Military Organizations, Complex Machines: Modernization in the U.S. Armed Services

by Chris C. Demchak

Overview

Chris Demchak explores the reasons why military machines surprise their users and how they can change both the complexity and effectiveness of tactical organizations. She uses the Army's experiences with its M1 Abrams tank, as well as other examples, to explain the interaction of complex technology and militaries that seek to control uncertainty. Under some conditions, Demchak demonstrates, complexity in critical machines induces increased complexity in the organizations that use them, and can produce an army different from the one that was intended. Drawing on organization theory and her data, she argues that understanding this interaction will heavily influence whether armed forces reductions, savings, and modernization produce rapid, successful military organizations or lethally unpredictable ones.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801424687
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/18/1991
Series:	Cornell Studies in Security Affairs
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Chris C. Demchak, a political scientist, teaches at the University of Arizona.