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Technical Innovation and Arms Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Harry G. Gelber
Harry G. Gelber
Affiliation:
Politics at Monash University, Melbourne
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Extract

The Soviet-American strategic arms limitation discussions and agreements have been widely welcomed not only as important steps toward tighter arms control but as a symbol of die entire process of East-West détente. For die first time since 1945, the two superpowers have shown themselves willing to put agreed limitations on their central strategic armaments. The SALT I talks imposed rough numerical ceilings on deployment. One of die major difficulties in the attempt to extend these limitations in SALT II is die formulation of qualitative restraints. Each side is under pressure to create improved weapons systems. Each is concerned lest the odier should achieve a breakthrough which would render its own systems ineffectual. Each needs to hedge against the possibility that the other might design around any particular set of arms control arrangements. In this paper I will examine die desire for innovation and die difficulties of control, and suggest a general framework within which the question of limitations might be further examined. In the first part, I will discuss the meaning of innovation and the ways in which it is organized and promoted. In die second, the reasons are examined why the two great powers seek advantages over each other in the area of R & D. Finally, I will look at some of the difficulties of achieving restraint by agreement and under verifiable conditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , July 1974 , pp. 509 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1974

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References

1 Mansfield, Edwin, The Economics of Technological Change (London 1969), 131.Google Scholar

2 The definitions used in the literature differ in detail, but this kind of division seems widely accepted. The U.S. National Science Foundation distinguishes between basic research, or original investigations for the advancement of scientific knowledge without specific commercial objectives; applied research, or investigations to try to discover new scientific knowledge with specific commercial objectives in mind; and development, or the translation of research findings into products or processes. See also Jewkes, John, Sawers, David and Stillerman, Richard, The Sources of Invention, 2nd ed. (London 1969), 26ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sir Frederick Dainton has suggested a further subdivision of the non-development segments of these activities into basic science, or pure research: strategic science, or a general effort to maintain the vigor of the scientific disciplines on which innovation and development are based; and tactical science, undertaken in support of immediate aims of product creation or improvement. See his report, “The Future of the Research Council System,” in A Framework for Government Research and Development, Cmnd. 4814 (London, November 1971), 3–4.

3 Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations, 4th ed., rev. (London 1972), 129.Google Scholar

4 Price, Derek de Solla, Big Science, Little Science (New York 1963), 107.Google Scholar

5 The scientist is concerned with explanatory power in the field concerned, die decision-maker with die question, “what difference does it make in the world of affairs?” The answer, even for a very powerful theory, may be, “none.”

6 Price strongly urges this view (fn. 4), esp. 169, 172.Google Scholar

7 Keith Pavitt has pointed out that copying hardware or blueprints is no effective substitute for the exchange of know-how and close person-to-person contacts. “Technology, International Competition, and Economic Growth,” World Politics, XXV (January 1973), 186.

8 Peck, Merton J. and Scherer, Frederic M., The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (Boston 1962)Google Scholar, chap. 8.

9 SirBondi, Hermann, “International Collaboration in Advanced Technology,” The World Today, XXIX (January 1973), 16–23.Google Scholar Similarly, Jacob Schmookler argues that while many important inventions in oil refining, paper making, farming, and railroads have depended upon science, “few if any were directly stimulated by scientific discoveries.” Invention and Economic Growth (Cambridge, Mass. 1966), 63.

10 This categorization is partly derived from Mansfield, (fn. 1), 119.Google Scholar

11 Dainton, (fn. 2), 11, para. 33.Google Scholar

12 Some ways of dealing with these probabilities are discussed in Winkler, Robert L., “The Consensus of Subjective Probability Distributions,” Management Science, XV, No. 3 (1968), B61–B75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 See, for example, Glennan, Thomas K., “Research and Development,” in Enke, Stephen, Defense Management (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1967)Google Scholar; Klein, Burton M., “Policy Issues Involved in the Conduct of Military Development Programs,” in Tybout, Richard A., ed., The Economics of Research and Development (Columbus, Ohio 1965).Google Scholar

14 Nelson, Richard R., “The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research,” Journal of Political Economy, LXVII (June 1959), 306.Google Scholar

15 Mansfield, Edwin, Industrial Research and Technological Innovation (New York 1968), chap. 4.Google Scholar

16 Byrd, Richard M., “Public Finances and the Technological Revolution—Comments,” Public Finance, XXVI, No. 2 (1971), 160.Google Scholar

17 Dainton, (fn. 2), 9Google Scholar, para. 24.

18 See, for example, Jewkes, Sawers, and Stillerman (fn. 2). Analysis of patents helps, but does not solve the problem. Many ideas are not patentable and others, especially in defense science, are not patented. Patent totals say nothing about the distinction between major inventions and trivia. In large organizations the taking out of patents may play a formal legitimizing role (as publication of articles does among academics), which bears no necessary correlation to the true value or originality of the work done.

