Technological advancement and social change have been dramatic during the nuclear age. Neverthe-less, most analysis of strategic stability, as the name implies, emphasizes continuity. Certainly, players, interests, strategies, and weapon systems can exist for long periods. Antagonistic forces can co-exist and counterbalance for decades. Thus, stability studies often seem “set piece” and familiar. Indeed, strategic change usually is gradual—but not always.
The history of the last 67 years is punctuated by momentous changes—the atomic bomb; the end of
of colonial empires; the hydrogen bomb; the intercon-tinental ballistic missile; the nuclear submarine; the moon landing; the transformation of Maoist China by Den Xiaoping; ubiquitous precision-guided muni-tions; the breakup of the Soviet Union; large reduc-tions in superpower nuclear arsenals; the emergence of additional nuclear weapons-capable states; the rise of new economic powers; a resurgence of ethnic and sectarian violence; the beginning of high technology-empowered terrorism; and the globalization of infor-mation, innovation, technology, capital, markets, and people. Demographics, economics, politics, and sci-ence suggest that more profound strategic shifts are possible in the decades ahead.
Whether we use the word “stability” to describe actual strategic relationships or to refer to a policy goal, stability in our world should ultimately be seen as “dynamic,” not “static.” Stability needs to be as-sociated with concepts such as robustness, persis-tence, and durability. Over time, however, sustaining stability should be seen less as avoiding or ignoring change and more as shaping change or responding to it. In particular, managing stability requires sufficient awareness of what is going on including relevant tech-nological developments. Even in anticipating human behavior, we should expect some outliers. Combining new inventions with human volatility will confound our vision of the future even more. Thus, in projecting the stability implications of science and technology (S&T), we need to expect surprise.
If strategic technologies are those that most influ-ence change and our responses to it, then the funda-mental strategic inventions concern what we know and how we think—languages, alphabets, the print-ing press, radio, television, the internet, smart phones,
data fusion, interactive multimedia. Even in the age of nuclear deterrence, when weapons are power-ful symbols and their deployments are exclamation marks, critical strategic technologies involve gather-ing or signalgather-ing information. Strategic stability calcu-lations are therefore less about the power and number of weapons than they are about anticipating human responses to new, different, and possibly inaccurate information about the circumstances, capabilities, and intent of others and ourselves. Strategic policies and programs therefore must focus on the management of uncertainty and the promotion of change that may mitigate dangers that might accompany human reac-tions to surprise.
Given the specter of nuclear devastation, modifica-tions to strategic policies and forces have been espe-cially cautious and evolutionary during and after the Cold War. This morphing process makes adjustments difficult to see unless one looks back over larger pe-riods of time.1 Nevertheless, one can argue that the strategy of the United States, however incrementally it changes, has always mandated flexibility and diverse capabilities to shape and then respond to momentous changes that could threaten the United States or its allies. When big changes did occur, the strategy was successful, managing both certainty and uncertainty to keep the “Big Peace.” Developing or responding to new technology was an important part of that strategy and remains so.
How will technology contribute or detract in the decades ahead? The right answers are not obvious.
While seeking to optimize our efforts in the face of trends that may change or predictions that may prove wrong, we can navigate dangerous waters more safely
ibility require a better understanding of the manifold interactions of man and machine.
In strategic relationships, shaping the context in which decisions are made is a major means for influ-encing behavior. Technology can be a powerful tool for altering a context or changing those perceptions that increase or decrease stability. The sword, cross-bow, gunpowder, fortifications, railroads, the tele-graph, machine gun, battleship, submarine, airplane, tank, nerve gas, radio, radar, and cruise and ballistic missiles—these and other technologies affected stabil-ity even before the nuclear age. Thus, understanding the vagaries of technological trends is vital to manag-ing strategic stability. Furthermore, an examination of science and technology can provide insights into the dynamics of stability, analytically and cautiously by analogy.2
The history of invention proves that uncertainty about the technical feasibility of an emerging technol-ogy is compounded many times over by uncertainty about its real world viability and competitiveness. The up and down economics of venture capital reinforces that caution. The many failed or disappointing tech-nology outcomes and the resulting high risk of predic-tion failure, however, cannot erase three fundamental realities that the 21st century has inherited from the 20th; namely, that (1) technology is advancing rap-idly, (2) many predictions ultimately do come true, and (3) inept response to surprise is common, even if someone had already predicted what ultimately happened.3
Making irremediable decisions about the impact of future technology on strategic stability is neither easy nor safe. We may deeply regret locking in deci-sions early if we subsequently find the path taken was
based upon erroneous predictions. This is particularly true when the plans and programs we create under routine conditions must provide sound options for future decisions that may be made in time of crisis.
A crisis is almost defined by unclear, tense, and emo-tional circumstances in which someone is experienc-ing the unexpected and is not at their rational best. In-dividuals and organizations can easily falter in these circumstances.
