Cameron L. Tracy
On Optimism About New Military Technologies
Herbert S. Lin
Expectations of the performance of military technologies are marked by hopes that one’s own systems perform well while those of adversaries perform poorly, and fears of the inverse. These expectations shape states’ preparation for war and their conduct in war. But expectations frequently misalign with performance, such that the battlefield debut of novel or upgraded weapons technologies offers an opportunity for reassessment. In this article, I argue that the initial use of such weapons commonly drives a discursive process of normalization, wherein systems previously considered revolutionary or archaic are incorporated into existing modes of warfighting and accepted as normal components of those practices. I analyze the debut of several Russian long-range precision-strike weapons in the Russo-Ukrainian War, tracing the reassessment and normalization of hypersonic missiles, theater ballistic missiles, and glide bombs. This analysis shows that analysts would do well to moderate their expectations when forecasting the implications of weapons technologies.
Military strategists, policymakers, and scholars of security studies exhibit deep concern about the development of new weapons technologies and their security implications.1 Following patterns of popular thinking about technology more broadly, analysts appear preoccupied with what Marita Sturken and Douglas Thomas term “visions of technology as life-transforming, in both transcendent and threatening ways.”2 Forecasts of the security implications of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum sensors, and hypersonic missiles frequently warn of imminent disruptions to the character of war. These narratives of technological revolution can be utopian, when one hopes that their polity can harness these technologies to decisive effect. For instance, Jamie McKeown identifies a pervasive belief among US intelligence communities in technological fixes to future geopolitical threats.3 These narratives can also be dystopian, when one fears that adversaries will capitalize on technological opportunities first.4 As Henry Kissinger wrote: “Every country lives with the nightmare that . . . its survival may be jeopardized by a technological breakthrough on the part of its opponent.”5 Scholars thus invoke the dire need for anticipatory analysis of new weapons technologies as a step toward adoption, adaptation, or mitigation.6
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