Paalberg - Knowledge as Power

7/27/2019 Paalberg - Knowledge as Power

1/31

Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and U.S. SecurityAuthor(s): Robert L. PaarlbergReviewed work(s):Source: International Security, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer, 2004), pp. 122-151Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137549 .

Accessed: 26/04/2012 22:17

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toInternational Security.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpresshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4137549?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4137549?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress


2/31

Knowledge a s P o w e rScience,MilitaryDominance,andU.S. Security

RobertL.Paarlberg

Can the UnitedStatesmaintain ts globallead in science,the new key to its recentlyunparalleledmil-itary dominance?U.S. scientificprowess has become the deep foundation ofU.S.militaryhegemony.U.S.weapons systems currentlydominatethe conven-tional battlefield because they incorporate powerful technologies availableonly fromscientificallydominantU.S. weapons laboratories.Yet under condi-tions of globalization,scientificand technical(S&T)knowledge is now spread-ing more quickly and more widely, suggesting that hegemony in this areamight be difficultfor any one countryto maintain.Is the scientifichegemonythat lies beneath U.S. weapons dominancestrong and durable,or only weakand temporary?Militaryprimacy today comes fromweapons quality,not quantity.EachU.S.military service has dominating weapons not found in the arsenals of otherstates. The U.S. Air Forcewill soon have five differentkinds of stealth aircraftin its arsenal,while no other state has even one. U.S. airbornetargetingcapa-bilities, built around global positioning system (GPS)satellites, joint surveil-lance and target radars,and unmanned aerial vehicles are dominating andunique.1On land, the U.S. Army has 9,000 M1 Abrams tanks, each with afire-controlsystem so accurateit can find and destroy a distant enemy tankusually with a single shot. At sea, the U.S.Navy now deploys Seawolfnuclearsubmarines,the fastest, quietest, and most heavily armed undersea vesselsever built,plus nine supercarrier attlegroups,each carryingscores of aircraftcapableof delivering repeatedprecisionstrikeshundredsof miles inland. Noother navy has even one supercarriergroup.2RobertL.Paarlbergs Professor fPoliticalScience t Wellesley ollege, ndAssociate t the WeatherheadCenterorInternationalffairs tHarvardUniversity.Muchofhis researchoncentratesn internationalagriculturalolicy.The author wishes to thank Richard Cooper, Daniel Johnson, Devesh Kapur, Henry Nau, DonPaarlberg Jr.,Robert Ross, Michael Teitelbaum, and two perceptive reviewers for helpful adviceduring his preparation of this article.1. The United States controls 90 percent of all the world's military satellites. Eight days before Op-eration Iraqi Freedom in 2003, Maj. Gen. Franklin J. Blaisdell, U.S. Air Force director of space oper-ations and integration, stated, "Weare so dominant in space that I pity a country that would comeup against us." Quoted in Andy Oppenheimer, "Arms Race in Space," ForeignPolicy,No. 138 (Sep-tember/October 2003), pp. 81-82, at p. 81.2. For a comprehensive examination of U.S. weapons dominance, particularly in the air, in space,Internationalecurity,Vol.29, No. 1 (Summer2004),pp. 122-151@ 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

122


3/31

Knowledges Power1123

Suchweapons arecostly to build, and the largerelativesize of the U.S.econ-omy (22 percentof world gross domestic product [GDP])plus the even largerU.S. share of global militaryspending (43percentof the world totalin 2002,atmarketexchangerates)have been key to the developmentand deployment ofthese forces. Yet economic dominance and spending dominance would notsufficewithout knowledge dominance.It is a strongand rapidly growing S&Tcapacity that has allowed the United States to move far ahead of would-becompetitors by deploying new weapons systems with unmatched science-intensive capabilities.It was in the middle of the twentiethcenturythatthe global arms racemorefundamentallybecamea science race.Priorto WorldWarII,militaryresearchand development (R&D)spending absorbedon averageless than 1 percentoftotalmajorpower military expenditures.By the 1980s,the R&Dshareof majorpower militaryspending had increasedto 11-13percent.3 t was preciselydur-ing this period,as sciencebecame a moreimportantpartof militarymight, thatthe United Statesemerged as the clearglobal leader in science.During WorldWarII,the militarymight of the United Stateshad come more fromits indus-trialcapacity(Americacould build more)than fromits scientificcapacity(Eu-rope, especially Germanyand the United Kingdom,could still invent more).As thatwar came to an end, however,a fortuitousmigrationof Europeansci-entists to the United States plus wartime researchinvestments such as theManhattanProjectgave the United Statesthe scientificas well as the industriallead.

During the Cold War, he U.S. lead grew stronger.Scientistsfromthe SovietUnionbrieflychallengedthe United States n space,but thendecisively lost therace to the moon. The United States responded to the Soviets' successfullaunching in 1957 of the world's first earth-orbitingsatellite, Sputnik , withmuch larger nvestments in its own science educationand weapons R&Dpro-grams.By the later stages of the Cold War,U.S. weapons had attained a deci-sive quality advantageover Soviet weapons. This first became fully apparentto U.S.intelligencein 1976,when a Sovietpilot flew his mach-3MiG-25Foxbatjet interceptor o Japanin searchof asylum. Upon inspection the Foxbat wasfound to be virtually devoid of any next-generation echnologies; t was littleand at sea, see BarryR.Posen,"Command f theCommons:TheMilitaryFoundationof U.S.He-gemony,"Internationalecurity,Vol.28, No. 1 (Summer2003),pp. 5-46.3. These data from the Stockholm InternationalPeace ResearchInstitute (SIPRI)and MaryAcland-Hoodare cited in VallyKoubi,"MilitaryTechnologyRaces," nternationalrganization,ol.53, No. 3 (Summer1999),pp. 537-565,at p. 537.


4/31

Internationalecurity29:1 124

more than a "rocketwith a window." Following the defeat of U.S. forces inVietnam, some popular critics questioned the military advantage of high-technology ("gold plated")weapons systems, and suggested that the UnitedStatesmightbe betteroff investingin quantityrather hanquality.4Butthe U.S.decision,post-Vietnam, o move away froma large conscriptarmyand towarda smaller and better-trainedall-volunteer force became a reason to increaserather handecrease scienceinvestmentsin weapons quality.DuringPresidentRonald Reagan's administration,U.S. military R&D expenditures doubled,leaving Soviet weapons scientists even further behind and contributinginsome measureto the final demoralizationof the Soviet leadership.5The U.S.weapons qualityadvantagewas in full view for the first time dur-ing the 1991Persian Gulf War,when stealth aircraft, asers, infrarednight vi-sion, and electronics for precision strikes gave U.S. forces a decisive edge.6Iraqiforcesusing Soviet equipmentwere easily broken and expelled fromKu-wait at a total cost of 148 U.S. battle deaths. In the 1999 Kosovo conflict,theUnited States conducted (this time with no battle deaths) an air campaignsodominatingthat the Serb air force did not even attemptto fly.By the time ofthe Afghanistanwar in 2001,the United States was using GPSsatellite-guidedbombscapableof strikingwith devastating precision n any weather,as well asin the dark.Froma safealtitude,the U.S.Air Forcenow could destroyvirtuallyany targeton the surface of the earth,if that targethad fixed and known geo-graphiccoordinates.In the second PersianGulfWar aunchedagainstIraq n March2003,the U.S.qualitativeedge was even more prominent.U.S. forceswere able to go all theway to Baghdadusing only half the numberof troops deployed in 1991 andonly one-seventh as many (but far more precise)air-launchedmunitions,andwithout a thirty-eight-daybombing campaign(as in the firstGulf War).Only105 U.S.battle deaths were sufferedduring the assaultitself;therewere fewerunintendedciviliancasualties(one civiliandied forevery thirty-fivemunitionsdropped), plus far less damage to Iraqibuildings, bridges, and roads.' U.S.

4. James Fallows, National Defense (New York:Random House, 1981).5. Koubi, "Military Technology Races." President Ronald Reagan's 1983 Strategic Defense Initia-tive to develop and deploy a space-based shield against Soviet intercontinental missiles promisedfar more than U.S. laboratories could deliver at the time, yet it left a demoralizing impression onleaders in Moscow.6. Delores M. Etter,"Defense Science and Technology," in Albert H. Teich, Stephen D. Nelson, andStephen J. Lita, eds., AAAS Science and TechnologyPolicy YearbookWashington, D.C.: AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science, 2002), pp. 167-181.7. Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales Jr.,TheIraqWar:A Military History (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 179.


