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1 |
ID:
194002
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Summary/Abstract |
Technology is often an importance consideration in a state’s theory of victory. States must consider how technology advances their strategic ends and the most appropriate ways to source technology. As states seek technological overmatch or offsets, they must also wrestle with the strategic cost, risk, and advantage of emerging technologies. Yet, technological advantage is likely to be fleeting. Successful competition depends on states’ ability to scale rapidly in times of crisis, to train soldiers in network-centric and austere environments, to effectively establish norms of AI use, to compete in the diffusion of global dual-use technology, and to question assumptions of technological emergence.
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2 |
ID:
190703
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Summary/Abstract |
Major theories of military innovation focus on relatively narrow technological developments, such as nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers. Arguably the most profound military implications of technological change, however, come from more fundamental advances arising from ‘general-purpose technologies’ (GPTs), such as the steam engine, electricity, and the computer. Building from scholarship on GPTs and economic growth, we argue that the effects of GPTs on military effectiveness are broad, delayed, and shaped by indirect productivity spillovers. We label this impact pathway a ‘general-purpose military transformation’ (GMT). Contrary to studies that predict GPTs will rapidly diffuse to militaries around the world and narrow gaps in capabilities, we show that GMTs can reinforce existing balances if leading militaries have stronger linkages to a robust industrial base in the GPT than challengers. Evidence from electricity's impact on military affairs, covering the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, supports our propositions about GMTs. To probe the explanatory value of our theory and account for alternative interpretations, we compare findings from the electricity case to the military impacts of submarine technology, a non-GPT that emerged in the same period. Finally, we apply our findings to contemporary debates about artificial intelligence, which could plausibly cause a profound GMT.
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