Technology and Warship Design: Capturing the Benefits

As the current debate rages over the future of American sea-power, both the participants and the observers tend to become immersed in the details of today: shipbuilding, cost over-runs, nuclear power versus fossil fuel, TRIDENT, inflation. Viewed as a whole, however, rather than as a series of individual nonrelated issues, this ferment seems indicative of a much larger development: the entry of the Navy into the Age of Technology. Much the same dissonance existed as the Navy departed the Age of Sail and entered the Age of Steam. With the advantage of historical hindsight, we now realize that what appeared (to the participants of the time) to be isolated issues were in fact an accumulation of inter-related traumas as the old way of designing and running the Navy gave way to the new. This paper contends that we are having a similar experience as we enter the Age of Technology. We are unable to realize the benefits - technical or economic - of technology because we are intellectually unaware of what technology really is, or what its implications are. (Author)