Military Organizations, Complex Machines : : Modernization in the U.S. Armed Services / / Chris C. Demchak.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Demchak, Chris C.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2018]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Cornell Studies in Security Affairs
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. The Role of Complexity -- 2. The Power of the Phenomenon -- 3. The Lure of the New Technologies -- 4. The Army as an Organization -- 5. Assumptions Driving Managerial Responses -- 6. User Responses to Complexity -- 7. Surprise, Complexity, and Battle -- 8. The Costs of Complexity -- Bibliography -- Index