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The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas. Edited by Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Pp. xx+415. $75.
Over the last two decades, analysts seeking to understand dramatic changes in military technology and operations and to identify likely developmental paths have generated a significant body of literature on military innovation. Most of the scholarship has focused on the domestic sources of innovation, particularly during the interwar period. The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas, which explores the international spread of military innovation and its consequences through a series of case studies drawn from the eighteenth century through the twentieth, is therefore a welcome addition to the field.
A collaborative effort between the University of California, Davis, and the Naval Postgraduate School, funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the book successfully bridges the divide between academia and policy. It brings scholars from the fields of political science, military history, strategic studies, sociology, public policy, and international relations together with defense practitioners in order to examine how technology, ideas, and practices diffuse among nations and to provide insights useful to policymakers. Diffusion, according to editors...