19 Hamberg, D., “Invention in the Industrial Research Laboratory,” Journal of Political Economy, LXXI (April 1963), 95–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Hirschman, Albert O. and Lindblom, Charles E., “Economic Development, Research and Development, Policy Making: Some Converging Views,” in Etzioni, Amitai, A Sociological Reader on Complex Organizations, 2nd ed. (New York 1969), 87–103.Google Scholar

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22 Brooks, Harvey, “Knowledge and Action: The Dilemma of Science Policy in the [70]s,” Daedalus, CII (Spring 1973), 128.Google Scholar

23 Storr, Anthony, The Dynamics of Creation (London 1972).Google Scholar I suppose that even Skinnerians would not argue that laws governing creative activity have yet been discovered.

24 Laird, Meivin R., National Security Strategy of Realistic Deterrence, Statement before the House Armed Sen ices Committee on the FY 1973 Defense Budget and FY 1973–77 Program (Washington, D.C., February 17, 1972), 189Google Scholar, Table I; Foster, John S. Jr, The Department of Defense Program of Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation, FY 1974, Statement before the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, 93rd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C., March 28, 1973), 1–3.Google Scholar

25 Between 1963 and 1971, U.S. total spending on R & D declined from 2.9% to 2.6% of GNP (1972: 2.4%), while Soviet R&D spending during the same period rose from 2.3% to 3.0% of a much smaller GNP. (A different computation suggests that total Soviet research expenditure rose from 1.6% of the national income in 1950 to 3.7% in 1968. See Dyatchenko, V. P. and Sitaryan, S. A., “Problems of Public Finance in the Field of Research and Technical Development,” Public Finance, XXVI, No. 2 [1971], 117.)Google Scholar Between 1961 and 1969, the proportion of U.S. governmental R&D expenditure going to defense declined from 65% to 49% (1972: 54%). Science Indicators 1972, Report of the National Science Board, 1973 (National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 1973), 2–3, 20–25. In sum, American defense R&D spending rose somewhat during the 196o's in current dollars, declined in constant dollars, and declined somewhat more sharply as a proportion of total R&D spending and of government expenditure in the field. On June 22, 1972, Dr Foster, told the Senate, “the Soviets now have a greater level of effort devoted to technology programs than does the U.S… unless the Soviets reduce their program, it will eventually become necessary to further increase U.S. efforts to maintain a technological lead.” Military Implications of the Treaty on the Limitations of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems and the Interim Agreement on Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, Hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C. 1972), 234.Google Scholar On March 28, 1973, Dr. Foster said that none of various projections made by the Pentagon showed that the U.S. was holding its own against the Soviet effort to achieve superiority; that the Russians were increasing their R&D spending by 10–15% per annum while the U.S. effort had recently declined; and that in some respects the Russians had closed the “technology gap” (fn. 24), 1–3, 2–3, 2–6, 3–16. Active officers were making similar points. For instance, General George S. Brown of the U.S. Air Force Systems Command argued that the U.S.S.R. was spending “far more” in every phase of R & D. Aviation Week and Space Technology, XCVIII (March 26, 1973), 7.Google Scholar

28 Dr Foster's, testimony on the fiscal year 1973Google Scholar Defense RDT & E Program before the Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C., February 29, 1972), 1–13, 14, 15.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 2–14. In 1973 he expressed similar views. See his testimony of March 28, 1973 (fn. 24), 1–13, 3–18.

28 As Dr Kissinger, rather pointedly put it during his news conference at the Intourist Hotel, Moscow, on May 27, 1972Google Scholar, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. “can talk to each other now in a way …in which few countries can talk to each other now, because many of them don't have the technical competence.” Military Implications. … (fn. 25), 112.Google Scholar

29 The idea of a spiral usually assumes that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have been engaged in an “arms race.” I ought, perhaps, to say that, for reasons going beyond the scope of this paper, I believe this idea is at best a dangerously oversimplified model of reality and at worst simply wrong.

30 Brooks, (fn. 22), 129.Google Scholar

31 The point has been clearly put by Dr. Foster. See his address of January 10, 1973, to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Washington (Department of Defense Press Release, no date).

32 Or more than two, as and when the development of nuclear forces by additional states makes it feasible and desirable to draw them into such discussions.

33 Federal Funds for Science, XIV, National Science Foundation (Washington, D.C. 1965).

34 See Greenwood, Ted, “Reconnaissance and Arms Control,” Scientific American, CCXXVIII (February 1973), 14–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Suggestions for freer movement of persons have already proved embarrassing in the framework of discussions about European security. For the Russians to permit such free movement could, of course, pose grave dangers to the entire apparatus of political control.

36 This idea is hardly new. Natura furcam expellas, tarnen usque recurret.

37 They might be less important for any one of several reasons: because they were less effective in relation to some particular mission, or because their effects were less controllable (as in the case of biological warfare), or because their use was subject to insurmountable political objections.

38 Whether the development of such anti-missile systems would or would not be prohibited under the SALT I ABM Treaty is a matter of interpretation on which different views are possible.