Duplicity and Disclosure: How Technology Shapes Arming Strategies
Technology fuels how states compete by building arms and economic power. Yet arming happens in different ways: out in the open for some capabilities, in secret with little disclosure for other technologies, and with varying degrees of duplicity about military intent. How does the nature of technology shape arming strategies? We argue that two attributes are key: the difficulty of distinguishing military from civilian technology investments, as well as the fragility of military advantages. Distinguishability shapes the degree to which information about military capabilities is born private or public. When this dual use dimension shrouds information, states face lower deception costs—it becomes easier to misrepresent arming under the veil of civilian capabilities. Fragility sharpens the tradeoff states face between arming in plain sight to accrue peacetime advantages or in secret to preserve battlefield benefits. Durable military capabilities dampen this disclosure dilemma, making it possible for states to retain both advantages by openly arming. Together, these variables specify how technology creates incentives for states to arm in four distinct ways: (1) misrepresent in plain sight, 2) disguise behind civilian capabilities; (3) clarify open investments, and (4) hide until deliberate revelation. We expand a qualitative data set to test these expectations across all modern armaments.
Jane Vaynman (Ph.D.) is assistant professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Vaynman’s work focuses on security cooperation between adversarial states, the design of arms control agreements, and the effects of technology on patterns of international cooperation and competition. From 2022-2024 she served a senior advisor in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability at the U.S. Department of State. Her prior academic appointments include the Department of Political Science at Temple University and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Dr. Vaynman received her Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University and B.A. from in international relations from Stanford University, with honors from CISAC.
Tristan A. Volpe (Ph.D.) is an assistant professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology (Oxford University Press, 2023). His work has been published in academic and general policy journals such as International Organization, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Quarterly. Prior to NPS and Carnegie, Dr. Volpe was a predoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He currently lives on the Monterey Peninsula in California.