David McCurdy Quotes
Military technology is like a continuing chess game, with no final move.
David Keith McCurdy, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, OK), Quoted in Time, November 6, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
While this principle is usually true, the irony is that it did not hold for the Germans in WWII. Towards the end of the war, they had developed the first jet planes which in combat were far superior to anything the allies could contest them with. In every battle they shot down many more allied plans than they lost. However they had relatively few as allied bombers had destroyed key factories and already killed most of the German experienced pilots. Also the fuel facilities were crippled. So even though the German jets were technologically superior, they were so outnumbered that they were not strategicappy successful.
Later, he felt that the offense had become almost invincible. See {626741}. Tesla was one of the great American immigrant scientists. He found in America the kind of intellectual and operational freedom that did not exist in the rigid, monarch-controlled, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He developed patents and techniques that formed the technological bases of radio, telephone long distance, TV, cell phones, Wi Fi, just to name a few. Most important he was Thomas Edison’s great nemesis. Edison invented DC electric generators that could power factories or entire streets in a neighborhood. Tesler invented and developed AC electrical technology which could power entire cities and he could move electricity over long distances which Edison could not. Tesler was one of the first scientists to conceive of and try to implement “Big Science” where there were huge capital investments to develop machines and systems to do what had never been done before—philosophically like the CERN Hadron Collider. Tesler even convinced a large corporation to finance the construction of a massive building and tower so he could experiment with the wireless transmission of electricity. However, as the industrial democracies have learned, Big Science can only be funded by governments and it often takes sever working in consort to afford the huge investment that is required. In Tesler’s era, the federal and state governments did not fund scientific research so his work was not only technically ahead of his time but also conceptually. He anticipated most of the problems and need for a national power grid that was challenging America even at the beginning of the 21st century.
The most important weapons of the time involved gunpowder or other explosives, and the chemist was the most important weapons maker until the middle of the 20th century when a weapons system was first designed that did not use chemical explosives—nuclear weapons. Then the physicists became predominant.
While the inventor of the American M16, a weapon not as good, became a millionaire, the General got a medal but by the beginning of the 21st century was penniless. See {635786}.
Military robots including drones are very inexpensive as military hardware goes. And like other hi-technology devices, the prices go down steadily as volume grows. Almost any government can afford to buy military robots from the U. S., France, Russia or Israel. As a result, there can be many more nations who can have a modern military, even if small. Thereafter, they can conduct modern warfare readily.
He was arguing against the point of view that military success in the future will depend on technology.
He was the author of the first “spy novel” and one of the first English writers to use his art and craft to promote public opinion to support more military spending to defend against Germany.
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
Not only did the Radio fail to inhibit war, but Marconi completely missed the way demagogues like Hitler and Mussolini would use propaganda via the radio to induce war in their societies. They did not justify war; they made it a national duty. Media inventors seem to have an overly optimistic view of the invention’s effect. See {635261}.
David McCurdy was a merchant and political figure in Nova Scotia, Canada. He represented Victoria County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1873 to 1878 as a Liberal member.
