Technology Transfer

Dietrich Schroeer, Micro Elena

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138706002
• eBook ISBN: 9781351783842
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000: The theme of this collection of essays is "technology transfer". The topic has three major aspects: the interchange of technologies between military and civilian applications - "spin-off", "dual use", "conversion" and "diversification" fall under this heading; the proliferation of military arms, which could occur either through arms races between developed nations or through the transfer of military technology from developed arms industries to less developed nations - "proliferation", "arms races" and "arms control agreements" fall under this heading; and the transfer of civilian technologies from developing nations to less developed nations. The expression, "North-South transfer" and the idea of "development" come under this final section. The essays offer examination of all three aspects.

PART I TECHNOLOGY INTERCHANGE BETWEEN MILITARY AND CIVILIAN APPLICATIONS

1 Dual-use Technologies and Transfer Mechanisms

Jordi Molas-Gallart

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘technology transfer’ has been applied to very different types of relationships. The focus of this chapter will be the transfer of dual-use technologies between military and civilian applications. It will stress the many different processes that are covered by this seemingly straightforward concept, and will examine the policy difficulties that the complexity of the issue generates.

This chapter will explore the notion of dual-use technology transfer by examining the meaning of each of its components in turn:

•What is ‘technology’?

•What is ‘dual-use’?

•Is the term ‘dual-use technology’ meaningful in itself, or is it just a useful concept that is used to justify specific industrial and technology control policies?

An overview of different types of dual-use technology transfer mechanisms follows. Finally, the chapter concludes with a brief discussion of policy implications.

DEFINITIONS OF DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGIES

Technology

It is tempting to launch into a discussion of technology transfer without stopping to consider our use of the term ‘technology’. After all, we have an image of what technology entails: the product of human ingenuity as embodied in the many products that surround us. When we speak of ‘high technology’, we immediately think of supercomputers, clean rooms populated by men and women in white lab coats developing or manufacturing semiconductors, jet aircraft, ever-smaller mobile telephones, digital television, and so on. Our image of technology is dominated by products.

However, there is obviously more to technology than products. The means of producing products may also be considered ‘technology’. In fact, academics have spent much time generating volumes analysing concepts of technology, and contrasting the relative merits of different definitions.¹ These discussions are important because they have the power to focus the attention of the users of such analyses (whether researchers, policy-makers, and so on) on specific aspects of the problems under investigation. For instance, if we understand ‘technology’ as artifacts and we discuss technology export controls, we may refer to lists of proscribed products and how these proscriptions are implemented. Talk about technology transfer then becomes a matter of how items used in one area of activity or in one place can be applied and used in other areas or places.

Some analysts have looked at ‘technology’ not as products, but as a broader concept encompassing the social relations and the mode of production in which the development and production of artifacts occur.² In this view of technology, ‘technology transfer’ means something very different: it refers to how modes of production have been moved from one society to another, and how they have changed the network of social relations characterizing the receiving communities.

These examples illustrate two opposite, extreme ways of viewing ‘technology’. This chapter will adopt a concept of ‘technology’ half-way between understanding technology as artifacts and as whole systems of social relations. This concept is described by Antio and Laamanen in these terms: ‘Technology comprises the ability to recognise technology problems, the ability to develop new concepts and tangible solutions to technical problems, the concepts and tangibles developed to solve technical problems, and the ability to exploit the concepts and tangibles in an effective way.’³

This definition provides a framework for studying the variety of skills, materials, artifacts and knowledge that can be applied to develop technical solutions that satisfy both military and civilian wants. Under this definition, hardware is still considered to be technology, since it represents tangible solutions to technical problems. Yet hardware alone is not enough to solve problems and satisfy the technological requirements of various sections of our societies. Technical problems must be properly recognized, solutions must be developed, and once such solutions have reached the product stage, the users will often require specialized knowledge and skills to exploit them efficiently. Knowledge and skills are embodied in people. If we are concerned about weapons proliferation, we might see ‘technology controls’ as a way of dealing with the problem. However, drafting lists of products that cannot be exported to certain countries and enforcing this prohibition addresses only part of the problem. If a country has acquired a new weapons system either as an ‘off-the-shelf’ system bought abroad or through the domestic assembly of (partly) imported components and sub-systems, scientists and technicians will usually have to participate in developing and deploying it efficiently. Therefore, labour mobility, in the form of technicians providing assistance to would-be proliferators, becomes a concern of technology controls: in fact, labour mobility becomes a form of technology transfer.

