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Arms Control in Space: Workshop Proceedings
In late 1982 and early 1983, the Subcommittee on Arms Control, Oceans, International Operations, and Environment of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings on space weapons and arms control. To explore these issues further in a discussion format not easily achieved in hearings, Sen. Larry Pressler, Chairman of the Subcommittee, asked OTA to conduct a workshop focusing on antisatellite (ASAT) weapons as one aspect of space arms control. The workshop, held in Washington, D. C., on January 30 and 31, 1984, provided an opportunity for technical, diplomatic, military, and policy-analysis experts to interact, think out loud, and build upon each other's ideas.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1984-05
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Arming Our Allies: Cooperation and Competition in Defense Technology
At the request of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and the House Committee on Government Operations, OTA undertook an assessment of international collaboration in defense technology. This Special Report is the frost product of that assessment. It provides an overview of the subject and analyzes the impact that changes in the environment of defense technology and reduced East-West tensions will exert on defense industrial cooperation and
associated alliance relations.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1990-05
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Taggants in Explosives
The report addresses four major questions. First, it reviews the program to develop identification and detection taggants, and addresses the question of whether taggants would in fact work. Second, it assesses the question of whether adding such taggants to explosives and gunpowders might create a safety hazard. Third, the cost of a taggant program (on the assumption taggants work and are safe) is calculated, and the major parameters which would affect its costs are identified. Finally, the study assesses the likely value of such a program (assuming that taggants work, are safe, and are available at a reasonable cost) to law enforcement.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
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Holding the Edge: Maintaining the Defense Technology Base, Volume II
This is the second volume of the report "Holding the Edge: Maintaining the Defense Technology Base". It includes the extensive analyses that were the subject of the first report. Three of the appendixes deal with the DoD acquisition processes, three deal with industry case studies (fiber optics, advanced composites, and software), and the remaining two appendixes concern European and Japanese defense technology research, development and management.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1990-01
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Technology against Terrorism: Structuring Security
In 1989, because of growing concern over terrorist threats, several Senate Committees requested that OTA study the role of technology in fighting terrorism and the Federal effort in promoting related research and development. This report is devoted primarily to three other topics: interagency coordination of efforts in counterterrorist research and development, integrated security systems, and the role of human factors in aviation security. In addition, it furnishes details on a number of technologies that play a role in counterterrorism.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1992-01
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Technology Against Terrorism: The Federal Effort
This report investigates the status of research on technological means used to protect ourselves against terrorist threats. It deals with the Federal research and development effort in countering terrorism, and with the state of attempts to use technology to aid in detecting and preventing attempts to introduce explosives aboard aircraft.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1991-07
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Verification Technologies: Managing Research and Development for Cooperative Arms Control Monitoring Measures
Cooperative monitoring measures, including on-site inspections, are now a regular feature of international arms control agreements. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, the prospective Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) Treaty, and the proposed Chemical Weapons Convention all contain such measures. This new element of arms control verification is likely to be a part of any future arms control arrangements in which the United States becomes involved. How well prepared are we for this new era? This report examines the management of the research and development process from which the new technologies are emerging and identifies a range of organizational options that might help improve the balance of research emphasis.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1991-05
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Lessons in Restructuring Defense Industry: The French Experience
This background paper first describes the structure and management of the French defense-industrial base and then reviews a variety of strategies the French Government and industry are pursuing to rationalize the base, while preserving key technological assets and strengthening the competitive position of French defense contractors in world markets. France has faced the problem of overcapacity since the late 1980s and is already implementing some of the policy options for the United States in the 1990s discussed in the OTA report Redesigning Defense. These strategies include consolidation, diversification into the civil sector, shifting emphasis from procurement to R&D, integrating civil and military production, and international collaboration. While not all French efforts have been successful, and some actions taken by the French Government would not be appropriate to the U.S. economic or political context, the French experience provides interesting and useful lessons for the United States in planning its own restructuring efforts.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1992-06
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Monitoring Limits on Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles
Beginning with a hypothetical arms control regime for nuclear SLCMs, this Report examines in detail ways in which compliance with such a regime might be monitored. Surveying the life-cycle of SLCMs from development testing through deployment and storage, the assessment identifies the 'indicators' by which the missiles might be tracked and accounted for. It also assesses the paths of evasion that a determined cheater might take to avoid the proposed monitoring measures.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1992-09
