Can adversaries of the United States easily imitate its most advanced weapon systems and thus erode one of the pillars of American military-technological superiority? Do reverse engineering, industrial espionage, and, in particular, cyber espionage facilitate and accelerate this process? China’s decades-long economic boom, military modernization program, massive reliance on cyberespionage, and assertive foreign policy have made these questions increasingly salient. Yet, almost everything known about this topic draws from the past. The past, however, has no applicability to the current day. Over the past 150years, the complexity of state-of-the-art weapon systems has increased dramatically. Such an increase in complexity has led to a change in the systems of production, which in turn has made developing as well as imitating advanced weapon systems significantly more difficult. As a result, the advantage of backwardness that rising powers used to benefit from has shrunk significantly, and know-how and experience in the production of advanced weapon systems have become an important source of power for those who master them. The struggles China has experienced with the development of stealth jet-fighters is telling: despite the largest campaign of industrial and cyber espionage in modern times, the extensive transfers-of-technology it has benefited from, and the opportunities for reverse-engineering foreign technologies, China has encountered significant problems that still plague its aerospace industry.
Dr Mauro Gilli is a Senior Researcher in Military Technology and International Security at the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH-Zurich). His research focuses on the evolution of military technology, with particular attention to the challenges of designing, developing, imitating and employing advanced weapon systems, and it has appeared in International Security, Security Studies and Journal of Strategic Studies. Dr Gilli’s articles have generated high profile mediate attention, such as from The Economist (print edition), The Washington Post (print edition), Foreign Policy, Wired, The Diplomat, Business Insider (Italy), Italian National Television (RAI1), and others. Dr Gilli has carried out research for the Office of Net Assessment of the U.S. Department of Defense. He has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Turin (summa cum laude), an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.