5/31


strikeaircraft lying up to 1,000sortiesa day were able, even througha blind-ing sandstorm,to destroy the tanks and infantryvehicles of the RepublicanGuard.8Pervasive GPScapabilities,new sensorsystems,nearreal-time"sensorto shooter" intelligence, and computer-networkedcommunicationsallowedU.S. forces to leverage the four key dimensions of the modern battlespace-knowledge, speed, precision,and lethality-and to prevailquicklyat minimalcost.9Thekey to this revolutionin militaryaffairs(RMA)has been the applicationof modern science and engineering-particularly in fields such as physics,chemistry,and informationtechnology (IT)-to weapons design and use. It isthe internationaldominance of the United Statesin these fields of scienceand

technology that has made possible U.S. military dominance on the conven-tionalbattlefield."1t thus becomes importantto judge the magnitudeand du-rabilityof U.S. scientifichegemony.In the sections that follow, I first measurethe U.S. lead in S&Trelative to the capabilitiesof potentialrivalstatesby usinga variety of science output and resourceinput indicators.By every indicator,the current ead of the United States is formidable.ThenI judge the durabilityof the U.S. lead by examiningtwo possible weaknesses within its foundation.The firstis the greaterspeed with which scientificknowledge can diffuse (per-haps away from the United States) n the modernage of globalization.The sec-ond is the poor science preparationstill provided by so many U.S. publicschools in grades K-12.Upon examination, hese two factorsneed not presenta significantthreattothe U.S.global lead in science and technology,assuming the United Statescanremain a large net importerof scientific talent and knowledge from abroad.Preserving this vital net inflow of scientific assets has been made moredifficult, however,by the homeland security imperativesarisingfrom the ter-roristattacksof September11,2001. It should be the policy of the United Statesto devise a homelandsecuritystrategythatdoes not impairthe nation'saccessto foreignsciencetalent.One partof this strategyshould be to containthe fur-8. Ibid., p. 172.9. On the deficit side, several quick-response "decapitation" strikes against regime leaders failedto produce results. A classified assessment of the war by the U.S. Joint Forces Command cites sev-eral other performance deficits as well, including weak battlefield damage assessment capabilitiesand "fratricide" losses to friendly forces. Thom Shanker, "Pentagon Criticizes High Rate of AlliedDeaths by Allied Fire," New YorkTimes,October 3, 2003, p. A14.10. U.S. conventional military preponderance depends on more than just its lead in science andtechnology, to be sure. Also necessary for this dominance are the nation's vast economic resources,its skilled military personnel, and its unmatched international military basing structure. For amore complete review of the magnitude and limits of U.S. conventional military dominance, seePosen, "Command of the Commons," p. 21.


6/31


ther growth of terrorist hreatsby avoiding conventionalmilitarycampaignsthat create determinednew political adversariesabroad.Victoriesthat bringresentmentwill breed resistance,most easily expressed in the form of asym-metric threatsagainstsoft targets, ncludinghomelandtargets.Anotherpartofthis strategy should be a more effective mobilizationof the nation's massiveS&Tcapacity when responding to the asymmetricthreatsthat do arise. TheUnited States is uniquely capableof innovating new "smart" echnologies toprotectsoft homelandtargets againstunconventionalthreats.The currentFor-tressAmericaapproachrisksundercutting he nation's ead in scienceby keep-ing too many talented foreignersout.HowLarge s the U.S. Lead n Scienceand Technology?The U.S. lead in science and technology can be measured in terms of eitherfinal scientificoutput or R&D nput. Scientificand technicaloutput is most of-ten measuredby countingnumbers of scientificpapers published,numbersofpaperscited in otherpublishedpapers,numbersof registeredpatents,ornum-bers of prizes won. By all such measures,the United Statesholds a command-ing global lead.The Institutefor ScientificInformation ISI)has maintainedsince 1981 a da-tabase of scientific citations from roughly 9,000 indexed journalspublishedworldwide from all scientific fields, excluding mathematics,social sciences,and the humanities. From 1992 to 2002,scientistsworkingin the United Statesled other nationsby a largemarginin both numbersof papers published andnumbers of citations. Table 1 reveals that scientists working in the UnitedStates have been publishing roughlyfour times as many papersas scientistsinJapan,the second-ranking country,and papers published by U.S. scientistshave received roughly five times as many citations as papers from the sec-ond-rankingU.K. scientists. This wide U.S. lead in scientificpapers and cita-tions has been diminishing over time. Over the period 1981-94, whileworldwide scientificpaper output increased3.7 percentper year,U.S. outputincreasedonly 2.7percent peryear.Scientificpapergrowth ratesabove 10 per-cent per year were registeredby China,Singapore,South Korea,and Taiwan,yet these were higher growth rates from a much smaller base."The U.S. scientific lead also can be measured in numbers of patented inven-11. RobertM. May,"TheScientificWealthof Nations,"Science,Vol.275, No. 7 (February1997),p. 793.


7/31

Knowledges Power 127

Table 1. Top Ten Countries, Published Papers by Scientists, and Citations to Papers,January 1992-June 2002Rankby Papers/Citations Country Papers Citations1/1 United States 2,618,154 30,765,0492/4 Japan 672,308 4,591,8313/3 Germany 619,323 5,186,2284/2 England 570,667 5,628,1055/5 France 459,963 3,777,7536/6 Canada 346,126 3,259,9357/7 Italy 288,763 2,245,0508/17 Russia 255,548 665,4429/10 Australia 198,006 1,523,84410/20 China 193,006 494,157SOURCE:SIEssential Science Indicators,http://www.in-cites.com/countries/2002allfields.html.tions. During the mid-1980s,the large U.S. share of patents awarded in theUnited Statesbegan to decline, reinforcingworries abouta supposedly dimin-ished U.S. competitivenessvis-a-vis Japanand otherrising economies in Asia.In 1970American inventors had accountedfor 66 percentof U.S. patents,butby 1989that share had fallen to just52 percent.EvenJosephNye, who was oth-erwise confident n his 1990book Bound o Lead f the continuedstrengthof theUnited States,viewed this patent trend as a "causefor concern."12 ye neednot have been concerned.Patentingby U.S. inventorsrevived in 1990 and be-gan growing morerapidly thanpatentingby foreigninventorsonce again. By1999the U.S. share of new patentswas backup to 54 percent.13U.S. inventorshave also continued to lead in patentingwithin foreign countries,registeringmore patentsthan local competitors n Brazil,Canada, France,Germany, taly,Japan,Russia,and numerous other countries.14Prize winnings are anotheroutput indicatorof relativescience strength,al-beit a lagging indicator because science prizes are usually awarded years oreven decades following the momentof scientificachievement.A count of win-12. Joseph S. Nye Jr.,Boundto Lead:TheChangingNatureofAmericanPower(New York:Basic Books,1990), p. 212.13. National Science Foundation, Science and EngineeringIndicators,2002 (Arlington, Va.: NationalScience Foundation, 2002), http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/c6/c6s4.htm#c6s411.14. Patent counts have numerous limitations as a measure of science strength because thesignificance of different inventions varies widely. Counts of patent citations can help get aroundthis problem, and here as well the United States dominates. A more difficult problem is differingnational approaches to intellectual property. In many countries inventions are not patented at all,either because intellectual property laws are weak or because industrial trade secrets enjoy blanketprotection.


