Research for Technology

The Gulf War was an impressive demonstration of air power in action. Coalition air forces seized control of the air in the first hours, then devastated military facilities in Iraq and Iraqi forces in the field -- paving the way for the remarkable 100-hour victory by coalition ground forces. Airpower did not win the war by itself, but it was the foundation for projecting U.S. military power and overcoming numerical disadvantages on the ground. Airpower is likely to play a similar key role in the next major regional conflict. Thus, the U.S. must maintain its superiority in airpower despite rising costs and declining budgets. The issues are complex and controversial, but ignoring issues will not make them go away. This paper discusses policy and concept issues that need debate and examines two broad strategies for dealing with affordability problems.

When the Soviets accepted 'Mutual Assured Destruction' as a reality in present-day conditions, the Soviet debate on the viability of nuclear war as an instrument of policy was resolved by a consensus: nuclear war is so unpromising and dangerous that it remains an instrument of politics only in theory, an instrument of politics that cannot be used. A growing body of evidence thus indicates that in 1977, coincidentally with Marshal N.V. Ogarkov's elevation to Chief of the General Staff, the Soviets adopted an independent conventional war option as a long-term military development goal. Ogarkov and others now speak of a new revolution in Soviet military affairs that involves changes in Soviet doctrine generated by the so-called emerging technologies and the trend toward new, conventional means. The most prominent Soviet military figures now equate the new conventional means with nuclear weapons in terms of tasks, ranges, and target sets. A review of Soviet military writings in the 1980s further indicates that the new conventional means will be used in a war that involves neither the territories nor the nuclear forces of the superpowers.

This paper investigates workers in an old and declining industry--steel--and in several new and growing high-technology industries. It analyzes the relationship between employment and technology in steel by focusing on plants that adopted new technology and compares their employment experience with non-innovating plants. The adjustment of workers forced out of either steel or hi-tech industries is studied by focusing on where they went and how their earnings changed.