Similarly, when seeking technology transfer to exploit technological advances in new applications or geographical regions, it is not enough to look at the transmission and adaptation of products. For such a transfer, we also have to look at the changes the new potential producers and users must themselves undergo. Training issues become an integral component of technology transfer. In this way, the focus moves subtly from products to ‘softer’, people-related issues, such as how the new users could participate in the adaptation of a piece of equipment to meet their needs, and whether and how they should be trained. A different definition of ‘technology’ has provided us with a broader view of technology transfer.

Dual-use technologies

On the basis of the above definition of ‘technology’, it is now possible to analyse the specific kind of technology under consideration here: dual-use technologies. We define a technology as dual-use when it has both current or potential military and civilian applications.

Over the years, ‘dual-use technologies’ have been analysed from two different perspectives:

1In the arms control literature, dual-use technologies present a problem when attempting to curb the international diffusion of weapons system.

2Analysts of the relationship between military and civilian production have at times seen dual use as presenting an opportunity for the wider exploitation of research and manufacturing efforts beyond their initial (military or civilian) goals.

The first perspective was prevalent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The 1977 United Nations report, Economic and Social Consequence of the Arms Race and Military Expenditures,⁴ already noted that when technologies were applicable to both military purposes and important civilian applications, attempts to control the arms race by restricting access to such technologies would inevitably conflict with attempts to support economic development by making these technologies available to all countries. This tension continues to be a source of disagreement and debate among those concerned with international peace and development issues.

More recently, the term ‘dual-use technology’ has often been employed in the second sense. It has been argued that the common technological base supporting both civilian and military technological development can, for instance, provide an opportunity for defence manufacturers to diversify into civilian operations, and/or to exploit commercial technologies for military applications.

However other analysts have objected to the use of the term in either of these senses, fearing that it may convey a misleading image, pitching military against civilian technologies as if they were clearly defined, contrasting entities, with dual-use technologies occupying a sort of middle ground between them. The reality is that there is a wide diversity of military products; some are exclusive to the military (such as ‘stealth’ ships), others are very different from equivalent civilian products (an attack helicopter may only share a few characteristics with a civilian transport helicopter), while others may be very similar or even identical (an example is the increased use by the military of commercial computers for specialized defence applications). There is also a common base of generic technologies which can be applied readily to either military or civilian developments. This is even more apparent if we adopt a broad view of technology. Once we consider skills as part of technology, the range of generic technologies with multiple applications becomes much broader. The organizational skills required to manage large projects, the skills to conduct research, to test equipment and to integrate complex systems can often be applicable to both military and civilian production.

Therefore, the distinction between military and civilian technologies is not clear-cut. Some have suggested that a more accurate image of these relationships would be achieved by referring to the multiple uses to which many technologies can be applied.⁵ Some of them may be military, others civilian, but many technologies may well have multiple uses rather than just dual ones.

Another source of criticism of the ‘dual-use’ concept stems from the ways in which it has been used by some defence agencies to justify and develop policies to provide further support for traditional defence industries. For instance, in the USA the scope of dual-use policies has clearly moved from initial attempts at timid forms of conversion to policies designed to increase the efficiency of military production. The exploitation of commercial technologies for military applications is being pursued by many defence industries and their customers, and it is usually presented as a form of dual-use policy.

However, referring to ‘dual use’ does not automatically imply that the user views military and civilian technologies as clearly distinct. Nor does it preclude holding different policy positions. It is still reasonable to refer to ‘dual-use technologies’ as defined above. This focuses our attention on a specific set of problems: how can the efforts that have been invested in the development of weaponry and other military products now be harnessed for other, wealth-creating applications? Or conversely, depending on one’s own policy agenda, how can the results of commercial R&D (research and development) investments be applied to the improvement be applied to the improvement of military products. We are therefore operating in a context in which we can clearly distinguish two separate sets of applications; talking about ‘multiple uses’ will not help our analysis here. Granted, these two separate sets of applications are not reproduced by two separate sets of technologies; hence it is important to note the diversity of dual-use technologies. The relationship between the military and civilian application of technological capabilities is very complex. In some cases, military and commercial applications will require similar product characteristics and manufacturing techniques; in others, the final requirements will be very different, and may demand that some parts of the processes will be handled by specialists with very different skills and in differing facilities. The way in which products, skills and facilities may move from one application to another are numerous, and vary from sector to sector. It is this variety which generates the diversity of dual-use technology transfer mechanisms, and that is the subject of the rest of this chapter.

WHAT IS DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER?

When discussing technol...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Introduction
• Notes on the Contributors
• Part I: Technology Interchange Between Military and Civilian Applications
• Part II: Military Technology Transfer to Less-developed Countries
• Part III: Technology Transfer for Development
• Index