Erik Sand

States often make puzzling decisions when sharing technology. In1985 the United States licensed production of torpedoes to China despite recognizing it might fight China to defend the island of Taiwan. My dissertation asks: Why do states share advanced military technology with other states? In doing so, we gain insight into how states both conceptualize and use their technological power.

I define technology sharing as the transfer of the capability to produce weapons (applied scientific research, designs, manufacturing techniques, etc) not the transfer of the weapons themselves (though this may occur simultaneously).

The key difference between technology sharing and other forms of security assistance (alliances, arms sales, etc) is the persistence of the benefits of the transfer across time. This difference has two implications. First, even if the relationship between the sharer and the recipient worsens, the benefits of the technology transfer still accrue to the recipient. If the interests of two security partners diverge, an alliance can be cancelled almost overnight, a state which had sold weapons could refuse further spare parts, but shared technology is impossible to claw back. Second, negotiating over the value of technology sharing is difficult because the persistence of benefits creates asymmetric information problems. The only way to know the value of knowledge is to have it, but once that knowledge is shared, there’s nothing left to negotiate over.

I create a typology of technology sharing policies based on the ease and breadth of technology transfer they facilitate and explain choices amongst these policies with an original theory called Motivation-Risk Theory. Motivation-Risk Theory predicts decisionmakers share technology in an ongoing manner when their sharing is motivated by a “Spillback benefit.” A Spillback benefit is a spillover benefit to the sharer from the recipient’s mere possession of the technology. Alternately, when sharers are motivated by “Exchange benefits” — benefits they get from the recipient in exchange for technology — sharing will be sporadic at best. Second, sharers will adjust how much technology they share based on the “Backfire Risk” of sharing. Backfire risk is the risk that the recipient will turn shared technology back on the sharer or that the technology will leak to a hostile third party via the recipient.

 I test Motivation-Risk Theory using cases during and between the World Wars – the most recent previous period of multipolar international competition. Using more than 80,000 pages of archival documents, I examine British and American decisions to share technology with each other, Japan, and the Soviet Union. In the process, I produce new or updated histories of these technology transfers

Academically, the project both expands the discussion of technology as power and expands the literature on alliances and security assistance. Since sharing technology is non-zero sum and has potentially long-term effects, it also helps us understand how states view absolute and relative gains as well as potential gains and losses across different time horizons. Policy-wise, the United States has historically maintained its dominant position through continued technological innovation as well as its network of alliances. As advanced weapons come to involve more technology that is difficult to “black box,” weapons sales are more likely to involve transferring technology. Understanding the dynamics of technology sharing can help policymakers manage potential tradeoffs.

In a 2020 article in the Texas National Security Review, I challenge the conventional wisdom that economic isolation is an ineffective wartime strategy. Examining Germany’s response to blockade in both World Wars, I identify two mechanisms by which economic isolation induces targeted states to undertake risky strategies - strategies so risky that they often lead to defeat. But this advantage does not come without its own risk for the isolators. Target states’ risky strategies often involve war-widening escalation, which in the nuclear age could prove catastrophic.

In a 2024 article in the Naval War College Review, I address the challenges of contested logistics — how to ensure supplies reach their destination when an adversary seeks to use force to stop them. I develop a framework for analysis with three different approaches — “More is more,” “Efficient to be Effective,” and “Forecast and Push,” — and assess the suitability of each to different types of logistics problems.

images (from top to bottom): Library of Congress Card Catalogue; Schematic of E1189 Cavity Magnetron (credit: radiomuseum.org); Castle Aragonese, Taranto, Italy; Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Jackson County, South Dakota.