8/31


ners of all internationally recognized science prizes worth more than $200,000,including Nobel Prizes and the Fields Medal in mathematics, reveals that Ger-man scientists won most of the awards early in the twentieth century, withAmerican scientists entering the winning ranks in large numbers only in the1930s. In the decades around World WarII, proportionately fewer German andFrench scientists won, and American scientists began to establish a command-ing lead, winning roughly half of all prizes given. This is a lead that has contin-ued into the twenty-first century. Of the seven 2003 Nobel Prize laureates inphysics, chemistry, physiology, and medicine, five were living and working inthe United States.15

A more derivative indicator of the U.S. lead in S&T is the country's share ofworld production of technology-intensive manufactured goods, known as"high-technology manufactures." Throughout the 1980s the U.S. share ofglobal high-technology production remained at a strong 33 percent. It then de-clined to 30 percent from 1988 to 1995, while Japan's share grew from 20 per-cent in 1980 to 26 percent in 1991. Concerns spread that Japan might beemerging as a technological challenger at least in commercial manufacturing,but more careful thinkers argued that the U.S. lead was still strong.16Popularconcerns were laid to rest when the U.S. share of global high-technology pro-duction subsequently revived to reach an unprecedented 36 percent by 1998,while the Japanese share fell back down to its 1980 level of just 20 percent.17In addition to papers, citations, patents, prizes, and high-technology produc-tion, it is also possible to count numbers of highly productive scientists. The ISIhas used its citation database to generate a list of the world's 1,222 most"highly cited scientists," working at 429 different institutions in twenty-sevendifferent countries around the world. Two-thirds of these scientists (815)worked at institutions in the United States. The next four countries in rank or-der are the United Kingdom (with 100 of these top scientists), Germany with62, Canada with 42, and Japan with 34. Russia has 2, India 2, and Taiwan 1;thePeople's Republic of China has none.1sThese ISI database results also indicate that highly cited scientists tend to

15. Scientists from the United Kingdom consistently won approximately 10 percent of all awardsin the twentieth century. Complete Nobel Prize records are available from the Nobel e-Museum,http://www.nobel.se/index.html.16. See Henry R. Nau, TheMyth of America'sDecline:Leadingthe WorldEconomy nto the 1990s (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also Paul Krugman, "The Myth of Asia's Miracle," For-eign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 6 (November/December 1994), pp. 62-78.17. National Science Foundation, Scienceand EngineeringIndicators,2002.18. Michael Batty, "The Geography of Scientific Citation," Environmentand Planning A, Vol. 35(2003), pp. 761-765.


9/31


work in tight geographicclusters.In the areaof Boston,for example,all of theinstitutionsthat house ISI'shighly cited scientistslie within a two-mile radiusof the Massachusetts nstituteof Technology.Suchgeographicclustersof scien-tists can grow into highly productive "innovationhubs" if they feature theright mix of both public- and private-sector aboratories,several competingfirst-classuniversities,close contactswith nonprofit oundations,and accesstoventurecapital.19A recentglobal inventoryof such innovationhubs in the areaof informationtechnologyfound thata preponderantnumber were indeed lo-cated within the United States.In2000,Wiredmagazineconsultedlocal sourcesin government, industry,and the media to find the geographiclocations thatmattermost for innovationin the new digital age.Each ocationwas rated on ascale of one to four in fourareas:abilityof areauniversities and research acili-ties to train skilled workers or develop new technologies;the presenceof es-tablishedcompanies and multinationalcorporations o provide expertiseandeconomic stability;the population's entrepreneurialdrive to start new ven-tures; and the availability of venture capital.20A total of forty-six locationsaround the world were identified in this manneras "technologyhubs," andthirteen of these forty-six hubs were in the United States. Of the seventeenhubs that had the highest aggregatescores, eight were in the United States.21The closest competitorwas the United Kingdom, with four hubs total, andonly two in the top seventeen. The closest security rival of the United Stateswith multiple hubs on this list was China,with threehubs total, but none ofChina'shubs were in the top seventeen, or even in the top thirty.22U.S. R&D INVESTMENTPerhapsthe best way to measurethe U.S. lead in science and technology is toconsider inputs of R&Dinvestment. The total U.S. R&Dportfolio (privateaswell as public investments) exceeds $250 billion a year. These investmentshave a recenthistory of steady expansion;in constantdollar terms, total U.S.R&Dgrew from $100 billion in 1976to $265 billion in 2000.23These R&Din-

19. Steven W. Popper and Caroline S. Wagner, New Foundations or Growth:TheU.S. InnovationSys-tem Todayand Tomorrow,MR-1338.0-OSTP (Santa Monica, Calif.: Science and Technology PolicyInstitute, RAND, January 2002).20. Batty, "The Geography of Scientific Citation."21. These eight U.S. hubs were Albuquerque, Austin, Boston, New York City, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, San Francisco, Seattle, and Silicon Valley.22. United Nations Development Programme, Human DevelopmentReport,2001 (New York: Ox-ford University Press, 2001), p. 45.23. Elisa Eiseman, Kei Koizumi, and Donna Fossum, FederalInvestment in R&D, MR-1639.0-OSTP(Santa Monica, Calif.: Science and Technology Policy Institute, RAND, September 2002), p. 15.


10/31

Internationalecurity29:11130

vestments are routinely credited with boosting U.S. economic growth andcommercialcompetitivenessinternationally,24et they are also at the founda-tion of U.S. militarysupremacy.U.S. investments in R&Dfar outstrip those of other wealthy states. Totalgross domestic expenditures on R&D in the United States exceed those ofJapan, he second-largestR&D-investing ountry,by 158percent.25 heUnitedStates invests 40 percent more in R&D than the original fifteen EuropeanUnion (EU)states combined.This is a reflectionof a greaterU.S.effort,not justlargereconomic size. TotalR&D nvestmentsin the EUin 2000equaled 1.9per-cent of GDP,comparedwith 2.69percentin the United States.In 2002,the Eu-ropeanCommissionreportedthat the U.S. lead over the EU in R&Dspendinghad widened for the seventh year in a row. In June2003, EU CommissionerChris Pattenwarned his fellow Europeansof what he calleda "brutally implestatistic": he United States with just 4 percent of the world's population ac-counted for 50 percent of the world's R&Dspending.26EU officials have re-peatedly described these figures as worrying for the future economicperformanceof Europecomparedwith the United States;it is also worryingfor Europe'sfuturecapacityto rival the United States in highly capablemili-tary technologies.To judge the militaryvalue of these R&Dinvestments more carefully, t isnecessaryfirstto separatethe less vital privatecomponentfrom the more vitalpublic component. The private share of the total U.S. R&Dportfolio has in-creasedsignificantly, rom 50 percent n the mid-1980sto more than66 percentof the totalin 2003.27Duringan interlude n the 1990s,this continuedprivatiza-tion of U.S.R&D,which reflected n parta realdollarshrinkageof public fed-eral R&D,caused some defense advocates to worry.In constantdollar terms(fiscalyear2002dollars),totalpublic-sector ederalR&Dbudget authority(de-fense plus nondefense)had earlier ncreasedfrom$60billion in 1976to nearly$90billion duringthe Reaganadministration,but then fell back to just$80bil-lion in the mid-1990s. This concernwas only temporary.The federalR&Din-vestment decline was reversed for nondefense programsin the late 1990s in24. Charles I. Jones, "Sources of U.S. Economic Growth in a World of Ideas," Stanford UniversityEconomics Working Paper No. 97-015 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University, July 8, 1998),http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id?72188.25. Eiseman, Koizumi, and Fossum, Federal Investment in R&D.26. Claire Sanders, "European R&D Draining to U.S.," TimesHigher Education Supplement (Lon-don), June 27, 2003.27. Eric Bloch, "Securing U.S. Research Strength," Issues in Scienceand Technology,Vol. 19, No. 4(Summer 2003), pp. 20-22.


