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THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY




by
Stefan T. Possony, Ph.D.; Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D. and
Francis X. Kane, Ph.D. (Col., USAF Ret.)
 THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY
by
Stefan T. Possony, Ph.D.; Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D. and
Francis X. Kane, Ph.D. (Col., USAF Ret.)


First Edition, Copyright © 1970, Stefan T. Possony and Jerry Pournelle. ISBN 0-8424-0015-X
Electronic Edition, Copyright © 1997, Jerry E. Pournelle
Electronic Edition, prepared by WebWrights



The PREFACES are on this page. Scroll down. Read those first, then See Contents
and chapters above. There is a short disquisition on this book written in January
1999 that may be useful.
You may think of this edition of this book as a form of shareware. If you find it
useful, please send two dollars – bills will do—to
J. E. Pournelle, STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY
12358 Ventura Blvd.
Box 372
Studio City, California, 91604.
Enclose any comments you like. I’ll see that Dr. Possony’s widow gets his share.


"A gigantic technological race is in progress between interception and penetration and each time
capacity for interception makes progress it is answered by a new advance in capacity for
penetration. Thus a new form of strategy is developing in peacetime, a strategy of which the
phrase ‘arms race’ used prior to the old great conflicts is hardly more than a faint reflection.
There are no battles in this strategy; each side is merely trying to outdo in performance the
equipment of the other. It has been termed ‘logistic strategy’. Its tactics are industrial, technical,
and financial. It is a form of indirect attrition; instead of destroying enemy resources, its object is
to make them obsolete, thereby forcing on him an enormous expenditure….
A silent and apparently peaceful war is therefore in progress, but it could well be a war which of
itself could be decisive."
--General d’Armee Andre Beaufre


Preface to the Electronic Edition 1997
The quotation above opened the original edition of this book; it was clearly prophetic. The silent
and apparently peaceful war was decisive.
This book was originally written in 1968 to 1970, a time when the Cold War was real and the
outcome still very much in doubt; it will be recalled that Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry