Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies

Matthew Evangelista

Published by Cornell University Press 1989

Innovation and the Arms Race

How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies

Matthew Evangelista

In the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501734304

Overview
Contents

About this book

Innovation and the Arms Race investigates the causes and mechanisms of the "technological arms race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Challenging the commonly held notion that Soviet weapons innovation processes simply mirror those of the United States, Matthew Evangelista shows that the United States usually leads in introducing new military technology, while the Soviets typically react to American initiatives.

Evangelista bases his study of pivotal nuclear weapons development decisions on a variety of US and USSR primary sources, including the memoirs of weapons designers and scientists, declassified intelligence analyses, Soviet Academy of Science documents, and Nikita Khruschev's taped reminiscences. He finds that in the United States, impetus for innovation comes "from the bottom" at the initiative of corporate or government researchers and military officials, whereas the centralized Soviet system produces innovations "from the top" in response to foreign developments. A revelatory analysis of US military policy, Soviet-American relations, and weaponry development, Innovation and the Arms Race bears lessons for the study of great power competition and military innovation today.

Author / Editor information

MMatthew Evangelista is President White Professor of History and Political Science in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

Reviews

Jack Snyder, Columbia University:

A significant contribution to the literature on national security policymaking in general and to the understanding of Soviet nuclear arms policy in particular. The work has the twofold strength of presenting new factual information and new interpretations of important historical events and placing them in a sensible and original comparative framework that accounts for patterns of US and Soviet military innovations in a theoretically sophisticated way. The former makes this study solid and credible; the latter makes it virtually unique in its field.

Evangelista has produced a thoroughly researched book and certainly sheds new light on a subject that begged closer inspection.

Evangelista has produced a very successful blend of history, political science, and policy analysis. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of the arms race and will make profitable reading for a very wide array of scholars.

Evangelista offers a provocative study and a fine scholarly history of one episode in the nuclear age.

Evangelista provides a new framework to analyze US and Soviet innovations in weapons technology. Thoroughly researched and highly recommended for academic audiences.

Evangelista makes a careful comparative analysis of the process of innovation in military technology in the United States and the Soviet Union. He convincingly shows how misleading is the common assumption that this process is similar on both sides.

Evangelista's account of the weapons innovation process is consistent, in general terms, with the best modern scholarship.

Evangelista has provided a sophisticated comparative analytical framework which makes sense of the superpower arms competition in a way that past theories could never achieve. To anyone interested in national or international security affairs, this book can be most highly recommended.

A major addition to the literature on US-Soviet relations, to the history of the strategic interaction of the two states, and to our understanding of the arms race.

'Technology fuels the arms race' is one of the unexamined maxims of foreign affairs. This interesting book is an effort at remedy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Part I. Technology and the Arms Race
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Theory and Policy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	6
2. Sources of Innovation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
3. Weapons Innovation: U.S./USSR Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
Part II. From Tactical Nuclear Weapons to Star Wars
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
4. The Origins of U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
5. The Origins of Soviet Tactical Nuclear Weapons Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
6. Explaining the Technological Arms Race Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	218
7. The Arms Race and the Academy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Keywords: foreign policy; superpower arms competition; arms race; international security affairs; scientist memoirs; declassified intelligence analyses; Nikita Khruschev

eBook

Published: August 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781501734304