11/31


response to lobbying efforts from the U.S. scientificcommunity.For defenseprograms,the decline was decisively reversed afterthe September11 attacks.Thus by FY 2003, total federal R&D outlays were back up to $112 billion,roughly 20 percentin real dollars above the earlierReagan-erapeak.Federal R&Dinvestments in nondefense programsrecoveredpartly due tothe political strengthof a new domestic science lobby.As Allan Bromley, or-mer assistantto the presidentfor science and technology, explains,"Scientistshave become much more politically savvy, developing effective advocacygroups that drive federal policies and budgets through grassroots lobbying,media initiatives,and CapitolHill events."28When totalfederal R&Dspendingwent into a decline in the mid-1990s,this domestic science lobby pushed suc-cessfully to revive at least the nondefense componentof that spending.The Clintonadministrationhad initiallybeen neglectful of federal R&D n-vestments.Inhis firstterm,BillClinton failed to meet even oncewith the Presi-dent's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.He also undercuttheexecutive branch access of scientists by replacing the FederalCoordinatingCouncilforScience,Engineering,and Technologywith a new NationalScienceand TechnologyCouncilthat he chairedbut failed to use.29Beginningin 1995,the domestic science community responded to this neglect with a successfulCongress-based obbyingeffort. InJune1996,the AmericanAssociation fortheAdvancement of Science circulatedin Congress a budget analysis that pro-jected a further25-30 percentconstant-dollardecreasein federal science andtechnology supportbetween FY1995 and FY2000,promptingfive Republicansenatorsled by PhilGrammof Texas o submitlegislationin January1997call-ing for a doubling of the nondefense federal science and technology budgetover the next decade.In the post-Cold Warpoliticalenvironmentof the 1990s,the scientific community used national economic competitiveness as itsjustification or advocating more nondefense federal R&Dmoney.As a resultof these lobbying efforts, the president's FY 1999 budget request containedsignificantnew increases for nondefense federal R&D.In addition, betweenFY1996 and FY2000,federalnondefenseR&Dbudget authoritywas increased24 percentin nominal terms.Thepost-Cold Wardecline in federalmilitaryR&Dspending took longertoreverse. In constant dollar terms, U.S. military R&D fell 16 percent between28. D. Allan Bromley and Michael S. Lubbell, "Science's Growing Political Strength," Issues in Sci-ence and Technology,Vol. 19, No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 13-15, at p. 13.29. Ibid.


12/31


1991 and 1996.30 While federal nondefense R&D began increasing after 1996,spending for military R&D remained essentially flat. By 1998, defense S&T ad-vocates in the U.S. Senate led by Senators Joseph Lieberman, Jeff Bingaman,and Rick Santorum were sounding the alarm and calling for annual 2 percentincreases in military R&D, above the rate of inflation. In 1999, writing in JointForce Quarterly,Lieberman asked, "With a 30 percent decline in military re-search, and another decrease slated for the next fiscal year ... where will ourtechnical superiority come from?"31Such alarms failed at first to trigger any noticeable presidential or congres-sional response, and by FY 2001, Department of Defense R&D spending wasdown to just 43 percent of total federal R&D spending, well below the FY 1986peak level of 63 percent.32 Support for military R&D spending was only re-stored following the arrival of a new Republican administration in Washingtonin January 2001, and then most decisively following the September 11 terror at-tacks. Total defense spending increased dramatically; and as a subcategory,military R&D investments increased as well. By 2002, according to calculationsprepared by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, U.S. mili-tary R&D spending had recovered enough in constant dollar terms to surpasseven the 1991 late Cold War-era level, as shown in Table 2. This recovery ofU.S. federal defense R&D outlays continued into 2003, when total Departmentof Defense outlays for research, development, testing, and evaluation reached$56 billion.33 The United States, by 2003, was spending roughly as much onjust the weapons development component of its military budget as any othersingle state was spending on its entire military budget.Most U.S. defense R&D investments are in the development, testing, andevaluation of specific weapons systems, but the Department of Defense alsoengages in more basic S&T research, to provide the more fundamental scienceand technology knowledge needed to meet future military requirements. Cur-rent priorities for S&T spending include further investments in IT so as to ad-30. SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Project, June 2002, http://projects.sipri.se/milex/aprod/nationaldata/equip_exp_mil_r&d.pdf.31. Joseph I. Lieberman, "Techno-Warfare:Military R&D," JointForcesQuarterly,No. 22 (Summer1999), pp. 13-17, at p. 14.32. "FY 2001 Department of Defense Share of Federal R&D Funding Falls to Lowest Level in 22Years,"Data Brief NSF 01-319 (Arlington, Va.: Division of Science Resources Studies, National Sci-ence Foundation, February 26, 2001). The Department of Defense R&D budget accounts forroughly 94 percent of total national defense R&D budget authority. R&D funding for the Depart-ment of Energy's atomic energy defense activities accounts for the remaining share.33. Current information on U.S. defense R&D spending policy is available at the American Insti-tute of Physics Bulletin of SciencePolicy News, http://www.aip.org/enews/fyi/.


13/31


Table 2. Expenditure on MilitaryR&D n the United States and Western Europe, 1991-2002 (U.S.$ billions, at constant 2000 prices)1991 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

United States 49.7 42.1 41.6 42.5 42.0 42.7 42.6 44.5 50.6United Kingdom 4.4 3.6 3.7 3.9 3.4 3.7 3.7 - -France 6.5 4.5 4.3 3.4 3.2 3.1 3.1 3.5Germany 2.0 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.2Total European Union 14.9 11.1 10.9 10.5 9.8 9.8 9.7 - -SOURCE:IPRIMilitaryExpenditureand Arms Production Project,June 2003, http://projects.sipri.se/milex/aprod/nationaldata/equipexpmil_r&d.pdf.

vance the RMA; missile defense; and new weapons and capabilities based onnanotechnology, biological sensors, and robotics. This S&T budget in the De-partment of Defense supports roughly 35 percent of all federal research incomputer sciences and 40 percent of all federal engineering research. Follow-ing the September 11 attacks, this important subcategory of defense R&Dspending increased as well, reaching $10 billion in FY2002, back up in real dol-lar terms to the early 1990s' level.34THE POSITION OF POTENTIAL RIVALSAs U.S. investments in defense R&D were recovering from their initialpost-Cold War slump, other governments allowed such investments to con-tinue sliding. Table 2 reveals that Europe was falling further behind the UnitedStates in military R&D investment even prior to September 11. The ratio of U.S.to total EU spending on military R&D was slightly more than three to onewhen the Cold War ended in 1991, and by 2000 had increased to more thanfour to one. Among all the wealthy nations of the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD) between 1990 and 1998, the defenseshare of budgetary R&D appropriations declined from 37 percent to 30 per-cent, but the ratio in the United States declined briefly and then recovered to55 percent.35The closest competitor to the United States in terms of allocatingR&D budget shares to the military has been the United Kingdom (35 percent),followed by the Russian Federation (30 percent), but these countries havemuch smaller R&D budgets overall. The United States still puts 0.4 percent of

34. Eiseman, Koizumi, and Fossum, FederalInvestment in R&D, p. 69.35. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "R&D Defence Spending Falls,"OECD Observer,April 28, 2000.


14/31


its GDP into military R&D,more than twice the proportionallotted by theUnited Kingdomor France.Japan s a heavy R&Dspender,but it allocatesonlya trivial0.03 percentof its GDP to defense R&D.ThemilitaryR&Deffortsof today'sRussianFederationareonly a fractionofthe determined(yet still inadequate)efforts made by the Soviet Union duringthe Cold War.The Soviet Union at one point was devoting as much as 2-3 per-cent of its grossnationalproductto militaryR&D,a largersharethan most in-dustrial countries now invest in total R&D.36When the Soviet systemcollapsed, state spending on militaryR&Dwas sharplyreduced,and Russia'sonce-privilegeddefense scientistswere suddenly obliged to accept ow salariesand to work in deterioratingresearch acilitieswith outdated equipment.Nu-clear physicists protested with hunger strikes or took menial jobs in otherfields. In 1996 the directorof the second largestnuclearresearchcenterin Rus-sia tookhis own life because he could no longerendure a situation n which hisemployees had not been paid forfive monthsand, in his words, were "closetostarvation."37ciencein Russiawill recoveronly slowly from this collapse.To-tal R&Dexpenditures in Russia are now smaller than those in Canada,andonly about 4 percentthe level of total R&Dspending in the United States.38The Chinese economy has now enjoyed twenty-six consecutive years ofstrong growth based in part on the acquisition of new technologies. TodayChina's leaders clearly aspire to close the military technology gap with theUnitedStates,yet theirsciencecapacitiesremainfar behindthose of theUnitedStates.The list of deficits is long. InmicroelectronicsChina's most advancedfa-cilities have been six to eight years behind the state of the art and continuetobe criticallydependent on imports.China has only limited supercomputerca-pabilities and its PCs are composed primarilyof imported parts. In telecom-munications China depends on foreign firms for advanced transmissiontechnologies.China's nuclearpower industry is rudimentary,and its aviationindustry is based mostly on antiquatedSoviet technology.In space China'slaunch capability s impressivefor a developing country,but its satellitecapa-36. Roger Cliff, TheMilitary Potentialof China's CommercialTechnology,MR-1292-AF (Santa Monica,Calif.: RAND, 2001), p. 63.37. Quoted in Theodore P. Gerber, "From Crisis to Transition: The State of Russian Science Basedon Focus Groups with Nuclear Physicists (U)," UCRL-JC-146574 (Livermore, Calif.: LawrenceLivermore National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, 2001), http://cgsr.llnl.gov/future2002/ponarsversion3_12-10-01.html.38. Comparisons are made converting foreign currencies to U.S. dollars with OECD purchasingpower parity exchange rates. Eiseman, Koizumi, and Fossum, FederalInvestment in R&D, p. 117.