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New Technology for NATO: Implementing Follow-On Forces Attack
The adoption of the Follow-On Forces Attack (FOFA) concept has raised a number of serious, complicated, and interrelated issues for the United States and the other members of NATO. The range of issues is broad-encompassing political, military, and technological questions-although no single issue is dramatic enough to garner headlines in any but the most specialized press. The report briefly reviews what FOFA is and how it fits into NATO strategy, but is primarily concerned with the outstanding technical issues, how our Allies view FOFA, how the Soviets might respond to it, and how the various technical developments might be brought together into "packages" of systems to support specific operational concepts.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1987-06
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Nuclear Safeguards and the International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has primary responsibility for verifying compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, plays a central role in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. But the limitations of the IAEA's system of nuclear safeguards were highlighted in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when it was revealed that Iraq had mounted an extensive, covert nuclear weapon program in addition to, and partly in proximity to, its open nuclear research activities that were under IAEA safeguards. This report analyzes what IAEA safeguards can and cannot be expected to accomplish, identifies areas where they might be broadened and improved, and presents options for doing so.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1995-04
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Redesigning Defense: Planning the Transition to the Future U.S. Defense Industrial Base
The objectives of the report are to provide a framework for the debate over the size and character of the future defense technology and industrial base (DTIB), and to assist Congress in selecting criteria for making the difficult policy and budget choices that will be required to facilitate the transition. The industrial base characteristics proposed in this report differ significantly from those of the current base. Probably the most fundamental difference is the separation of the R&D process from the expectation of major production runs. To maintain both technological development and manufacturing skills in a period of reduced defense budgets, OTA describes a process of continuous competitive prototyping that tests new concepts, incorporates new technology into fielded systems, but results in the manufacture and deployment of new systems only when required. These steps, and others examined in the Report, carry risks to both the R&D and manufacturing elements of the base. However, the new fiscal and security realities facing the Nation force difficult tradeoffs that include such risks. It is also clear that managing this change will require improved and better-integrated management in the future.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1991-07
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Seismic Verification of Nuclear Testing Treaties
Like an earthquake, the force of an underground nuclear explosion creates seismic waves that travel through the Earth. A satisfactory seismic network to monitor such tests must be able to both detect and identify seismic signals in the presence of "noise," for example, from natural earthquakes. In the case of monitoring a treaty that limits testing below a certain size explosion, the seismic network must also be able to estimate the size with acceptable accuracy. All of this must be done with an assured capability to defeat adequately any credible attempt to evade or spoof the monitoring network. This report addresses the issues of detection, identification, yield estimation, and evasion to arrive at answers to the two critical questions: (1) Down to what size explosion can underground testing be seismically monitored with high confidence? (2)How accurately can the yields of underground explosions be measured? In doing so, we assessed the contribution that could be made if seismic stations were located in the country whose tests are to be monitored, and other cooperative provisions that a treaty might include.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1988-05
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Technologies for NATO's Follow-On Forces Attack Concept
This report is an unclassified version of OTA's Special Report, "Technologies for NATO's Followon Forces Attack Concept." It contains primarily the executive summary of the classified report, as well as the chapter on delivery systems and munitions, with classified material removed. The detailed discussions of other areas--particularly surveillance systems and the threat--were omitted because little more than what appears in the summary could be said in an unclassified report.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1986-07
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Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards
This assessment, prepared under the direction of the OTA Energy Program, was requested by Senators Abraham Ribicoff, John Glenn, and Charles Percy of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. The purpose was to provide a comprehensive analysis of technological factors and potential options to assist Congress in evaluating national and foreign policy relevent to nuclear proliferation. The study concludes that the complex and difficult problem of proliferation is controllable only by hard and controversial choices by many nations over which the U.S. has only limited influence. Within these limits, however, there are many options for reducing the probability of proliferation. The desirability of these options depends not only on their effectiveness and feasibility, but also on perceptions of the importance of non-proliferation relative to other national choices.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1977-06
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Verification Technologies: Cooperative Aerial Surveillance in International Agreements
This report examines the potential and limitations of cooperative aerial surveillance as a means of supporting the goals of a variety of international agreements. It surveys the types of aircraft and sensors that might be used. It reviews the status of and issues raised by the Open Skies Treaty negotiations as an extended example of an aerial surveillance regime. The report concludes with a quantitative analysis of one possible use of cooperative overflights: the search for potential arms control violations.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1991-07
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Who Goes There: Friend or Foe?
