The Linkage Between Technology, Doctrine, and Weapons Innovation

Résumé du livre

The theme of this paper is that the linkages between technical innovations and their incorporation in weapons and doctrine are strongly dependent on experiments that generate information about possibilities. The main argument is that a crucial step is required between the output of organized R & D and the formation of doctrine and weapons procurement decisions. This step involves experimentation in the use of the product. Today, when systematic, organized R & D can be so successful in producing a dazzling variety of potential technologies, subsystems, systems, and assorted improvements to existing weapons, the choice among these is the critical problem. Questions surrounding the use of these new things are loaded with the very strong uncertainties that we have come to accept in the technology development process itself. An experimental approach to use is a necessary concomitant to the successful incorporation of technology and to the derivation of doctrine that will govern its use. Indeed, the notion of innovation is just as aptly applied to use as it is to technology. The linkages between technology and use, therefore, require careful and explicit attention.