Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Inside Technology)

Rating:
Summary: Historical Sociology
Review: This book is regarded as groundbraking in nonproliferation circles. It describes invention and the institutions supporting invention.

This book describes the ideologies and nuclear strategies during the Cold War in an excellent way. And it has to. Because it tries to find an alternative to the prevailing perception of technological determism and realism. Historical Sosiology.

I found this book very difficult to read. The language is "scientific" and loaded with information. I will not recommend this book to the casual reader, but for history buffs in nuclear strategy, it is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Change Your Way of Thinking
Review: This is a hallmark book, and not solely to those interested in the history of ballistic missile guidance systems (though it would be difficult for others to discover). Mr. MacKenzie's real contribution is to examine how theories compete, contend and clash, and how the "intellectual community" finds and/or accepts them. A careful reading of the book, with only a modicum of knowledge of the subject, could change the way one thinks about every aspect of life.

I found it brilliant and revelatory, and I have recommended it to many people who sought to have their conceptual conciousness raised, as was mine.

One of the few scholarly journals this "academaholic" would ever recommend to a general (though well-read) audience.

Keep a copy around for some deserving late teen ager whose mind is in full bloom - you will find yourself rewarded.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for Targeteers by nervegas.com
Review: This is one of those very odd specialty books that always has you wondering who is the real audience.

The author has done an excellent job of researching the topic, and appears to be from the missile guidance community (or at least aerospace). His style is dry, but frank.

The book traces the US experience in missile guidance technology, then analyzes the sequence of RFP to field test to reveal the sociological dynamics of a technology.

For the information revolution, and a society that is becoming increasingly more technological, this book is an early example of what will likely be reproduced elsewhere for other technologies.

Throughout the book, the author debates what is accuracy. Traditionally, the Circular Error Probability (CEP) has been used, but some believe that a bias displaces the actual aiming point, and thus reduces the meaning of the CEP. Not addressed in this book is the debate concerning intelligence assets to support deep and strategic strikes, which accounts for many peoples belief in an accuracy bias. The author's bias arguement is along different lines than that used today, and is not well developed (the author argues against it).

The arguement being addressed is how credible is a nuclear deterent if systems are perfected to hit a test target on a Pacific island where all the navigational variables are known. This arguement is revisited by more recent books dealing with smart weapons; weapons which contractually meet their requirements to hit targets in arid Nevada, but appear incapable of doing likewise in a misty European battlefields.

The author does present an interesting sociological model that has a wide application: the certainty trough. This model implies that those with the greatest confidence in a technology are well informed on it, and between those that develop the technology, and those that know little about it.

While dealing only with strategic ballistic missiles, the author's approach to technological sociology is well worth reading and applying to current day arguements with other weapon systems.