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Article ID: CBB875270366

Technology’s Unrealistic Promise: The US Army in the 1950s and Technological Determinism (December 2019)

Brown, Gates M. (Author)

Vulcan
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Pages: 62-80
Publication date: December 2019
Language: English

ISSN: 2213-459X; 2213-4603

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22134603-00701006

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Missiles, Ballistic Technological determinism Military technology Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons 20th century Eisenhower, Dwight David United States. Army

U.S. Army leaders in the 1950s, such as Generals Matthew Ridgway and Maxwell Taylor, looked to technology to improve the Army’s position under President Dwight Eisenhower’s New Look defense policy. The U.S. Army invested more in its missile program in the later part of the 1950s than all other munitions combined. U.S. Army leaders sought to show that through technical triumphs and organizational changes that the U.S. ground force was still relevant in the atomic age. However, their reliance on technical success did not consider the policy and economic constraints of the New Look defense policy. Technological success alone could not overcome these limits. Military technology exists in a richer political and social context, and U.S. Army leaders’ efforts to rely on technological success to overcome the limits of their context failed to directly address the political and economic realities of the New Look defense policy.

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Includes Series Articles

Article Zimmerman, David (December 2019) Neither Catapults nor Atomic Bombs: Technological Determinism and Military History from a Post-Industrial Revolution Perspective. Vulcan (pp. 45-61). unapi

Article Goodman, Seymour E. (December 2019) Deploying Technological Innovation in “Real Time”: Union and Confederate Ironclads. Vulcan (pp. 81-110). unapi

Article Walton, Steven A. (December 2019) Technological Determinism(s) and the Study of War. Vulcan (pp. 4-18). unapi

Included in

Article DeVries, Kelly R. (December 2019) Catapults Still Aren’t Atomic Bombs: Effectiveness and Determinism in Premodern Military Technology. Vulcan (pp. 34-44). unapi

Article Roland, Alex (December 2019) Is Military Technology Deterministic?. Vulcan (pp. 19-33). unapi

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