 | Technological escalation: Encyclopedia II - Technological escalation - History of technological escalation as indicator of success
Technological escalation - History of technological escalation as indicator of success
Technological escalation has been one of the most often-cited factors for the dominance of one civilization over another: those with flint, all else being equal, will defeat those with softer or duller stone spear heads, those with the bow defeat those with only the sling, those with the gun defeat those with the bow.
This view was dominant during the Enlightenment where science and technology began to be seen as the only way to approach natural law, subordinating views of mastery by social, moral, spiritual or other means. It was perhaps apparent that due to superior firepower and the ability to support larger numbers of people due to intensive agriculture which in turn relied on technological support (such as the iron plough and horse or ox yoke), the colonists were triumphing over people in many ways morally, socially and spiritually superior. The doctrines of social evolution and scientism became more common at this time, in the form of a belief in the inevitability of the triumph of better arms and better tools - which made "better people" in the self-serving view of those with such views.
Through the 19th century, there were recognitions that this situation put obligations on the conquerors, what Rudyard Kipling called the White Man's Burden. This began to dissolve as the 20th century commenced with the failure of several disarmament conferences, and a series of arms races, beginning with that between naval powers (Britain, United States, Germany, Russia and Japan). When previously minor power Japan destroyed the fleet of Russia in 1905, it acceded to the role of a "major" — clearly it had done this through technological mastery, as it was not even (in the European view) 40 years out of a long isolated period in which its had suppressed all forms of firearms.
This view of technological mastery guaranteeing ascendance continued with very rapid technological advancement during World War I. By this point, the competing polities were only concerned with their own survival and conquering all the others — the notion of coexistence was subordinated in most, but especially in Germany, Russia and the United States, to the idea of technological escalation to the point of triumph of one master race or economic system. Germany and Japan lost World War II despite various ways (Germany in rockets and energy conservation, Japan in aircraft and materials conservation) in which they had clearly superior grasp of civilian technology.
However, the doctrine that technology, rather than say fossil fuel reserves or control of the education of people who ruled the subject peoples, suited the British Empire in its negotiations with the United States to pass off many imperial obligations, where Britain wished to retain such strategic advantages, and also suited the USSR which wished to make no overt point of its massive oil reserves nor its total control of the belief system of great numbers of its own people, and preferred to play the role of victim nation which would "inevitably" win its confrontation with the "decadent" West.
As after the destruction of the Czar's fleet by Japan in 1905, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Russia, once again, reconsidering what causes empires to rise and fall.
Due to the immense cost of maintaining the mutual assured destruction balance of terror during the Cold War, and the increasing number of so-called dual use technologies after that War, however, it became important to look more deeply at the dynamics of technological conflicts and escalations. Accordingly, the subject of escalation and the dynamics of technology transfer have come under some scrutiny, more in Russia than in the United States. It is from the Russian analysis that the rest of this article is largely drawn.
Other related archives1905, 1980s, 1990s, 1991, 19th century, 20th century, Battle of Agincourt, Battle of Britain, Britain, British Empire, Cold War, Daimlers, Dreadnought, Energy economics, Germany, Hand-to-hand combat, Internet chat, Japan, Krupps, Marxian economics, Me-262, Messerschmitt Me 163, Messerschmitts, NPOV disputes, Pearl Harbor, Rudyard Kipling, Russia, Spy vs. Spy, USSR, United States, V-1 flying bomb, V-2 rocket, Viet Cong, Vietnam War, White Man's Burden, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification, World War 2, World War I, World War II, advertising, agriculture, aircraft, aircraft carrier, armor, arms race, arrow, asymmetric warfare, attention, axes, balance of terror, biological weapons, biology, blitzkrieg, bow, brain waves, bronze, capitalism, cavalry, chemical weapons, chlorine, civilization, clubs, cocaine, collapse of the Soviet Union, colonists, compassionate, computer addiction, computer gaming, conscription, copper, courtship, crossbow, dating service, deception, disarmament, dotcom boom, e-commerce, empathy, energy conservation, entertainment, escalation, expert systems, extreme environment clothing, feminism, firepower, first person shooter, flint, fossil fuel, green economics, gun, gunpowder, information warfare, iron age, just, kleptocracy, legion, life support, mammal, materialism, media, mercenaries, military training, military-industrial complex, mutual assured destruction, natural law, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, oil exploration, patriarchy, peaceful, penis envy, persuasion technology, phalanx, philosophical, pleasure, plough, portfolio, propaganda, radio, rockets, science, scientism, signals warfare, sling, social evolution, space race, spear throwers, spears, spinoff, tank, technological advancement during World War I, technology transfer, television, terrorism, the Enlightenment, tolerant, video games, war profiteering, yoke
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of technological escalation as indicator of success", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