Combat is confusing, complex, and deadly. Friendly fire casualties can probably never be eliminated, but several measures can reduce them. Application of new and existing technology can make identification of friendly forces on the battlefield more reliable; improved communication can reduce confusion on the battlefield; and better training can help military personnel make crucial, rapid decisions under the extreme stress of combat. Congress faces several decisions related to reducing friendly fire. These include: the choice of best technical approaches to pursue; the allocation of resources between systems that are devoted exclusively to reducing friendly fire and other systems-for example, better navigation and communication devices--that may reduce friendly fire in indirect and less visible ways; the best mix of near-term deployments and longer term research and development; and the need for cooperation and coordination among the military Services and with allies.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1993-06
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Virtual Reality and Technologies for Combat Simulation
Synthetic-environment technology is dual-use. Research funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) seeded the field. Now there is a large commercial market, and DoD is actively exploiting the dynamism and efficiency of that market. Advances in synthetic environment technologies such as computer image generation are reducing the costs of cockpit simulators and facilitating other applications. This paper describes technical challenges and discusses issues of validation, standardization, scalability, flexibility, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and infrastructure.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1994-09
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Verification Technologies: Measures for Monitoring Compliance With the START Treaty
This report describes the role of monitoring in the arms control verification process. It surveys the types of on-site inspection and their costs, risks, and benefits. It also examines the INF Treaty experience for lessons relevant to START. Our general discussions of the monitoring process and on-site inspections are relevant to other types of arms control as well as to START. The report outlines the monitoring tasks specific to START and suggests the cooperative and unilateral measures available for a START monitoring regime. It does not attempt to predict which of the possible cooperative measures will finally be negotiated in the START Treaty.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1990-12
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MX Missile Basing
OTA identified a wide variety of possible basing modes and evaluated them in terms of: technical risk; degree of survivability; endurance; contribution to weapon effectiveness; effectiveness of command, control, and communications; arms control impacts; institutional considerations; impacts on the deployment region; costs; schedule; and impact on stability The concluding section of chapter 1 compares the leading options in terms of a variety of criteria used, and it is apparent that a final choice depends in large measure on the relative weight assigned to these criteria. Five basing modes were found that appear feasible and offer reasonable prospects of survivability, but none of them is without serious risks, high cost, important uncertainties, or significant drawbacks. No basing mode appears Iikely to offer survivability for the MX much before the end of the current decade
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1981
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SDI: Technology, Survivability, and Software
It puts Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) technologies in context by reporting the kinds of ballistic missile defense (BMD) system architectures that the SDI organization has considered for "phased deployment." It reviews the status of the various SDI technologies and system components. It analyzes the feasibility of producing dependable software of the complexity that advanced BMD systems would require. Finally, it summarizes what is now known-and unknown-about the probable survivability of such systems against concerted enemy attacks of various kinds. The study found that major uncertainties remain concerning the probable cost, effectiveness, and survivability of the kinds of BMD system (which rely on kinetic rather than directed-energy weapons) that might be deployable in the "phase-one' proposed for the mid to late 1990s. In addition, OTA believes several more years of SDI research would be needed to determine whether it is feasible to construct the kinds of directed-energy weapons contemplated as follow-ons to SDIO's "phase one" BMD system. The survivability of both short-term and longer-term BMD systems would depend heavily on the outcome of a continuing competition in weapons and countermeasures between the United States and the Soviet Union. Finally, developing dependable software for advanced BMD will be a formidable challenge because of the difficulty of testing that software realistically.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1988-05
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Improving the Prospects for Future International Peace Operations: Workshop Proceedings
In June 1995, OTA convened a workshop that brought together some of the world's leading practitioners, academic experts, experienced diplomats, and leading technologists in order to examine the role that technology could play in improving the prospects for international peace operations. The chief conclusions are that the main problems with past peace operations have been political in nature. The participants suggested a number of means to deal with these issues, which are reported here, with the understanding that they reflect not OTA conclusions, but a consensus among these individuals. Further, most participants agreed that, although political and policy issues play a primary role in determining the performance of peace operations, the proper application of technologies, both new and old, can add significantly to the prospects of success for an operation, should one be initiated. Technological contributions can be made in the areas of sensors (especially for monitoring in the more traditional types of peacekeeping operations), intelligence gathering, communications, data fusion, countersniping technologies, mine clearance, and crowd control. Some technologies are well in hand, and others are being rapidly developed and may be available in a very few years. The use of several options among the less-than-lethal weapon categories may be quite effective, but will require some consideration of policy issues to determine a) compatibility with current or future international treaties and b) the vulnerability of U.S. forces to such weapons, if used against them.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1995-09
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Other Approaches to Civil-Military Integration: The Chinese and Japanese Arms Industries
As part of its assessment of the potential for integrating the civil and military industrial bases, the Office of Technology Assessment considered how the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Japan, two Asian states with sizable defense industries, have succeeded in achieving significant levels of civil-military integration (CMI). The paper is divided into two sections, one on the PRC and one on Japan. Each section describes the structure and management of the respective defense industrial base and then compares it with its U.S. counterpart. The paper then assesses the degree to which lessons from the PRC and Japanese cases can be applied to the U.S. defense technology and industrial base (DTIB).
