. War,as John U. Nef was at pains to argue over forty years ago, is a con-sumer of science and technology and a destroyer of the social andinstitutional bases from which they spring.38Military institutions,however,are anothermatter.Since earliestrecordedhistory,the mili-

tary has stimulated and promoted the development of science and

technology.Though it may seem to be mere sophistryto distinguishbetween

war and the military,the distinction is neither trivial nor unimpor-tant. Throughout history states have chosen a place for themselveson a spectrum ranging from warlike to peaceful. Those that choseto live by war-Assyria is the prototype-naturally cultivated thetools of war. Manystatesthat preferred a less aggressivepolicy werenonetheless compelled by their neighbors to defend themselves.

They too developed instruments of war. Until modern times, war

was, in Machiavelli'sphrase, the first business of the prince. To theextent that science and technology were state-supported,they were

as likely as not to be supported for militarypurposes. Eratosthenessaid that the main reason for doing cube roots was to calculate the

settings for ballistae.39DionysiusI of Syracuseset up the first-knownresearchand developmentlaboratory n order to develop siege equip-ment.40Archimedes is reported to have turned his considerable tal-ents to the defense of Syracuse.Evenapparentlyciviliantechnologies,such as monumental architecture and road building, were oftendriven by military purpose. War consumed science and scientists,

technologyand

technologists.But

militarynstitutions n

preparationfor war were among the principal patronsof these activities.4'

37BartonC. Hacker, "Military nstitutions,Weapons,and SocialChange: Towarda New History of MilitaryTechnology,"Technologynd Culture35 (October 1994):768-834.

38John U. Nef, War and Human Progress: An Essay on the Rise of Industrial Society

(Cambridge,1950).39WernerSoedel and Vernard Foley, "AncientCatapults,"ScientificAmerican 40

(March 1979): 159.40BrianCaven,Dionysius: War-LordfSicily New Haven, Conn., 1990),pp. 94-95.

41A. Rupert Hall, Ballistics in the SeventeenthCentury:A Study in the Relationsof Scienceand War with Reference Principally to England (Cambridge, 1952); Robert K. Merton,

Science, Technologyand Society n Seventeenth-Century ngland (1938; reprint, New York,

1970).



S96 AlexRoland

In modern times, the relationshipbetween the state and war has

changed. Warmay remain in the minds of many the firstbusiness ofthe state, but it is no longer the main businessof the state. The role

of the militaryasa consumer and promoterof scienceand technologyhas shifted accordingly,but the new pattern is filled with contradic-tions. In the United States, for example, things militaryaccount for

only 23 percent of federal expenditures, but in 1985 the militaryaccounted for approximately60 percentof the federal government'sresearch and development.42The Departmentof Defense now coststhe federal governmentless than socialsecurityand less than Healthand Human Serviceswith social securityleft out; by the end of the

century, it is projected to cost the federal government less than the

interest on the national debt. At the same time, however, it also pro-vides more supportfor research and developmentthan allother gov-ernment agencies combined. If one accepts the argument of Walter

McDougalland others that government activitiessuch as the spaceprogram and the Department of Energy are really quasi-militarymanifestationsof the Cold War, and if one adds the so-called black

budget that is hidden in other budget categories, then the figureswould change significantly.In all cases, however, military fundinghas a proportionally arger impacton researchand development than

militaryspending has on the nationalbudget.Some generalizations seem warranted. Military institutions con-

tinue to play a large role in many aspectsof nationallife, though notas large in the United Statesas at the height of the ColdWar. Becausescienceand technologyhave become ever more importantin modern

war, the militaryplaysa disproportionaterole in their development.The military-industrial omplex is likely, therefore, to remain fertile

ground for researchbyhistoriansof science and historiansof technol-

ogy. But the distinctionbetweenthings militaryand civilian s becom-

ing increasinglyblurred, and traditional definitions of these realmswill likely prove increasingly inadequate.A quick perusal of the listof "criticaltechnologies" recently identified by the Department ofDefense will suggest how porous the barrier between military andcivilianhas become: semiconductormaterialsand microelectroniccir-

cuits, software engineering, high-performancecomputing, machine

intelligence and robotics,simulationand modeling, photonics, sensi-tive radar, passive sensors, signal and image processing, signaturecontrol, weapon system environment, data fusion, computationalfluid dynamics, air-breathingpropulsion, pulsed power, hyperveloc-ity projectilesand propulsion, high energy-density materials,com-

