The outcome of war is determined by a complex combination of factors that include numbers, politics, strategy, tactics, training, morale, leadership, organization, logistics, weapons, and luck . A slight superiority in most of these categories, or a great superiority in one, can account for victory. Without attempting to rank order these factors, it is obvious that the country possessing better weapons increases its chances of victory.
Consequently, the United States must come to grips with changing technology if the country is to remain militarily strong . A leading student of military technology has put it this way:
. . . new and more effective weapons have generally been adopted only slowly in spite of their
obvious advantages . Since the character of contemporary weapons is such that their production as
well as their use can dislocate whole economies, it is probably not too much to suggest that the
survival of entire cultures may hinge upon an ability to perfect superior weapons and exploit them
fully. Survival itself, then, appears to depend on speed in both the development and the optimum
utilization of weapons.
Given this premise, the US military must not become part of the problem, but rather must make the best use of the country's economic, scientific, and manufacturing resources. The services must look to the future. In 1945, the top American airman wrote that:
National safety would be endangered by an Air Force whose doctrines and techniques are tied
solely on the equipment and process of the moment. Present equipment is but a step in progress,
and any Air Force which does not keep its doctrines ahead of its equipment, and its vision far into
the future, can only delude the nation into a false sense of security .
