Creating and executing a coherent strategic vision for the United States in the post-cold war world is only half of the task that confronts strategists today. It will be at least as important to have a strategy which is both politically achievable and systematically efficient. These are not "either-or" propositions, they are necessary elements of sound strategy. For the United States to define and protect its interests in the new world order, we must generate and effect a strategy which is at once expedient and methodological. The hard part of matching ends to means is in maintaining the optimum balance among these often competing requirements. In assessing the prospects and risks of technological dependence, the right balance is especially troublesome to effect as the very process of technological advancement is so poorly understood. Our very economic life depends on continual improvement in technology, yet nowhere is there either a model to explain and predict it or a corpus of the art to guide its development. Yet in spite of this intellectual melange, strategists have ascribed to technology a preeminent position both as an end and as a means. A proper assessment of the prospects and risks of technological dependence will therefore not only consider the impact of U.S. dependence on foreign technology, the issue currently in vogue, but it should also consider the very premise on which it lies, namely whether technology should be depended on as an element of, and goal for, our national security strategy. This study develops a framework for the consideration of technological dependence, both foreign and domestic. It then examines the risks inherent in a strategy dependent on technology before moving on to a more thorough investigation of the opportunities and risks of foreign technology dependence. Finally, some implications will be drawn as guidelines for the approach to technology in our national security strategy. More Prospects and Risks of Technological Dependence Introduction Defense Technology and Industry Base Quantity vs. Quality Risks of Foreign Technology Strategy and Technology in the New Era Back to Table of Contents Prospects and Risks of Technology Dependence Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com