Disruptive technologies in this context refer to technologies that are more efficient or more revolutionary or more open then the conventional technologies. In initial stages, bureaucrats and “robber barons” oppose the implementation of new technologies and ask their cohorts to raise government regulation against these technologies. They join the technology wagon after they overtake a control of these technologies using monopolistic techniques and bidding and patenting with favoritism or financial racketeering. Even if “robber barons” own a disruptive technology, they might suppress its adaptation as long as they can milk the old technology to the most of its profitability. The adaptation of electric cars could be achieved in the beginning of the 20th century if oil industry “robber barons” wouldn’t be opposed to it. The electric commuting technology overcame the proof of concept stage during WWI when submarines were moving themselves through large distances using electric energy. The opposition to disruptive technologies is mostly notable in military contracts, where corrupt decision making actors, specially in procurement entities (civilian and military), harm the outcome of armed conflicts and even reduce civilian and recruits survival chances while in some cases their actions extend or don’t prevent a war.
War mongering or global conflict prolongation is the bread and butter of the Military Industrial Complex. Conflict prolongation can be achieved by deliberately not using the right technology in the right place.
Such is the case of the ordinance generals that caused the extension of the Civil War by opposing the multiple shot rifle. Multiple shot rifles gave the Union in 1865 the military advantage that preceded the Appomattox court house battle and the confederacy surrender. The excuse that the ordinance department gave for not purchasing multiple shot rifles in mass scale from 1862 to 1864 was that such an option would make the common soldier (“cannon fodder”) waste ammunition. This decision ignores the fact that multiple shots rifles would increase his survival odds of the soldier and would shorten the war as was evidenced in the Sayler creek battle. Most likely the real reason that the ordinance department didn’t convert massively to multiple shot rifles is more likely because they held favors with other manufacturers or robber barons that had control of single shot industries and wanted to milk the production and sales of old technology rifles as well as its value chain as was evidenced in Hall carbine affair
Such is the case of the ordinance generals that caused the extension of the Civil War by opposing the multiple shot rifle. Multiple shot rifles gave the Union in 1865 the military advantage that preceded the Appomattox court house battle and the confederacy surrender. The excuse that the ordinance department gave for not purchasing multiple shot rifles in mass scale from 1862 to 1864 was that such an option would make the common soldier (“cannon fodder”) waste ammunition. This decision ignores the fact that multiple shots rifles would increase his survival odds of the soldier and would shorten the war as was evidenced in the Sayler creek battle. Most likely the real reason that the ordinance department didn’t convert massively to multiple shot rifles is more likely because they held favors with other manufacturers or robber barons that had control of single shot industries and wanted to milk the production and sales of old technology rifles as well as its value chain as was evidenced in Hall carbine affair as was maliciously or negligently negotiated James Wolfe Ripley the head of the US Ordinance Bureau, in June 1861.
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At the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, the 37th Massachusetts Infantry helped smash the Confederate right rear. Once the regiment closed within range, “the Spencer rifle did the work for which it was intended,” Many of the enemy surrendered, including Major General Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee’s eldest son.
Source: https://www.historynet.com/
The single shot rifle scandal is a continuation of the Hall carbine affair where J.P. Morgan allegedly financed the purchase of 5,000 surplus rifles at $3.50 each, which were then sold back to the government for $22 each in the beginning of the civil war which became renowned an example of wartime profiteering. A similar case occurred with the Mark 14 torpedoes scandal during WWII and the rejection of the Lewis gun in WWI.
It is a fact that the Army rejected the Lewis several times, and that Lewis, like most American machine gun inventors, had to go to Europe to find a market for his invention. It is a fact that (Chief of Ordnance) Crozier and his subordinates preferred their own, Springfield-Armory-built, Benet-Mercié Machine Rifle to the Lewis design.
https://weaponsman.com/p_36154/
Redtaping military contracts and restricting technology developments may be a result of corruption or political and power games of holding decision making power positions in the economy, the military or government decision makers appoint friend and family or trade decisions for influence peddling exchanges. Old technology milking may be done in intended or ad hoc collusion of any combination of ordinance departments, “robber barons”, contractors and their cohorts in government. An armament government contractor and its lobby might do regulation sabotage and physical sabotage on the development and adaptation of a disruptive technology that would harm their income influx or the share value of their holdings.
