IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001561145

Commanding Men and Machines: Admiralship, Technology, and Ideology in the 20th Century U.S. Navy (2008)

University of Maryland, College Park
Sumida, Jon T.
Publication date: 2008
Language: English

Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: Advisor: Sumida, Jon T.
Physical Details: 521 pp.

Outside Links

This dissertation engages the important historical and sociological question: how do organizations develop leaders? As technological complexity increased, the military struggled to produce leaders who could understand technology and yet integrate the operations of disparate parts of large organizations. In the late 20 th century, the senior leader model in the U.S. military shifted from a 'generalist' to what can be described as a 'technical specialist' model. The commanding elite that resulted have been criticized as overly technical in orientation, and the system of leader development has been subject to several reform efforts. Missing from the reform debates is an historical understanding of how and why the officer system changed. This study contributes to the history by exploring the shift in U.S. Navy leader models from 'generalist' to 'technical specialist'. It is widely believed in military circles that the shift in leadership models from 'generalist' to 'specialist' was natural, an inevitable consequence of technological change. Among scholars, the shift in the U.S. Navy from 'generalist' to 'specialist' is typically associated with aviation, circa 1935-47. This dissertation challenges these notions. The shift in leader models was not fated by technology, but was the result of highly contingent bureaucratic battles fought between general line officers (generalists) and nuclear reactor specialists for control of the development of young officers. Chance events--in particular, the sinking of USS THRESHER--also shaped officer policy. This study argues that for six decades--from 1899 to 1963--navy leadership affirmed the 'generalist' as the preferred model for commander. But in the 1960s the Navy abandoned the 'generalist' model. Admiral H. G. Rickover was largely responsible for the change. In the space of a decade, Rickover restructured assignment and education processes to produce technically expert officers for his nuclear machines. Naval Academy admissions criteria and curricula were changed such that specialized technical majors replaced general degrees and universal language education. The restructured processes encouraged officers to value specialized technical expertise over general knowledge, that is, integrated operational, strategic, and cultural knowledge. Aviators and surface officers followed Rickover's cue and by the 1970s adopted more specialized models of development for their respective officers.

...More

Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/09 (2009). Pub. no. AAT 3324805.

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001561145

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Alan C. Carey; (2019)
Sighted Sub, Sank Same: The United States Navy’s Air Campaign against the U-Boat (/p/isis/citation/CBB471559853/)

Article Steven A. Walton; (2009)
Founding a Foundry: The Diary of the Setting-Out of the West Point Foundry, 1817 (/p/isis/citation/CBB931784969/)

Thesis El-Zoghbi, Christine J.; (2007)
Airship Advocates: Innovation in the United States Navy's Rigid Airship Program (/p/isis/citation/CBB001561408/)

Article McCormick, Sabrina; (2007)
Democratizing Science Movements: A New Framework for Mobilization and Contestation (/p/isis/citation/CBB000780240/)

Book Thomas Wildenberg; (2019)
Hot Spot of Invention: Charles Stark Draper, MIT and the Development of Inertial Guidance and Navigation (/p/isis/citation/CBB815782639/)

Article Tabernero-Holgado, Carlos; Jiménez-Lucena, Isabel; Molero-Mesa, Jorge; (2013)
Movimiento libertario y autogestión del conocimiento en la España del primer tercio del siglo XX: la sección “Preguntas y respuestas” (1930--1937) de la revista Estudios (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320244/)

Article Marius Mutz; (2020)
Eine ‚neuerfundene Gießkunst‘. Johann Albrecht von Sprinzenstein, Erzherzog Ferdinand II. und militärtechnische Erﬁndungen im Europa des 16. Jahrhunderts (A ‛Novel Art of Casting’. Johann Albrecht von Sprinzenstein, Archduke Ferdinand II, and Technical Inventions for the Military in Sixteenth-Century Europe) (/p/isis/citation/CBB028991597/)

Article María Belén Albornoz; Javier Andrés Jiménez Becerra; (2023)
How Do Technological Systems Define Who War Victims Are? (/p/isis/citation/CBB249661358/)

Chapter Frey, Karsten; (2009)
Guardians of the Nuclear Myth: Politics, Ideology, and India's Strategic Community (/p/isis/citation/CBB000954763/)

Article Ferreiro, Larrie D.; (2006)
Goodall in America: The Exchange Engineer as Vector in International Technology Transfer (/p/isis/citation/CBB645018317/)

Article Thiesen, William H.; (2006)
Notes from the Field: Transferring aircraft carrier techonology to the United States (/p/isis/citation/CBB708421574/)

Book Douglas, Susan J.; (1987)
Inventing American broadcasting, 1899-1922 (/p/isis/citation/CBB000042095/)

Article Nirgiotis, Nicholas; (Summer 2006)
Blimps at War (/p/isis/citation/CBB969150729/)

Article Korsmo, Fae L.; Sfraga, Michael P.; (2003)
From Interwar to Cold War: Selling Field Science in the United States, 1920s through 1950s (/p/isis/citation/CBB000470482/)

Article Doyle, Robert; (2001)
The US Navy's First Online Crypto System (/p/isis/citation/CBB000102443/)

Article Rainger, Ronald; (2000)
Patronage and Science: Roger Revelle, the U. S. Navy, and Oceanography at the Scripps Institution (/p/isis/citation/CBB000111887/)

Thesis Snyder, David Allan; (2001)
Petroleum and Power: Naval Fuel Technology and the Anglo-American Struggle for Core Hegemony, 1889--1922 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001560706/)

Article Allan A. Needell; (July 2017)
James E. Webb, Technocracy, and the New Deal Roots of “Space Age Management” (/p/isis/citation/CBB819056615/)

Article Hecht, David K.; (2011)
Constructing a Scientist: Expert Authority and Public Images of Rachel Carson (/p/isis/citation/CBB001220826/)

Book Johnson, David A.; Chaudhry, Humayun J.; (2012)
Medical Licensing and Discipline in America: A History of the Federation of State Medical Boards (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420162/)