15/31


bilities remainlimited.39Accordingto a 2001 assessment, in militarytechnol-ogy China is destined to remainsignificantlybehind well into the future:China'soverallmilitarytechnologyin 2020 will still be significantly nferior othat of the United States,for several reasons.First,... China'saveragelevel ofcommercialtechnology will still lag behind advancedworld practice.Second,because development cycles for weapons are long, military systems are oftendesigned around technologies that are a decade or more old by the time theweapons become operational (In the United States, 13 to 15 years typicallyelapsebetween the initiationof a majorweapon developmentprogramand theinitial operationalcapabilityof the first productionunits). Thus, the militarysystems that the United States and China field in 2020will largely reflectthetechnologiesavailable to those countriesin 2010or earlier.Finally, he processof translating civilian technological capabilities to military technology isnontrivial.Eventhough militarysystems build on technologiesthat are funda-mentally civilian, they still involve technologies that are specificallymilitaryand thus must be independentlydeveloped. Furthermore, ven if all the com-ponent technologiesof a weapon system are available,the processof integrat-ing them into a smoothly functional whole is challenging. This has beendemonstrated,for example,by the difficultiesJapan'sdefense industrieshaveexperiencedin developing F-2 indigenous fighteraircraft.40

China'sstock of scientificcapitalis growing rapidly,but it still remainslim-ited by advancedcountrystandards.DespiteChina'ssize, totalnumbers of sci-entists and engineers currentlybeing trainedin China are substantiallyfewerthan in the United States. The United States awards roughly eight times asmany doctoraldegrees in the naturalsciences and in engineeringas China.De-spite several decades of strongeconomicgrowth,China'stotal R&Dspendingremains less than 25 percentof the U.S. R&Dtotal (in purchasingpower dol-lars)and only 50 percentof theJapanese otal.Much of China'sscientificprog-ress results not fromindigenousR&Dbut fromtechnologytransfersassociatedwith foreign investments by private firms. Indigenous innovation remainsdifficultin Chinabecause of various institutionalconstraints ncludingcontin-ued state controls over informationflows, weak factor markets,and inade-quate protectionsfor intellectualproperty.RogerCliff concluded in 2001 thatChina'sresources or technologicalprogresswere roughlycomparable o those

39. Cliff, The Military Potential of China's CommercialTechnology,pp. x-xi. In 2003 China used amodified version of the Russian Soyuz technology to put its first manned satellite into orbit, fourdecades after this had been done by the Soviet Union and the United States.40. Ibid., p. 62.


16/31

InternationalSecurity29:1 1136

of South Korea or Taiwan in the 1970s, implying that by 2020 China's civilianeconomy might be able to attain the average technological level of South Koreaor Taiwan today.41This will not be enough to catch the United States, whichwill hardly be standing still, given its continued four to one advantage overChina in new R&D investments.

China's post-Maoist leaders appreciated the contribution of science to mili-tary preparedness, as Deng Xiaoping put technology and the military thirdand fourth-after agriculture and industry-on his list of the "fourmodernizations" that China should pursue in the 1980s. High technology wasthen elevated to even higher priority after 1986, when China launched theso-called National High-Technology Research and Development Program(the 863 Program, so-named because it was initiated in March 1986) to speedthe development of military and dual-use technologies in areas such as IT,la-sers, biotechnology, and space. In 1987 the father of China's strategic missileprogram, Qian Xuesen, told his colleagues that China must ready itself forwhat he called a century of sustained "intellectual warfare."42The urgency ofthis new effort was reinforced when China witnessed the dominance of U.S.high-technology weapons in the 1991 Gulf War.At that point, Chinese militarytheoreticians began to endorse an even wider range of military high technolo-gies, including information warfare, space weapons, directed energy, nano-weapons, unmanned combat planes, and more. The People's Liberation Army(PLA), which traditionally had counted on quantity to trump quality, began totalk of switching to a quality-based RMA.43 In September 2003 China's militarychief, Jiang Zemin, officially announced that the nation would reduce the sizeof its current forces so as to redeploy its limited resources to "quicken the paceof constructing our military's information technology."44Such efforts notwithstanding, China will not be able to switch quickly froma high-quantity force to a high-quality force. The Soviet Union failed to catchup in a qualitative arms race with the United States in the 1970s and 1980seven though it devoted 2 to 3 percent of its entire gross national product to mil-itary R&D. For China, a comparable level of military R&D spending today

41. Ibid., p. xv.42. EvanA. Feigenbaum,China'sTechno-Warriors:ationalSecurity ndStrategicCompetitionromthe Nuclear to the InformationAge (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003).43. Richard D. Fisher Jr.,"Military Sales to China: Going to Pieces," ChinaBrief,Vol. 2, No. 23 (No-vember 21, 2002), Jamestown Foundation.44. Quoted in Joseph Kahn, "China Plans to Cut 200,000 Troops over 2 Years," New YorkTimes,September 2, 2003, p. A9.


17/31


would requirean unlikely doubling of total militarybudget outlays.45Ratherthan tryingto matchthe United StatesB-2 bomber for B-2bomber,Chinawillmore likely focus in the short run on possible "niche"or "asymmetric"re-sponses to the overwhelmingU.S.superiority n science-basedweapons. Virusattacks on U.S. computernetworks or laser attackson U.S. satellitesmight bean example.46

How Secure s the U.S. Lead n ScienceandTechnology?Two hypotheticalthreats to the currentU.S. lead in S&Tmust be considered.The first is the more rapid pace at which scientific innovations now spreadacross borders in the age of globalization.Will this more rapid diffusion ofscientific knowledge give a catch-up advantage to laggards and make itdifficult for the United States to hold its current ead? Thesecond is the contin-uing underperformance f U.S. public schools in teachingscience and mathe-matics in grades K-12. Willpoor science educationat home undercutthe U.S.lead abroad?A frontpage New YorkTimes rticle n May2004 assertedthattheUnited States had "alreadystartedto lose its worldwide dominancein criticalareas of science and innovation."Some of this loss may be real,but much isimagined.4745. Cliff, The Military Potential of China's CommercialTechnology,p. 63. Estimating China's totalspending on military R&D is difficult, even for Chinese officials, because much of the official de-fense budget excludes R&D outlays. The nominally private defense industries run by civilian min-istries under the State Council, or operated now by corporation groups, maintain production linesfor PLA military orders and have their own R&D institutes that develop military products fromweapons to satellites. Most investment in military R&D in China comes not from the defense bud-get but from the civilian investment budget. Xiaonong Cheng, "Written Testimony for U.S.-ChinaCommission Public Hearing on China's Budget Issues," December 7, 2001, http://www.uscc.gov/textonly/transcriptstx/tesxia.htm.46. James R. Lilley and David L. Shambaugh, eds., China'sMilitary Faces the Future (Armonk, N.Y.:M.E. Sharpe, 1999). A PLA Art Press publication in 1999 entitled Warfarebeyondthe Rules arguedthat China should not fall into the trap of trying to match or defeat U.S. forces on the RMA bat-tlefield. Instead China should consider a number of radically asymmetric actions (called "nonmili-tary war" actions or "nonwar military" actions) including cyberattacks, terrorism, drugsmuggling, environmental disruption, and the use of weapons (including chemical and biologicalweapons) not recently permitted under the international laws or rules of war. See Ming Zhang,"China: War without Rules," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 55, No. 6 (November/December1999), pp. 16-18.47. This article cited a dip in numbers of papers published by U.S. physicists, and a drop in theU.S. share of its own industrial patents, back down to 52 percent (i.e., the 1990 level). WilliamBroad, "U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences," New YorkTimes,May 3, 2004, p. Al.


