Daniel R. Headrick - The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945

THE INVISIBLE WEAPON

Telecommunications and International Politics 18511945

DANIEL R. HEADRICK

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Oxford University Press 1991

First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2012.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Headrick, Daniel R.

The invisible weapon : telecommunications and international politics, 18511945 / Daniel R. Headrick.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-19-506273-6 (hardcover); 978-0-19-993033-3 (paperback)

1. TelecommunicationHistory.

2. TelecommunicationPolitical aspectsHistory.

3. TelecommunicationMilitary aspectsHistory.

4. World politics19001945.

5. World politics19th century.

I. Title.

HE7651.H43 1991 90-39697

384-dc20

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Looking back on this twentieth century in its waning moments, I am struck by the ambiguous feelings humans have toward the world they have created. People the world over are fascinated by technology and look to it as a panacea to solve their problems. Yet modern technology comes with a host of surprising and unpleasant byproducts. Among the least understood is interdependence. For modern technology does not occur as isolated units, but as complex systems that require ever more widespread interactions and interdependence. Thus the more technologically advanced a country becomes, the more it depends on raw materials, manufactured goods, information, and services from around the world.

This interdependence is disturbing, even frightening to many people. It is no coincidence that the twentieth century has been the age of mass movements to withdraw from the very interdependence that modern technology requires, movements ranging from nationalist struggles of liberation to attempts to gain economic autarky or create racially homogeneous societies. Not only do humans fight one another, but they also rebel against the kind of world that unfettered technological and economic forces would impose on them, a world of interdependence, trade, and communications.

Telecommunications are among the technologies most involved in this process: they are very complex, they readily form systems and networks, and they both require and encourage global interdependence. Yet during much of our century, telecommunications have been controlled, twisted, and distorted by politics in order to separate and alienate peoples. This book is an attempt to understand this paradox.

A book like this is the result of the labors of many persons, and their mention on this page is but a small recognition of their important contributions. I would first like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support of this project through a Fellowship for College Teachers and two Travel to Collections grants.

I am also thankful to those who have helped me most in my research: Cable and Wireless pic and the keeper of their archives, Peter Travers-Laney; Jerry Hess and David Pfeiffer of the National Archives in Washington; R. M. Coppock of the Ministry of Defence in London; and the friendly, helpful staffs of the Public Record Office at Kew, the British Library in London, and the Joseph Regenstein and John Crerar Libraries in Chicago.

Numerous friends and fellow-scholars have encouraged my efforts, or given me their thoughtful criticism, or both. They are: Jorma Ahvenainen, Hugh Aitken, Jean-Claude Allain, Catherine Bertho-Lavenir, Andrew Butrica, Patrice Carr, Ivan Coggeshall, Donard de Cogan, Kate Ezra, Pascal Griset, Robert Kubicek, Bill and Jane McCullam, Joel Mokyr, David and Nancy Northrup, Jon Sumida, Yuzo Tak-ahashi, Frank Thomas, Gary Wolfe, Mark W. Zacher, and Zhong Zhang.

My editor, Nancy Lane, deserves special thanks for her unfailing encouragement over many years.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my wife Rita, from whom I learned how to become a historian, and much else.

THE INVISIBLE WEAPON

When the telegraph was introduced in Australia in 1853, the Melbourne Argus went into an ecstasy of rhetoric: We call the electric telegraph the most perfect invention of modern times... as anything more perfect than this is scarcely conceivable, and we really begin to wonder what will be left for the next generation, upon which to expend the restless energies of the human mind.

The enterprises to which de Lesseps was referring were the new means of transportation and communicationthe railways, steamships, canals, and telegraphsthat thrilled so many in the nineteenth century. Had he lived to see the inventions of the next century, he might have been just as amazed, but he would surely not have thought that they could make people finally cease fighting. If we have learned anything in the past century, it is that technology confers power, but that the consequences of that power are anything but predictable.

The relations between communication and politics are complex, and to make sense of them we first need to identify some of the relevant characteristics of communications systems. Like the mails, point-to-point telecommunications systems convey information to specific recipients. In addition, they have five other important qualities. The first four of thesespeed, coverage, reliability, and costare technical and economic, while the fifth, security, is political and organizational in nature.

Speed is the most striking characteristic of telecommunications. What triggered the explosion of demand for the new technology was the incredible speed of electricity and its inherent promise of real-time information. In 1901 Captain George Squier of the U.S. Army Signal Corps expressed the astonishment of his age when he wrote: The fastest mail express, or the swiftest ocean ship, are as naught compared with the velocity of the electrical impulse which practically annihilates any terrestrial dimension. Though much faster than the mail, the early telegraphs were by no means instantaneous in relaying information, but were slowed down by both technical and organizational delays. Because so much information quickly becomes stale, governments, businesses, and newspapers encouraged improvements in the efficiency of telecommunications.