Navy leaders have known for a very long time about what chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi called “tacit knowledge,” or knowledge that is difficult to transfer via written or spoken instructions. For example, no one in the Navy, or outside it, can specify the sequence of every task that must be performed to get an aircraft off the carrier flight desk. A portion of the knowledge in the minds of Navy personnel enabling aircraft to launch and land is tacit. Similarly, retired Vice Admiral Lloyd M. Mustin reflected that use of weapons systems technologies involves more than application of theoretical physical principles:
“Unfortunately, the basic knowledge of radar is really very simple, and what becomes critical in keeping this radar going at close to designed efficiency at sea has nothing to do with basic knowledge. It has to do with a whole host of minutiae, detailed technical specifics, and these are what the technician has to learn about. It takes time, and until he has learned them, it’s a much slower job for him to troubleshoot and to tune up and so forth. This has nothing to do at all with the basic theory of the thing, what you need in order for it to work. The problem lies in the detailed specifics of how do you go about achieving what you really need.”
That was the excellent Mark Mandeles, “Historiography of Technology Since 1950 with a Focus on the Navy”. Understanding this point throws out the door the whole idea that systems analysis can choose the optimal weapons specification ahead of experimentation. DoD processes for weapons develop presume all the important aspects of system performance derive from articulated knowledge of physical laws and “known” military preferences. What remains is merely an application of analysis to find the optimal specification.
If weapons performance “has nothing to do at all with the basic theory of the thing,” then DoD processes are harmful to innovation and progress which requires a more trial-and-error process — something inherent to markets.
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