18/31

InternationalSecurity29:1 138

THE MORE RAPID DIFFUSION OF TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGEIn the age of globalization,with scientificknowledge diffusing more rapidlyacrossborders,will leading scientificstates find it more difficult to maintaintheiradvantage?Thewider availabilityof low-cost telecommunicationshas in-deed led to a "demise of distance"as regards nformationflows.48One empiri-cal study of science and technologyinformation lows within the United Statesbetween 1975and 1999 discovered the average geographicdistancebetweenscientificcollaboratorsand the average distancebetween inventors and thoseciting their inventions had increasedby roughly two-thirds.49 Yet"digitaldi-vides" between advantaged and disadvantaged societies can impede thisspreadof scientific and technicalinformation,and such divides cannoteasilybe bridged through new investments in hardwarealone.50Uptake and effec-tive use at the receivingend depends heavily on levels of socialor institutionaldevelopment, and on the scientific and technologicalliteracyof the receivingsociety.51One empiricalstudy found that societies with a science productionrate of fewer than 150 scientificpapers per 1 million inhabitantsper year aremarkedly less able to absorbflows of scientific or technicalknowledge. Thestudy expected this thresholdto rise with the steadily increasingknowledgerequirementsof today's catching-up process.52For societies at the bottom ofthe science capabilities adder,moreknowledge is now availablefrom abroadthrough globalization,but the quantityneeded to catchup is even greater,andtoo little of what is currentlyavailable is taken up or put to effective use.Among countriesthat arescientificallycapable,the international haringofknowledge does have largeeffects,and farmore sharingamong such capablecountries is clearly taking place. Between 1981 and 1995, the internationallycoauthoredshare of all published scientific and technicalarticles,as tabulatedby the National ScienceFoundation, ncreasedfrom 17 percentto 29 percent.Scientists in the United States participatedheavily in these internationalcol-48. JamesGleick, WhatJustHappened: ChronicleromtheInformationrontierNew York:Pan-theon, 2002).49. Daniel Johnson, Nalyn Siripong, and Amy Brown, "The Demise of Distance? The DecliningRole of Physical Distance in Knowledge Transmission," Working Paper 2002-06 (Wellesley, Mass.:Department of Economics, Wellesley College, September 2002).50. Pippa Norris,DigitalDivide:CivicEngagement,nformationoverty, nd the InternetWorldwide(New York:Cambridge University Press, 2001).51. MarkWarschauer,Technologynd SocialInclusion:Rethinkinghe DigitalDivide(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 2003).52. Americo Tristao Bernardes and Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque, "Cross-over, Thresholds,and Interactions between Science and Technology: Lessons for Less-Developed Countries," Re-searchPolicy, Vol. 32, No. 5 (May 2003), pp. 865-885.


19/31


laborations,publishingmoreinternationally oauthoredarticlesthan scientistsin any other country.53 he leading scientific societies now tend to be global,not national.Forexample,morethan one-fifthof all the membersof the Ameri-can PhysicalSociety live abroad,and 60 percentof institutionalsubscriptionsto the journalof this society arepurchased by foreignuniversitiesand labora-tories. Yet this increasedinternationalizationof science need not imply a netleakage of scientificknowledge out of the United States,for several reasons.First, a great deal of American science remains autonomous despite in-creasedinternationallinkages. U.S. scientists do publish more internationallycoauthoredarticlesthan scientists in other countries,but this is only becausethe totalnumber of articlespublishedby U.S.scientists is so large.The interna-tionallycoauthoredshareof U.S.publishedarticles s relatively ow by interna-tional standards, ower thanin Canada,China,the United Kingdom,or any ofthe continentalEuropeancountries.54The bulk of all collaborations n Ameri-can science still remaincontained within the country (the greatestdemise ofdistance has been among collaboratorswithin the United States,ratherthanacrossinternationalborders).Second,a leading reason for the growth of inter-national collaboration n science has been an increased number of "big sci-ence"projects hatrequire he sharingof expensive large-scaleequipment,anda preponderanceof this equipmentis located in the United States. This meansthat most of the foreigncollaboratorsof American scientists arecoming to theUnitedStates,rather hanthe otherway around,and it meansthat the essentialnodes of innovation remain geographicallylocated within the United States.Also, many of these talentedforeign scientists never go home. Nearly 30 per-cent of all Ph.D.'s currentlyengaged in R&Din the United Stateswere bornabroad.55 hisbrain drainworks stronglyto the relative scientificadvantageofthe United States.Hypothetically, he UnitedStatesmightrisk a net loss of scientificadvantageif foreignscientists or studentswere to come on temporaryvisas, work brieflyin U.S.laboratoriesand universities,and thenreturnhome.Manyof those whocome, however,are in fact looking to stay.One 1998study found that 47 per-

53. Caroline S. Wagner, Allison Yezril, and Scott Hassell, InternationalCooperation n ResearchandDevelopment(Santa Monica, Calif.: Science and Technology Policy Institute, RAND, 2001).54. Only India, Japan, and Russia are less internationalized, by this measure, than the UnitedStates. Ibid.55. National Science Foundation,InternationalMobilityof Scientistsand Engineerso the UnitedStates-Brain Drain or Brain Circulation?NSF 98-316 (Arlington, Va.: Directorate for Social, Behav-ioral, and Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation, revised November 10, 1998).


20/31


cent of foreign students on temporary student visas who earned doctorates inthe United States in 1990 and 1991 stayed on and were still working in theUnited States in 1995, and the students most likely to stay were those fromnonallied countries. Nearly 90 percent of science Ph.D.'s from South Koreawent home, and roughly half of the Canadians went home, but 79 percent ofIndian Ph.D.'s were still working in the United States when this 1998 studywas done, and 88 percent of Chinese Ph.D.'s had stayed on.56 U.S. law hasmade it easier for Chinese students to remain in the United States followingthe Tiananmen Square crisis of 1989, and thousands of China's brightest youngscientists have taken advantage. More than 500,000 students from developingcountries, communist countries, and former communist countries are currentlystudying outside of their home countries-many in the United States-and theNational Intelligence Council estimates that roughly two- thirds of these stu-dents will never go home.57 The comforting picture that emerges for theUnited States is one of "brain circulation" among allied states, combined witha strong net brain drain away from rival or potentially powerful neutral states.Science knowledge also moves internationally when multinational businessfirms transfer technology through commercial sales or foreign direct invest-ments, yet this is hardly an uncontrolled process. The U.S. State Department'sDirectorate of Defense Trade Controls, in the Bureau of Political MilitaryAffairs, is empowered under the 1976 Arms Export Control Act to controlthrough the issuance of licenses the export of specifically identified militaryitems and technologies, including "technical data." Under the InternationalTraffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR),the Department of State controls all itemson a specific munitions list, and enforcers do not require proof that technicaldata changed hands; simply talking to a foreign engineer can trigger a viola-tion charge.58Commercial products and technologies with a potential militarydual-use are similarly controlled under the 2001 Export Administration Act,administered by the Department of Commerce.59There is of course no way to

56. Ibid. Numbers of science and engineering doctoral graduates from China and India who saythey intend to stay began to decline after 1996, according to the National Science Foundation.Broad, "U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance in the Sciences."57. National Intelligence Council, GrowingGlobalMigrationand Its Implications or the United States,NIE 2001-02D (Washington, D.C.: National Intelligence Council, March 2001), p. 23.58. Bruce Berkowitz, TheNew Faceof War:How WarWill Be Fought in the 21st Century (New York:Free Press, 2003), p. 195.59. Communications satellite technologies were recently removed from Department of Commercecontrol and placed under more restrictive State Department ITARcontrol, when it was learned thatU.S. companies had been providing sensitive information to China. Eugene B. Skolnikoff, "Re-