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1995-03
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Anti-Satellite Weapons, Countermeasures, and Arms Control
This report discusses implications of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) technology. The report examines U.S. options for countering Soviet military satellite capabilities and explores both unilateral and cooperative measures for limiting the anti-satellite weapons threat (ASAT). The report also examines the pros and cons of several illustrative "arms control regimes" for space weapons, ranging from lesser to greater limitations than now exist. It suggest that some combinations of unilateral and cooperative measures might provide more military security than either type alone.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1985-09
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Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies
This report examines both the "why" and the "what" of ballistic missile defenses. Why would we want ballistic missile defense weapons if we could have them? Would the advantages of deploying them outweigh the disadvantages? What technologies are under investigation for BMD applications? How might those applications serve our strategic goals? These policy and technology questions interact with one another in complex ways: what seems technologically possible conditions perceptions of policy options, while policy choices shape technological pursuits.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1985-09
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Global Arms Trade: Commerce in Advanced Military Technology and Weapons
Congress faces two very important and interconnected issues: 1) controlling the
proliferation of modern weapons and defense technology and 2) the health of the U.S. defense industries. This report, the final evaluation by the Office of Technology Assessment, on international collaboration in defense technology, explores the form and dynamics of the international defense industry, the intricacies of technology transfer and equipment sales, and the implications for U.S. policy.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1991-06
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Defense Technology Base: Introduction and Overview
Keeping ahead of the Soviet Union technologically is a central element of U.S. national security strategy, and the Nation spends a large amount of money in order to do so. In recent years, however, there have been troubling indications that the U.S. technological lead is slipping, and that it is increasingly difficult to maintain a meaningful edge. These concerns-expressed both by the Administration and within Congress- prompted the Senate Committee on Armed Services to request that the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) undertake a major assessment on "Maintaining the Defense Technology Base. ' This special report is the first product of that assessment. It provides an overview of the subject, including specific concerns about the health of the defense technology base and the related issues before Congress. Subsequent reports will probe aspects of this immense problem in greater detail.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1988-03
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Contributions of DOE Weapons Labs and NIST to Semiconductor Technology
This Report examines how NIST and DOE weapons laboratories could contribute to advances in semiconductor technology aimed specifically at civilian applications. Semiconductor technology was chosen as an example of a technology focus for a civilian technology initiative, primarily because the industry had already developed a set of comprehensive technology roadmaps and the federal labs had substantial expertise in the area.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1993-09
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Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions
At the request of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and Senator Orrin G. Hatch, OTA undertook an assessment of the containment and monitoring practices of the nuclear testing program. This special report reviews the safety of the nuclear testing program and assesses the technical procedures used to test nuclear weapons and ensure that radioactive material produced by test explosions remains contained underground. An overall evaluation considers the acceptability of the remaining risk and discusses reasons for the lack of public confidence.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1989-10
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Defense Conversion: Redirecting R&D
Defense conversion means finding productive civilian uses for the resources and people formerly devoted to the Nation's defense. Channeling the savings from reduced defense R&D to civilian R&D is, of course, only one option for using the peace dividend. There are many others, including deficit reduction, This Report examines opportunities to advance civilian technologies and improve U.S. industrial competitiveness internationally by redirecting research and development from defense to dual-use or civilian purposes. The Report has two parts. Part One analyzes how R&D institutions currently pursuing defense missions could be more responsive and useful to civilian technology development. Part Two of the Report examines how proposals for new national missions might replace defense in contributing to the country's repository of technology, high-value-added jobs, and gross domestic product.
United States. Government Printing Office
United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
1993-05