Debates related to strategic stability become in-tense every dozen years or so when they get caught up in enduring policy and partisan conflicts within and among nations. Technological options such as nuclear modernization or missile defense are often the catalyst of these debates. Despite considerable background po-larization, however, the literature on technology and strategy remains staid. Even the basic technologies and some of the actual aircraft associated with cen-tral nuclear stability have been around for over half a century. Most nuclear weapons and their delivery and support systems were acquired decades ago. Revisit-ing these issues today runs the risk of “. . . déjà vu all over again.”
Nevertheless, we are entering a period of signifi-cant geopolitical and economic change, in part the product of the global advance and spread of technol-ogy. Now may be an excellent time to take a fresh look at issues of strategic stability through the lens of tech-nological change.4 Evidence of rapid change around the world suggests we have steep “learning curves,”
but a survey of the current discussion suggests that we also have deep “forgetting curves.” Looking at classic issues from the perspective of new technology and geo-strategic transformations could provide some
Confidence that one can predict the future with any precision is never well placed. We have been sur-prised before and will be sursur-prised again. Studying the source of surprise may help minimize the magni-tude of it, mitigate any downsides, maximize possible benefits of change, and manage the process of creative technological advance and obsolescence. Sources of surprise include difficulties in (1) detecting change, (2) identifying possibilities, (3) calculating probabili-ties, (4) evaluating trends, (5) clarifying consequences, (6) anticipating reactions, (7) foreseeing counter-reac-tions, (8) computing complex dynamics, and (9) com-pensating for emergent behavior.5 Surprise is a pro-cess. Big surprises tend to be the cumulative result of smaller, earlier changes being missed, misunderstood, or ignored or of responses to the initial surprises esca-lating unexpectedly.
Consider “Sputnik,” which presents a classic il-lustration of surprise and the complexity of strategic stability. The U.S. Government was not very surprised that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Of course, Washington was sur-prised that, after two successful Soviet launches and two failed American launches, the United States had to restart a competitive program in order to launch its own satellite.
Perhaps the greatest surprise, however, was the resulting, widely held conclusion at home and abroad that the unending “Sputnik Crisis” reflected a declin-ing United States and a risdeclin-ing Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).6 In response, within a few months the Department of Defense (DoD) had created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA])7 and Congress had passed the National Defense Education
Act (NDEA). Occurring just 1 month after the estab-lishment of the North American Air Defense Com-mand (NORAD), Sputnik fueled debates over the in-tercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) implications of space launch vehicles and reopened the debate over
“surprise attack,” “crisis stability,” and the “weapon-ization of space.” Sputnik had a powerful and lasting effect on elections, the Cold War, the “missile gap,”
the Cuban missile crisis, the space race, arms control, missile defense, and President John Kennedy’s deci-sion to put a man on the moon.
This reference to the well-known Sputnik story is only to note that relatively simple acts of technology demonstration can have strategic stability implications that go far beyond their immediate, often minimal military impact. Moreover, the manner and context of response can amplify effects and promulgate influ-ence long after the event. In the future, nation-states and perhaps even terrorists may display new capabili-ties that could have Sputnik-like strategic impact in-volving space activities, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), cyber crime, unmanned vehicles, advanced conventional weapons, or even economic disruption through dominant new civilian applications of tech-nology. The longer our time horizon, the more likely this will happen. Technological change is normally incremental, but can be very rapid. The time frame for response is important to stability calculations.
Gauging the future simply by weighing the past is dangerous in periods of rapid change. Still, history gives various examples of how far into the future we must anticipate in order to make portentous decisions prudently. Twenty to 40 years may seem too distant when we consider that the United States, from
deci-designs in 4 years (1957-60). The delivery of the first atomic bomb by a B-29 bomber was just 42 years after the Wright brothers’ first primitive, powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and only 3 years after Enrico Fermi first produced a self-sustaining critical nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1. The first test launch of an operational nuclear warhead from a submerged ballistic missile submarine was 5 years after Sputnik, only 17 years after the Trinity test in New Mexico. In just 1 year, 1958, the United States increased the num-ber of nuclear warheads in its official stockpile by over 5,000.8 Likewise, in 1 year, 1992, the United States re-duced its nuclear weapons stockpile by that much.9 Thus, by 2009, the entire U.S. official stockpile was 5,113, roughly the amount by which the United States had previously increased or decreased its stockpile number in single years.10 At the mathematical average rate that the official stockpile number was reduced be-tween 1967 and 2009, in theory, the official stockpile would reach zero about the time the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) ceilings take ef-fect, some 5 years from now.11 Reductions are continu-ing, but at some point the rate of reduction is likely to slow down well before zero because of uncertainty and fear of instabilities at low numbers.
On the other hand, nearly all of the weapons and delivery systems in the U.S. nuclear arsenal now date back 20 to 40 years or more. Of course, strategic sys-tems procured may be upgraded many times in order to serve for decades. That is the dilemma of thinking about the future. The time horizon changes on us, and we cannot completely control developments. What we think might happen in 20 years may actually happen in 10 years, or 5 years, or 1 year. Or it may take more than 40 years, or not happen at all. The decisions we make must permit us to sustain or change as needed.12
ELABORATING TECHNOLOGY AS PRODUCT