It costs over $2 billion to build one Virginia Class Fast Attack submarine. That’s roughly 16% of the $12 billion in defense contracts Connecticut received in 2011, which is roughly 5% of the state’s gross state product (Economic Report of the Governor, FY 2014-FY 2015 Biennium). Given these figures, it’s hard to imagine other challenges facing the state’s defense industry besides those resulting from sequestered funds, contract cancelations, and budget cuts. But other challenges can arise from dollars spent on new military technologies, like the kind the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency cooks up. For example, drone submarines could redefine and possibly displace the role of conventional submarines in much the same way aircraft carriers redefined and displaced the role of battleships during World War II.
“While there is this constant evolution in military technology, there are certain revolutions that occur every so often, something that completely changes the rules and forces us to ask new questions,” author P.W. Singer stated in a March 2010 interview with Military History (emphasis in the original; available in the Legislative Library.) “The real challenge,” Singer added, “is that technology moves at an exponential pace while our understanding, our laws and our other human institutions tend to move at a linear pace.”
Here’s more on Singer’s ideas:
