Workshop on Asymmetries in Exploiting Technology as Related to the U. S.-Soviet Competition

In May 1976, The Rand Corporation, at the request of the Director of Net Assessment, sponsored a Workshop on Asymmetries in Exploiting Technology as Related to the U.S.-Soviet Competition. This report contains four unclassified papers prepared for the workshop. Dr. Robert Love discussed how the bureaucracies of three different sea powers integrated naval air into their fleets during the 1920s and 1930s. Colonel John T. Burke examined the interaction between the development of Army weapons systems and their tactical use, examining cases where new technologies were translated into battlefield systems. Dr. J. A. Stockfisch proposed that war fighting capabilities could be viewed as a production function; he found that the politics and economics of the weapons development and acquisition processes undermine this notion. James Digby enumerated eight potential characteristics of precision-guided weapons that, if exploited, could greatly improve force effectiveness.