Consolidation of industries, specially in the “Military Industrial Complex” context, is a tool used to centralize and control prices as well as a framework that controls the unfair chain of supply and the rigging of the government bidding system which filters out non connected bidders.
Defense procurement mishandling continues to be a significant problem all over the world including China, Russia and the western countries. A Brown University study shows that in the post-9/11 world, the United States’ reliance on private military contractors has increased dramatically. “In 2019, the Pentagon spent $370 billion on contracting—more than half the total defense budget of $676 billion and a whopping 164% higher than its spending on contractors in 2001.” The scale and pace of military contracting spending, together with insufficient oversight, has led to fraud, waste, and preparedness sabotage. The False Claims Act, originally enacted in 1863 to address fraud in defense contracts during the Civil War, is a supposedly vital tool to address government contracting fraud since it can be circumvented by astute lobbyists, technocrats, industrial spying and politicians that raise asymmetric bidding requirements.
Such are the cases of the burying of the “Lavi” fighter jet and the “Nautilus” anti rocket defense system by the American and Israeli industrial military complex. An adaptation of the Nautilus solution would decrease the $100,000 income per interception of Iron Dome to about $1,000 which would decrease the share value of the manufacturers and the bidder and bureaucrat interests. The solution as opposed to the current “Iron Dome” can protect more lives in the 10 miles range because Iron Dome can’t intercept efficiently many rockets and mortars in small ranges due to the firing response time and costs. The detecting-shooting-intercepting cycle of Iron Dome is around one minute, whereas Non-Kinetic technology intercept cycle is less then a second making it more efficient in critical ranges.
In the tests in the years 2000 and 2001, THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser) successfully shot down 28 Katyusha artillery rockets and 5 artillery shells. In November 2002, a mobile version completed suc-
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/
cessful testing. THEL continued to demonstrate its great potential: on 4 August 2004, the
system successfully destroyed multiple mortar rounds. The test represented actual mortar
test scenarios. Targets were intercepted by the THEL test bed and destroyed: both single
mortar rounds and salvo. The project was discontinued in 2005 because the systemwas, and the cost of every shot
too large, the gases it used were expensive and dangerous
was circa $1000. 65 By 2005, the cost of the project surpassed $300,000,000.
The pretexts of burying “Nautilus” is a unattainable because the development cost was already invested and each interception is 1000 time-fold cheaper. . The real alleged reason for burying Nautilus was the industries interest that benefit from high cost per interception sales paired with the Despotism (control freakness), egoistic reputation concerns and arrogance of “Mafaat” bureaucrats which is the armament decision maker entity that has no oversight. The shooting cycle of Kinetic anti rocket systems is around one minute, whereas Laser technology intercept cycle is faster and can deal with multiple threats more efficiently.
An online voter ID is a distributive technology that would revolutionize the voting cycle and reduce voting costs and time. Basically the concept is that bio-metric and location information are attributed to each voter before, during and after the voting process. This would enable more transparency and reduce voter fraud and might eliminate the need for mail in vote. Another feature of this technology is the enabling of same day voting and counting and more frequent voting alternatives on major issue legislation.
The opposition to online voter ID technologies comes from politicians that benefit from undocumented voting, census fraud,. ballot harvesting and also favoritism from state contractors that are already milking overspending tax payers money on hardware, software, transportation, massive “counters” hiring and printing houses. Paradoxically, this technology is environment friendly and reduces the use of paper and energy. Nevertheless, progressive (Environmental Politics and Governance) politicians oppose online voter ID because it would harm their reelection chances and would eliminate the use of mail in vote and other voting business shenanigans.
