Overview

Many people enter the field of engineering because it has a certain mathematical purity about it. They see themselves as focused on optimizing the performance of shape, structure, and material in absolute ways and are pleased because what they do can be directly and unequivocally evaluated. If the criteria for a design are clearly stated, the true engineer would never accept that the decision as to which design best met the criteria was a matter of opinion. The truth of politics, on the other hand, is seldom a matter of black-and-white hard facts. While political truth can be analyzed effectively many years after events, the rightness of today's political decisions often seems the stuff of opinion. The give- and-take of politics is generally foreign to the engineering mind. Engineering ultimately leads to manufacturing in most cases, and manufacturing leads to selling. When what you are selling represents a huge capital investment and is a matter of national or regional pride both for the seller and the buyer, the power and uncertainty of politics are not far behind. So it is in the high-technology, huge- expenditure world of jet engines.

When I began my career in engineering as an apprentice, I had no thoughts other than to work on airplanes and engines and play sports. Even though I saw the start of World War II as a boy in school, the war was never explained, and I had no real interest in the politics behind it. We simply knew that, under...