The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (review)

Funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, this volume represents a collaborative effort between the University of California, Davis, and the Naval Postgraduate School to study the diffusion of military "hardware" (technology-weaponry) and "software" (attitudes, doctrines, organizational schema, tactics, and related, nonmaterial factors). It critiques neorealists' treatment of diffusion as an uncomplicated process of emulation, in which weak states ape the behaviors and practices of the strong. This volume argues instead that technological diffusion is underdetermined and shaped by complex "societal, cultural, institutional, organizational, bureaucratic, individual, doctrinal, and historical forces" (p. 397).

Consistency of focus is a strength of this volume. Eleven case studies—nine drawn from the twentieth century—examine diffusion and its varied trajectories using a range of approaches, including historical, sociological, and politico-strategic. The two earlier cases examine sepoys and their adoption and adaptation of European military methods (John A. Lynn), and the spread of Napoleonic and Prussian military systems. Sepoys, Lynn concludes, selected key elements of European military practices, including the regimental system, and synergistically combined them with traditional Hindu beliefs and practices. By remaining sensitive to the latter, the East India Company forged a cohesive and, until the mutiny of 1857, reliable colonial force.

Less successful was Arab militaries' adoption and adaptation of Soviet doctrine, note Michael J. Eisenstadt and Kenneth M. Pollack. Centralized control was readily adopted, but Arab cultural attitudes, including deference to authority and reluctance to risk shame, conflicted with Soviet doctrine stressing individual initiative and boldness. Conflict was evident in Syria's overly cautious attack on the Golan Heights. Less slavishly obedient to Soviet doctrine and therefore more successful was Egypt. Recognizing that ambitious, fast-flowing, combined-arms operations clashed with the skills and mindset of its soldiers, Egypt scripted a set-piece assault that proved successful in the opening days of the Yom Kippur War.

Other case studies suggest that cultural affinity and common goals act as accelerants to diffusion, as in the sharing of technology among the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; that political goals may drive diffusion, as in the Soviet Union's practice of sharing advanced weaponry with East Germany's military to create a rival to the Bundeswehr; and that commercial interests and pressures often intrude in ways that may compromise national security. Timothy D. Hoyt's study shows how "peripheral" countries like Israel can develop novel approaches, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, which then diffuse (while encountering resistance) to core countries. Emily O. Goldman shows how strategic calculations and cultural attitudes affected the diffusion of carrier air power before and during World War II; contemporaneously, Thomas G. Mahnken highlights the difficulties the Allies faced in adapting to German combined-arms warfare. William C. Potter's study provides a primer of nuclear proliferation theory.

With assiduous attention to the dynamics of diffusion—especially its sensitivity to local contingencies within indigenous cultural settings—this volume succeeds in alerting policy makers to the challenges of advancing (or halting) the spread of technology. It further provides a salutary reminder that "software"—including robust but flexible habits of mind—is often more critical to military effectiveness than hardware.