James Carlson
Unverified
I've been doing some reading the past few months on Cold War tactics assumed by the Department of Defense; one of the strategies discussed was "imperfect deployment" of technology. Basically, the strategy was created in response to the Soviet Union's assumed technological superiority from the late 1950s to the early 1960s as evidenced in the early years of the space race -- they got Sputnik out and the first astronauts into space, etc., and the DoD was of the opinion that these advances were due to the fact that a communist dictatorship has certain advantages in their national marketplace; they didn't have a "marketplace" so technology wasn't dependant on whether or not someone was going to pay for it. In order to overcome the "disadvantages" of a free market system, the Department of Defense assumed a strategy of "imperfect deployment", which basically means that technological systems were not being tested as thoroughly as they should have been, and were not being "perfected" anywhere near the extent that industry normally demands. As a result, technology was being deployed into high-tech military systems -- such as the missile defense systems, for instance -- before it was ready. The Department of Defense decided that we could only catch up to the USSR in the technology race by deploying our own technology as quickly as possible, thereby raising demands on industry to produce new technologically superior systems faster, until we had not only caught up with, but surpassed the technological standards of the Soviet Union. Any adjustments, troubleshooting, final testing, and life-span data collection would only be accomplished after the systems were already deployed on station. Normal preventative maintenance of active systems was no longer going to be normal.
Neither Congress nor the Department of Defense intended this to be anything other than a temporary "fix", because everybody hated this kind of dependance on systems that were not actually "consumer-ready". In practice, however, it resulted in a large number of systems failures that were compounded by the normally expected difficulties industry had always had with new technologies. This was why we had so many failures of components like the NS-17 guidance and control modules on Minuteman II, that continuously had to be repaired, retested, and replaced on station, normally as part of routine maintenance. This gave the appearance of a vibrant technological environment, something that was considered very important for any deterrent systems, and as a result of this strategy we were, of course, able to eventually surpass the technological abilities of the Soviets. But it also resulted in an uncharacteristically failure-prone environment, particularly in systems like missile defense in which the technology was advancing so quickly and so dramatically (for instance, look at the huge differences between Minuteman I and Minuteman III). And with the compounded failures one on top of the other that resulted, we were apparently unable to move away from that strategy until the 1970s.
I've started this thread, because I'd like to collect from as many people as possible, their take on this strategy -- any examples you might have, whether it affected you personally in your work, any thoughts you might have regarding its efficiency, or lack thereof -- was it a good idea or not? Most of this is to satisfy my own curiousity, but I may eventually write an essay on the subject -- I really haven't decided. The actual practice just seemed so odd to me, that I wanted to find out more, particularly how it affected the day-to-day operations.
So, what are your thoughts?
Neither Congress nor the Department of Defense intended this to be anything other than a temporary "fix", because everybody hated this kind of dependance on systems that were not actually "consumer-ready". In practice, however, it resulted in a large number of systems failures that were compounded by the normally expected difficulties industry had always had with new technologies. This was why we had so many failures of components like the NS-17 guidance and control modules on Minuteman II, that continuously had to be repaired, retested, and replaced on station, normally as part of routine maintenance. This gave the appearance of a vibrant technological environment, something that was considered very important for any deterrent systems, and as a result of this strategy we were, of course, able to eventually surpass the technological abilities of the Soviets. But it also resulted in an uncharacteristically failure-prone environment, particularly in systems like missile defense in which the technology was advancing so quickly and so dramatically (for instance, look at the huge differences between Minuteman I and Minuteman III). And with the compounded failures one on top of the other that resulted, we were apparently unable to move away from that strategy until the 1970s.
I've started this thread, because I'd like to collect from as many people as possible, their take on this strategy -- any examples you might have, whether it affected you personally in your work, any thoughts you might have regarding its efficiency, or lack thereof -- was it a good idea or not? Most of this is to satisfy my own curiousity, but I may eventually write an essay on the subject -- I really haven't decided. The actual practice just seemed so odd to me, that I wanted to find out more, particularly how it affected the day-to-day operations.
So, what are your thoughts?