42Jacques S. Gansler, Affording Defense (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), p. 214.




posite materials,superconductivity,biotechnology,and flexible man-

ufacturing.4

Any attempt to fit these technologiesinto traditionalnotions of the

tools of war is bound to fail. The focus must become the militaryasa social institution,one that playsan enormously importantbut verycomplex role in the development of science and technology.

* * *

The preceding catalog of distinguishing characteristicsnotwith-

standing, it is importantto note that technology and war as a field of

study probablyhas more in common with other branchesof technol-

ogy than it has differences. First, it is important to remember that

the term "technology" s a product of the 17th century, "scientist"productof the 19th.Though the phenomenawe now callscience and

technology have existed throughout human history, they were notunderstood in earlier ages in the same sense we now understandthem. So too with militaryscience and technology. Though we nowthink of these fields as the desiderata of modern warfare, ancient

practitionersdid not. They may well have deployed what we wouldnow call science and technology, but they seldom thought of thesefields as the primarysource of militarypower. In that respect, thesefieldsare like other branchesof the historyof scienceand technology,ranging from medicine to manufacture to astronomy. Practitionersused their understandingand manipulationof the materialworld to

help do their business, but they hardly thought about science and

technology as conceptuallydistinctcategoriesof human activitythatwere to be deployed as a preconditionof successfulhealing or pro-ducing or studying-let alone successfulfighting.

Another similarity s that technologyhas grown more importantinwarfarein the

periodsince the IndustrialRevolution.

QuincyWrightargued that technology became the most important determinant ofwar after the introductionof gunpowder, from about 1500 on.44Fewother scholars would go quite that far, though most who study the

subjectallow the importanceof the gunpowder revolution. The real

change came in the 19th century. Since then, great-power war hasbeen measured in industrial production. And in the 20th century,technological innovations have often been closely tied to scientificresearch, from gas warfare to electronics, from materials research

43National Research Council, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems,Board on Army Science and Technology, Star 21: StrategicTechnologiesor theArmy ofthe Twenty-FirstCentury(Washington, D.C., 1992), pp. 277-80.

4Quincy Wright, A Studyof War (Chicago, 1942; reprint, 1965).



S98 AlexRoland

to nuclear weapons. Research on the historyof militarytechnology,mirroringthe historyof technologyin general, has come to be domi-nated by the study of 20th-century topics; the patternis less clear in

the history of science, though it seems true of research on scienceand war.

Again mirroringthe largerfields from whichthey are drawn,histo-ries of technology and war have shown a clear shift in recent yearsfrom internalistto contextual studies.Few,perhaps,have gone as faras Donald MacKenzie's xplicitlysocial-constructivisttudyof ballisticmissile guidance, InventingAccuracy,45ut many have moved beyondthe narrow, technical accountsfrom bygone days so often accompa-nied by loving reconstructionsof armsand armor.When such studies

are done well, they make a real contribution to scholarship.46Toooften, however, they are antiquarianand parochial, playing to theenthusiasts who collect buttons off uniforms and count the tail num-bers on aircraft.

This kind of history is associatedin the minds of many with theold distinction between museums and scholarship. Museums wereseen as mere repositories, their function simply to display artifactswith as much verisimilitude as possible.The best modern museumsof science and technology,however,are now richlycontextual.Their

artifacts,instead of being ends in themselves,are scriptedto fit intoa larger educational agenda, one that places them in context and

explainstheir historicalsignificance.The same ends are now achieved

by the best militarymuseums, which inevitably display a significantamount of militarytechnology and science.