21/31


keep knowledge of sensitive new technologieslockedup forever.Yetwhen po-tentiallyhostile foreignstates do occasionallygain access to finished dual-usetechnologies,the securityloss is often containedbecausethe weaponizationofthese technologies still requiresa strong local R&Dcapability,one that mostlagging technology importers-such as China-still do not have.60In the modernage of more collaborativescience,even U.S.weapons labora-tories have to some extentbecomegloballynetworked.Roughly70-75 percentof the research needed to make progress in weapons-related work is stillunclassified,and it is often best developed in partthroughinternational ollab-oration.In 1998America'sLos Alamos,LawrenceLivermore,and Sandia Lab-oratoriesreceived6,398foreignvisitors, including 1,824visitors from sensitivecountries,and the U.S.employees of these labs traveledfrequently o scientificconferencesand laboratoriesabroad.61s therea dangerin such collaborationsthat U.S. military R&Ddiscoveries will diffuse internationally?Security pre-cautions notwithstanding, knowledge of U.S. advancementsin militaryR&Dwill almost surely spread internationally hrough such linkages,but copyingand imitationthroughespionage will not be enough to bringlaggardstates allthe way up to a full RMAcapability.Copying was at one time a viable option for those trying to catch up withtechnology leaders. When Britaindeveloped its new super battleship HMSDreadnoughtn 1906, it took only three years for Germanyto build its ownNassau-class copy. A scientifically lagging Soviet Union was able (togetherwith the United States)to borrow and build on Germanrocketry nnovationsafter WorldWarII, and the initial U.S. lead in atomic weapons that emergedfromthat same war proved fleetingas well. The first U.S. fissionweapon deto-nation in 1945 was followed by a Soviet detonationonly four years later,andthe firstU.S. fusion weapon detonationin 1952was followed by a Soviet deto-nation just ten months later.Currently, he risk that U.S. rivals will be able to copy and match lead-

search Universities and National Security: Can Traditional Values Survive?" in Teich, Nelson, andLita,AAAS Science ndTechnologyolicyYearbook,p. 65-73.60. Roger Cliff explains: "No matter how advanced the technological level of China's civilian in-dustries or how sophisticated the civilian equipment and components available for import, all Chi-nese weapon systems ultimately have to incorporate purely military technologies, and these haveto be developed indigenously." Cliff, The Military Potential of China'sCommercialTechnology,p. 9.61. Irving A. Lerch, "Terrorism,Globalization, and Fear: Science in the 21st Century," paper pre-sented at the "International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation: Emerging Interna-tional Policy Issues," John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, September23-24, 2002.


22/31


ing-edge military technology innovations is greatly reduced. First, the veryfew statesthatmight be able to copy and matchU.S.IT-basedmilitary nnova-tions arenot rivals.Inthe ITsector,one indicatorof absorptioncapacity s den-sity of internetuse, and among the twenty-nine states in the world in 2000with more than twenty internet hosts per 1,000people (the United Stateshadnine times thatnumber),all but fourwere democracieswithin the OECD,for-mally or informally aligned with the United States.62The only four statesabove this threshold level of ITdensity outside the OECDwere Hong Kong,Israel,Singapore,and the United ArabEmirates.Orconsiderthose states thathave demonstrated some scientific prowess by patenting inventions in theUnited States.About 70 percentof these foreignorigin patentswere grantedtoinventors from just four countries-France, Germany,Japan,and the UnitedKingdom,all formal U.S. allies. The two most rapidly growing foreignpatentapplicantcountries are Taiwan and South Korea,two more allied states. Tai-wan and South KoreasurpassedCanadain 1998to become the fifth and sixthmost-active sources of foreign inventorspatenting in the United States.63Dominantmilitaryinnovationswill also be more difficultfor rival states tocopy becausethey areno longerstand-alonepieces of hardware.TheRMAde-pends on entire systems of both hardwareand software-sensors, satellites,programcodes, and commandsystems,not justweapons platforms.Moreover,only teams of technicallyskilled, highly trained,and continuously practicedpersonnel can operate these networked RMAweapons systems. The superbU.S. all-volunteermilitary force, built specifically to provide such operatingpersonnel, is a unique human and institutionalasset that less capableforeignrivals can neithercopy nor steal.Potentialrivals such as China cannot hope to develop an RMAcapabilitythrough simple transfer,whether by purchase or theft. Through espionageChinamay have been able to gain informationon the W-88warheadused onU.S. Tridentmissiles, and China was nearly successful in purchasingfrom Is-rael the Phalcon system (which contained modern phased-arraytechnology)before the U.S. governmenthalted this sale in 2000.64Yeteven with access tosuch imported or stolen technology,the Chinese military system will not beable to advance to an RMAcapability,given the notorious weakness of thePLA in areassuch as command,control,communications,and intelligence.62. UnitedNationsDevelopmentProgramme,HumanDevelopmenteport,001,p. 60,TableA2.4.63. National ScienceFoundation,Science ndEngineeringndicators,002.64. Fisher,"MilitarySales to China."


23/31


WEAK K-12 SCIENCE TRAINING?Another hypothetical threat to U.S. scientific dominance is the continuingunderperformanceof the primaryand secondary (K-12) education system inthe United States. America's universities are world leaders in science, butmany primaryand secondary public schools in the United States have longunderperformedin science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (theso-calledSTEM ields).In1983the NationalCommissionon Excellence n Edu-cation found the United States lagging behind most other industrializedna-tions and concluded that the nation'ssecuritywas consequentlyat risk:"Ifanunfriendly foreign power had attemptedto impose on Americathe mediocreeducationalperformance hatexists today,we might well have viewed it as anact of war. As it stands,we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.We haveeven squanderedthe gains in student achievementmade in the wake of theSputnik challenge. Moreover,we have dismantled essential support systemswhich helped make those gains possible. Wehave, in effect,been committingan act of unthinking,unilateral educationaldisarmament."65U.S.politicalleadersstruggledto respondto this 1983warning.All stateses-tablishednew contentstandards n mathematics,and most did so in scienceaswell. Finally n 1990,the presidentand the stategovernorsadopted the follow-ing nationalgoal, "Bythe year 2000,United Statesstudents will be the firstinthe world in mathematics and science achievement."66Yet this goal was notmet. InSeptember2000,a new National Commissionon Mathematicsand Sci-ence Teaching or the 21st Century,chairedby formerSenatorJohnGlenn,re-viewed the ThirdInternationalMathematicsand ScienceStudyand discoveredthat the performanceof U.S. students at the 12th-grade evel, relativeto peersin other countries, was "disappointingly unchanged." Out of twenty-onecountriescompared n this study,theUnited Statescamein nineteenth.Amongtwenty nations assessed specifically in advanced math and physics, nonescored significantly ower than the United Statesin advanced math, and onlyone scored lower in physics. Results from the latest National Assessment ofEducationalProgress n 2000 were equallydismal,with fewer thanone-thirdofall U.S. students in grades4, 8, and 12 performingat or above the "proficient"achievement level in math and science, and with more than one-thirdbelow

65. National Commission on Excellence on Education, Nation at Risk (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov-ernment Printing Office, April 1983), p. 5.66. Cited in Lynn Arthur Steen, "Math Education at Risk," Issues in Scienceand Technology,Vol. 19,No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 79-81, at p. 80.


24/31


even the "basic level."67Since 1975 the United States has fallen from third placeto seventeenth place in the proportion of its 18-24 year olds earning scienceand engineering degrees.U.S. science has found a way to overcome this domestic educational handi-cap by importing trained science talent from abroad. In this sense, globaliza-tion can be counted as a support for U.S. science hegemony, not a threat to thathegemony. U.S. universities make up for K-12 educational deficits in scienceand math by attracting well-trained STEM students from abroad, and then bypersuading the best of these foreign students to stay. In all the natural sciencesand engineering, 35 percent of U.S. Ph.D.'s are now awarded to foreign stu-dents. In the physical sciences and engineering specifically, roughly 50 percentof U.S. Ph.D.'s now go to foreign students.68 In addition to universities,high-technology U.S. manufacturing firms have also come to rely heavily onforeign-born graduates for a substantial portion of their growing workforce.69Between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born share of science and engineering doc-torates in the U.S. workforce increased from 24 percent to 28 percent. When itcomes to science, the United States remains the preeminent land of immi-grants. In 1999 all four of the U.S. Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry,physiology/medicine, and economics were born outside of the United States.

