Information Technology and Military Power

Information Technology and Military Power PDF Author: Jon R. Lindsay
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501749579
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Militaries with state-of-the-art information technology sometimes bog down in confusing conflicts. To understand why, it is important to understand the micro-foundations of military power in the information age, and this is exactly what Jon R. Lindsay's Information Technology and Military Power gives us. As Lindsay shows, digital systems now mediate almost every effort to gather, store, display, analyze, and communicate information in military organizations. He highlights how personnel now struggle with their own information systems as much as with the enemy. Throughout this foray into networked technology in military operations, we see how information practice—the ways in which practitioners use technology in actual operations—shapes the effectiveness of military performance. The quality of information practice depends on the interaction between strategic problems and organizational solutions. Information Technology and Military Power explores information practice through a series of detailed historical cases and ethnographic studies of military organizations at war. Lindsay explains why the US military, despite all its technological advantages, has struggled for so long in unconventional conflicts against weaker adversaries. This same perspective suggests that the US retains important advantages against advanced competitors like China that are less prepared to cope with the complexity of information systems in wartime. Lindsay argues convincingly that a better understanding of how personnel actually use technology can inform the design of command and control, improve the net assessment of military power, and promote reforms to improve military performance. Warfighting problems and technical solutions keep on changing, but information practice is always stuck in between.

Information Technology and Military Power

Information Technology and Military Power PDF Author: Jon R. Lindsay
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501749579
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Militaries with state-of-the-art information technology sometimes bog down in confusing conflicts. To understand why, it is important to understand the micro-foundations of military power in the information age, and this is exactly what Jon R. Lindsay's Information Technology and Military Power gives us. As Lindsay shows, digital systems now mediate almost every effort to gather, store, display, analyze, and communicate information in military organizations. He highlights how personnel now struggle with their own information systems as much as with the enemy. Throughout this foray into networked technology in military operations, we see how information practice—the ways in which practitioners use technology in actual operations—shapes the effectiveness of military performance. The quality of information practice depends on the interaction between strategic problems and organizational solutions. Information Technology and Military Power explores information practice through a series of detailed historical cases and ethnographic studies of military organizations at war. Lindsay explains why the US military, despite all its technological advantages, has struggled for so long in unconventional conflicts against weaker adversaries. This same perspective suggests that the US retains important advantages against advanced competitors like China that are less prepared to cope with the complexity of information systems in wartime. Lindsay argues convincingly that a better understanding of how personnel actually use technology can inform the design of command and control, improve the net assessment of military power, and promote reforms to improve military performance. Warfighting problems and technical solutions keep on changing, but information practice is always stuck in between.

Military Power

Military Power PDF Author: Stephen Biddle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837820
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In war, do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest, best equipped, information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.

STAR 21

STAR 21 PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309046297
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Dramatic political and economic changes throughout the world, coupled with rapid advances in technology, pose an important question for the U.S. Army: What technologies are best suited to defending U.S. interests against tomorrow's military threats? STAR 21 provides an expert analysis of how the Army can prepare itself for the battlefield of the futureâ€"where soldiers will wear "smart" helmets and combat chemical warfare with vaccines produced in days to counter new threats. This book summarizes emerging developments in robotics, "brillant" munitions, medical support, laser sensors, biotechnolgy, novel materials, and other key areas. Taking into account reliability, deployability, and other values that all military systems will need, the volume identifies new systems and emerging technologies that offer the greatest payoff for the Army. The volume addresses a host of important military issues, including the importance of mobile, rapidly deployable forces, the changing role of the helicopter, and how commercial technology may help the Army stay ahead of potential opponents. Alternative Selection, Doubleday's Military Book Club

The Diffusion of Military Power

The Diffusion of Military Power PDF Author: Michael C. Horowitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9781400835102
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The Diffusion of Military Power examines how the financial and organizational challenges of adopting new methods of fighting wars can influence the international balance of power. Michael Horowitz argues that a state or actor wishing to adopt a military innovation must possess both the financial resources to buy or build the technology and the internal organizational capacity to accommodate any necessary changes in recruiting, training, or operations. How countries react to new innovations--and to other actors that do or don't adopt them--has profound implications for the global order and the likelihood of war. Horowitz looks at some of the most important military innovations throughout history, including the advent of the all-big-gun steel battleship, the development of aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and the use of suicide terror by nonstate actors. He shows how expensive innovations can favor wealthier, more powerful countries, but also how those same states often stumble when facing organizationally complicated innovations. Innovations requiring major upheavals in doctrine and organization can disadvantage the wealthiest states due to their bureaucratic inflexibility and weight the balance of power toward smaller and more nimble actors, making conflict more likely. This book provides vital insights into military innovations and their impact on U.S. foreign policy, warfare, and the distribution of power in the international system.

