Technological Optimism and the Imagined Future: Implications for Warfare

Good Strategy Bridge Post:

- The new technology or novel application of existing technology may be truly revolutionary and fundamentally alter the status quo by rapidly replacing previous conditions rendering them obsolete (i.e., the new or novel may be transformative). Alternatively, the new technology or innovative application of existing technology may incrementally disturb but not immediately destroy the status quo and replace existing conditions due to thorough and dramatic change (i.e., the new or novel may be disruptive).

- The conventional wisdom of technological optimism presumes that the new technology is categorically different, delivers a devastating effect, and will be decisive in warfare, especially if its introduction on the battlefield is a surprise.

- In a quest to achieve this imagined future, the pursuit of innovation and technological transformation is driving military research, development, and acquisition programs around the globe, not least among the United States, its allies and regional partners, and its peer competitors.

- How much of a real as opposed to illusory opportunity, however, does pursuing these twin goals represent for creating and deploying a new game-changing technology whose military application changes fundamentally what has been by creating a new what is?

- In other words, leveraging technology and achieving long-term strategic transformation by opening up new national security options or closing off existing ones possibly changes the domains or character of warfare as opposed to temporary disruption of the status quo at the operational or tactical levels.

- Transformational technologies, by definition, significantly alter military capabilities and generate new threats to national security spanning the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. In essence, they exert truly revolutionary effects to alter radically the balance of mass, maneuver, and surprise between adversaries. This follows because the adoption and application of new technologies can impact both the adversary and the operators.