  Major theories of military innovation focus on relatively narrow
technological developments, such as nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers.
Arguably the most profound military implications of technological change,
however, come from more fundamental advances arising from general purpose
technologies, such as the steam engine, electricity, and the computer. With few
exceptions, political scientists have not theorized about GPTs. Drawing from
the economics literature on GPTs, we distill several propositions on how and
when GPTs affect military affairs. We call these effects general-purpose
military transformations. In particular, we argue that the impacts of GMTs on
military effectiveness are broad, delayed, and shaped by indirect productivity
spillovers. Additionally, GMTs differentially advantage those militaries that
can draw from a robust industrial base in the GPT. To illustrate the
explanatory value of our theory, we conduct a case study of the military
consequences of electricity, the prototypical GPT. Finally, we apply our
findings to artificial intelligence, which will plausibly cause a profound
general-purpose military transformation.

General Economics;Economics