Creating Military Power

Creating Military Power PDF Author: Risa Brooks
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804768092
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Creating Military Power examines how societies, cultures, political structures, and the global environment affect countries' military organizations. Unlike most analyses of countries' military power, which focus on material and basic resources—such as the size of populations, technological and industrial base, and GNP—this volume takes a more expansive view. The study's overarching argument is that states' global environments and the particularities of their cultures, social structures, and political institutions often affect how they organize and prepare for war, and ultimately impact their effectiveness in battle. The creation of military power is only partially dependent on states' basic material and human assets. Wealth, technology, and human capital certainly matter for a country's ability to create military power, but equally important are the ways a state uses those resources, and this often depends on the political and social environment in which military activity takes place.

The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas

The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas PDF Author: Emily O. Goldman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804745352
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Antologi. Sikkerhedspolitiske forskere giver deres vurdering af følgerne af informationsalderens opgør med hidtidig kendt våbenteknologi og doktriner i forbindelse med den globale spredning af know-how på området.

Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035

Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035 PDF Author:
Publisher: National Academies
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
The future national security environment will present the naval forces with operational challenges that can best be met through the development of military capabilities that effectively leverage rapidly advancing technologies in many areas. The panel envisions a world where the naval forces will perform missions in the future similar to those they have historically undertaken. These missions will continue to include sea control, deterrence, power projection, sea lift, and so on. The missions will be accomplished through the use of platforms (ships, submarines, aircraft, and spacecraft), weapons (guns, missiles, bombs, torpedoes, and information), manpower, materiel, tactics, and processes (acquisition, logistics, and so on.). Accordingly, the Panel on Technology attempted to identify those technologies that will be of greatest importance to the future operations of the naval forces and to project trends in their development out to the year 2035. The primary objective of the panel was to determine which are the most critical technologies for the Department of the Navy to pursue to ensure U.S. dominance in future naval operations and to determine the future trends in these technologies and their impact on Navy and Marine Corps superiority. A vision of future naval operations ensued from this effort. These technologies form the base from which products, platforms, weapons, and capabilities are built. By combining multiple technologies with their future attributes, new systems and subsystems can be envisioned. Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035 Becoming a 21st-Century Force: Volume 2: Technology indentifies those technologies that are unique to the naval forces and whose development the Department of the Navy clearly must fund, as well as commercially dominated technologies that the panel believes the Navy and Marine Corps must learn to adapt as quickly as possible to naval applications. Since the development of many of the critical technologies is becoming global in nature, some consideration is given to foreign capabilities and trends as a way to assess potential adversaries' capabilities. Finally, the panel assessed the current state of the science and technology (S&T) establishment and processes within the Department of the Navy and makes recommendations that would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this vital area. The panel's findings and recommendations are presented in this report.

War Made New

War Made New PDF Author: Max Boot
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101216832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, that shows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformed the battlefield Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis, War Made New focuses on four "revolutions" in military affairs and describes how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided air strikes have remade the field of battle—and shaped the rise and fall of empires. War Made New begins with the Gunpowder Revolution and explains warfare's evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to much deadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation-state. He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during the Industrial Revolution, showing how it powered the spread of European colonial empires. Moving into the twentieth century and the Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three critical clashes of World War II to illustrate how new technology such as the tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms of warfare and the rise of centralized, and even totalitarian, world powers. Finally, Boot focuses on the Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iraq War—arguing that even as cutting-edge technologies have made America the greatest military power in world history, advanced communications systems have allowed decentralized, "irregular" forces to become an increasingly significant threat.

Military Power And The Advance Of Technology

Military Power And The Advance Of Technology PDF Author: Seymour J. Deitchman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429725361
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This book deals with the basic facts of the military-industrial complex, examining its institutional dynamics and constitutional barriers to change. It shows how simplistic journalistic prescriptions and trivial observations fail to do justice to the enormous complexity of an industrial economy.

Forging China's Military Might

Forging China's Military Might PDF Author: Tai Ming Cheung
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421411598
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
“His collection of nine essays offers a comprehensive and insightful assessment of the Chinese defense science and technology (S&T).” —Pacific Affairs Among the most important issues in international security today are the nature and the global implications of China’s emergence as a world-class defense technology power. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Chinese defense industry has reinvented itself by emphasizing technological innovation and technology. This reinvention and its potential effects, both positive and negative, are attracting global scrutiny. Drawing insights from a range of disciplines, including history, social science, business, and strategic studies, Tai Ming Cheung and the contributors to Forging China’s Military Might develop an analytical framework to evaluate the nature, dimensions, and spectrum of Chinese innovation in the military and broader defense spheres. Forging China’s Military Might provides an overview of the current state of the Chinese defense industry and then focuses on subjects critical to understanding short- and long-term developments, including the relationship among defense contractors, regulators, and end-users; civil-military integration; China’s defense innovation system; and China’s place in the global defense economy. Case studies look in detail at the Chinese space and missile industry. “Constitutes high-quality, cutting-edge research on China’s defense industries. It should enjoy broad appeal—among academics, policy makers, security analysts, and business people in countries around the world.” —Andrew Scobell, RAND Corporation “Forging China’s Military Might belongs in any political science shelf interested in China’s issues and international security and considers the nature of China’s emergence as a world power.” —Midwest Book Review