Roughly one-third of the foreign scientists now working in the United Statesarrived already fully trained.70When the United States allows graduates fromIndia's elite institutes of technology to enter with temporary visas, the nationgains access at no charge to a human capital resource that costs the govern-ment of India roughly $15,000-$20,000 per student to train. By implication,when Congress in 1998 eased the annual quota on H-1B visas, thus facilitatingmovement into the country for roughly 100,000 of these well-trained Indianprofessionals, the training cost savings for the United States equaled $2 billionper year.7"As long as the United States can continue to attract this trained for-

67. Before t's TooLate:A Reportto theNationfromthe National Commissionon Mathematicsand ScienceTeaching or the 21st Century, http://www.ed.gov/inits/Math/glenn/report.pdf.68. Irving A. Lerch, "Terrorism, Globalization, and Fear: Science in the 21st Century." See alsoDuncan T. Moore, "Establishing Federal Priorities in Science and Technology," in Teich, Nelson,and Lita, AAAS Scienceand TechnologyPolicy Yearbook, p. 273-283.69. John A. Armstrong, "The Foreign Student Dilemma," Issues in Scienceand Technology,Vol. 19,No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 22-23.70. National Science Foundation, International Mobility of Scientists and Engineers to the UnitedStates-Brain Drain or Brain Circulation?71. United Nations Development Programme, Human DevelopmentReport,2001. According to anestimate by the American Immigration Lawyers' Association, there are some 900,000 H-1B em-ployees in the United States today, 35 percent to 45 percent of them from India. Cited in Saritha


25/31


eign talent, the weakness of its own K-12 science preparation system will nothave to undermine U.S. science hegemony overall.New RisksPost-September1:AsymmetricAttack?The September 2001 terrorist attacks and their aftermath highlight several newrisks in this regard. The attacks are a vivid reminder that science-based domi-nance on the conventional battlefield does not protect against unconventionalattacks on soft nonbattlefield targets, using fuel-laden hijacked airliners,weaponized anthrax spores, dirty bombs, or worse. As U.S. conventionalweapons supremacy grows, those who resent and resist U.S. power may bedriven to employ increasingly asymmetric attack responses against ever-softertargets, including homeland targets. There is no way to completely eliminatethis asymmetric challenge, but there are ways to contain it.First, this threat can be addressed through science itself. In 2002 the NationalScience Foundation initiated a series of new grants designed specifically tocounter asymmetric terror threats by supporting breakthroughs in areas suchas cybersecurity and the detection and decontamination of biological or chemi-cal warfare agents. The new U.S. Department of Homeland Security is invest-ing more than $1 billion a year in R&D. Such efforts can and should beexpanded, as is noted below.

Policy judgment and restraint are the second key to containing asymmetricthreats. Science-based dominance has made the use of conventional forcemuch easier for U.S. officials to contemplate, which brings a danger of morefrequent and more careless use of force in circumstances where the conven-tional military results may be positive, but the political results negative.72 If aconventional military "victory" creates new and determined political enemies,one unintended consequence can be an increase in asymmetric threats, eitherto deployed U.S. forces (as in Iraq), or U.S. citizens and commercial assetsabroad, or even to the homeland. More frequent and more aggressive U.S. mili-tary actions might also speed the proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilitiesamong states hoping to deter U.S. conventional might. To contain thegrowth of asymmetric threats, it thus becomes essential to make sound judg-

Rai, "Cap on U.S. Work Visas Puts Companies in India in a Bind," New YorkTimes,October 1, 2003,p. W1.72. Seyom Brown, The Illusion of Control:Forceand Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (Washington,D.C.: Brookings, 2003).


26/31


ments about the most likely political reactionsof conventionallydefeated orthreatened adversaries. WilliamsonMurrayand Robert Scales argue that theUnited Statesneeds to makelarger nvestmentsin politicaland culturalknowl-edge, not justscientificknowledge, if it is to wage conventionalwars with suc-cess.73Knowingwhen an exerciseof U.S. conventionalmilitarydominancewillbe resented and resisted becomes essential to minimizing a proliferationofasymmetricthreats.This calls for more political science, not just more rocketscience.Thatsaid, the threat of asymmetricresponses would not be any less if theUnited Stateswere to decide to invest less in science. ThomasHomer-Dixonhas argued that scientifically sophisticated systems and societies somehowpresentsofter and more inviting targetsto terroristgroups.74Thisargument sbelied, so far,by the actual targetchoices made by the terrorists hemselves:low-technology targetsin low-technologysocieties (embassiesor hotels in Af-rica), or middle-technology targets in low-technology societies (commercialaircraftoperating n Africaand U.S. naval ships at anchor n Arabianports),orat most middle-technology targets in high-technology societies (commercialand government buildings in the United Statesor commutertrainsin Spain).High-technology targets in high-technologysocieties are apparentlynot thatinviting, even to relatively sophisticated middle-technology terroristgroupssuch as al-Qa'ida.Evenin the face of asymmetric hreats,more scienceusuallymeans more security.New RisksPost-September1:ReducedAccess to ForeignScientistsMore sciencewill be good forsecurity,but an overzealouspursuitof homelandsecuritynow risks a weakeningof U.S.science.An excessive tighteningof U.S.visa policies post-September11 is reducingthe vital flow of foreignscientistsinto the United States. BetweenFY2001and FY2003,successfulU.S.visa ap-plicationsin all categoriesfell from 10million down to 6.5million.Thenumberof temporaryworker visas issued specificallyfor jobs in science and technol-73. Murray and Scales, The War in Iraq, p. 241.74. According to Homer-Dixon, "Violent groups will soon recognize the rewards from attackingnon-redundant, high-value nodes in our increasingly complex technological and economic net-works. These attacks will be intended to precipitate cascades of failures or the collapse of wholetechnological and social systems." See "Synchronous Failure: The Real Danger of the 21st Cen-tury,"remarks by Thomas Homer-Dixon to the Elliot School of International Affairs, George Wash-ington University, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004, http://www.gwu.edu/~newsctr/newscenter/ 1212/homerdixon.html.


27/31


ogy in the United Statesdropped more sharply,falling by 55 percent in 2002alone.75Theweakerpost-September11U.S.economy can be blamed for someof this decline,but not all.Tightenedvisa proceduresaremaking entryinto theUnited Statesby foreign scientists significantlymore difficult.Some tighteningof U.S.visa and immigrationpolicies was appropriateafterSeptember11,as the Immigrationand NaturalizationService (INS)had gonetoo far in allowing suspectforeignnationalsto abuse their visa status. The Pal-estinianimmigrantwho drove a truckof explosives into the WorldTradeCen-ter's underground parking garage in 1993 had come to the United Stateslegally on a student visa in 1989,but then overstayedand was two years "outof status"by the time of the attack.Congressin 1996passed an Illegal Immi-grationand ImmigrantResponsibilityAct designed to police such visa abus-ers,but the university-basedNational Association of ForeignStudentAdvisorsprevented effective implementation.76f a stronger student visa monitoringsystem had been in place in 2001, the September 11 hijackerswould havefound it more difficult to elude detection. Instead the hijackersremainedfa-mously unnoticedby the INSeven months after the attack.Exactlysix monthsafterthe attack,a belatednotificationwas delivered to a flightschool in Venice,Florida,grantingvisa renewalrequestsfor two of the hijackerswho died in theattacks.77 ollowingthis embarrassment, NS was moved into the new Depart-ment of Homeland Securityand renamed U.S. Citizenship and ImmigrationServicesin 2003.78

Havingpreviouslyerredon the side of being too lax,U.S. visa authoritiesarenow erringon the side of being too strict.Traditionally,oreign nationals ac-cepted to study science at American universities could expect to receive visasat U.S. embassiesby providing only a passport,a university letterof endorse-

75. James Glanz, "Study Warns of Lack of Scientists as Visa Applications Drop," New YorkTimes,November 20, 2003, p. A24.76. Nicholas Confessore, "Borderline Insanity," Washington Monthly, May 2002, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001 /0205.confessore.html.77. See Mark Potter and Rich Phillips, "Six Months after Sept. 11, Hijackers' Visa Approval LettersReceived," http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/03/12/inv.flight.school.visas/.78. An urge to tighten this relaxed approach had arisen even prior to September 11, following the1998 nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan and also with the sensational allegations in1999 (which later proved mostly wrong) that a Taiwanese-born scientist acting out of disloyaltyhad perpetrated a security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the aftermath of this LosAlamos panic, the State Department began working more aggressively to screen immigrant visaapplications from scientists in particular, using an expanded list of twenty different sensitive disci-plines and an equally long list of sensitive countries, including China, Pakistan, Russia, and evenSouth Africa.


28/31


ment, and recordsshowing they could affordto live in the United States. Fol-lowing the September11attacks,U.S. consularofficershave become subjecttocriminalpenaltiesif they granta visa to someone who subsequentlycommitsaterroristact in the UnitedStates,so as a consequence argernumbers of visa re-quests areeither denied or delayed. