Technology and the American Way of War since 1945

摘要

"This book is about the interaction of technology and culture," says Thomas Mahnken in the introduction to this concise history of U.S. weapons development in the last sixty years (p.10). Mahnken, who served as assistant secretary of defense for policy planning from 2006 to 2009, argues that each service has its own culture, which shapes its relation to technology. He believes that "although the culture of the U.S. armed services both shaped and was shaped by technology, the services molded technology to suit their purposes more often than technology shaped them" (p. 219). His book provides some support for these claims, though the treatment is too brief and comprehensive to prove them in detail.