Sharing Vulcan’s Secrets: State Transfer of Advanced Military Technology

• In Event: Fighting with Friends: Alliances and Military Effectiveness

Abstract

Why do states choose to share advanced military technology with other states? Scholars agree military technology is a key component of a state’s power. Recent news highlights concern over China’s attempts to acquire American and European technology, and many states have regimes to protect their technology from others. Nonetheless, governments also actively share their technology with other states, and these decisions are poorly understood. Recent scholarship suggesting states can have difficulty copying modern technology without assistance from its designers heightens this question’s importance. This paper argues that bargaining for technological exchange is likely to fail because
incentives to keep advanced technology secret create information asymmetries. Instead, a first-rank technological power’s decision to share advanced military technology (i.e. transfer the knowledge required to produce systems or components) is a function of the sharing state’s perceptions of (1) a current mutual threat, (2) the potential of the recipient to become a future threat, and (3) the recipient’s technological capability. The paper evaluates the theory using in depth process tracing of three cases: U.S technology sharing with Britain and the Soviet Union from 1938-1945, and British technology sharing with the U.S. in the same period. It contributes to academic discussions of technology as power and security assistance to allies.

Author

• Erik Sand, Naval War College