A final similarity s that militarytechnology is intrinsically nterest-

ing. No doubt many scholarschose the historyof technologybecauseof their personal fascinationwith the topic. The same allure drawsscholars into the history of military technology. The instruments of

war are literallyawful, but this only adds to their appeal. They arethe toolswith which humans have conducted one of theirmost funda-mentaland dramaticactivities; nto these tools they have poured their

ingenuity, their wickedness,and their hopes. As Mumfordput it, for

45See MacKenzie (n. 5 above).46

Ralph Payne-Gallwey, The Crossbow,Mediaeval and Modern,Militaryand Sporting:Its

Construction,Historyand Management(New York, 1903; reprint, 1958); E. W. Marsden,

Greekand RomanArtillery,vol. 1, HistoricalDevelopment Oxford, 1969); John S. Morisonand J. F. Coates, The Athenian Trireme:TheHistoryand Reconstruction f an Ancient Greek

Warship (Cambridge, 1986). It must be added that these are all works of exemplaryand exacting scholarship, significant contributions to knowledge; it is a nice questionwhether or not this kind of scholarship is ever out of fashion.



Science,Technology,nd War

their "dream of power," these were the "engines of fulfillment."47For good or ill, the technologyof warhasbecome increasingly mpor-tant to an understandingof the evolution of Westerncivilization.

And the distinction between things militaryand civilian is disap-pearing. Soldiersworryabout the erosion of the warriorethic as theybecome managersof violence.Civiliansworryaboutthe militarizationof society as war and preparationfor war spread from the military-industrialcomplex into hitherto pristinecorners of our social fabric.And science and technology find themselves increasingly permeatedby military influences and increasingly subverted to military pur-poses. The list of critical technologies reproduced in the previoussectionsuggeststhatmilitaryand civilianconsiderationsarebecomingindistinguishable.So too is the history of technology and war likelyto become indistinguishablefrom any other historyof technology.

47Mumford, Technicsand Civilization(n. 6 above), p. 40.

S99



A concernthat receivedparticularattentionat Madison was understandinghow historians

of technologyand science

mightmake theirhistoriesmorein-

clusive-in particular, how theymight betterincorporate he experiencesofwomenand racial or ethnic minorities nto theirstudies.Thefollowing paperby Venus Green is to somedegree representative f this interest, ocusing on

African American womenin the changing technologicalenvironmentof the

telephone ndustry n the mid-20th century.Two of the meeting'soint plenarysessionsdealt with issuesof gender and

its relationshipswith science and technology,both as a categoryof analysisand as a source of differing experiences. udy Wajcmandiscussedfeminist

analyses of technology,EvelynFox Keller

focusedon how

gendercould be

used as a category n the historyof science,and Carroll Pursell extendedthe

discussion o includetheconstructionof masculinity n technology. n a sepa-ratesession,KathleenOchsand Sally GregoryKohlstedtsurveyed hehistoriog-

raphy of women in technologyand science, with some referenceto possible

future directions.

Yet anothersession,devoted to "Race, Technology,and Science,"was the

venue for Green'spaper. The other contributions o this session illustrated

different approachesto a long-neglectedset of issues. Willie Pearson, Jr.,

reported n someof theearlyresultsof a survey of theroughly orty-sixAfricanAmericanswhoearnedPh.D.s in chemistry etween1916 and 1945. He paid

particularattentionto understanding herelationshipbetween heexperiences

of thesechemistsand the ideal of universalism hat is understood o be one ofthe basic normsof modernscience. SuchetaMazumdar'sessay, "Supremacy

of the TechnologicalRace? China,Japan, and the United States,"enlargedthecategoriesof interest n thediscussionof racebeyond hecommon,American

black/whitedichotomy.Thiseffortalsoenlargedthetemporaland geographicalframes of discussion, extending from 18th-centuryEuropeans' statements

aboutChina (and howperceptionsof technology hapedracial perceptions) omodernJapanese attitudestowardthe West and Westerntechnology.

S100

Science, Technology, And War (Alex Roland)

Documents

Transcript of Science, Technology, And War (Alex Roland)