The Technological Challenge

Abstract

Economic and technological challenges have been closely linked in the history of British defence policy since 1945. Important developments in land, sea and air warfare occurred in the first forty years of the twentieth century but these were much less significant than the quantum leaps in military science which have taken place in the period since 1945. As John Garnett has written, ‘the sheer pace of technological innovation in weapon technology… is one of the startling features of our time’.¹ In less than a century mankind has moved from the horse-drawn artillery of the First World War to the precision-guided munitions of the 1980s and the ideas of space-based lasers and particle-beam weapons envisaged in President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. In attempting to adjust to the rapid process of technological change defence planners in Britain, like those in other countries, have been faced with numerous difficulties. In the main there have been problems of cost, centring largely on debates over quality versus quantity; problems of uncertainty in defence planning; problems of dependence and interdependence; and problems of adjustment as tactical and strategic doctrines have evolved.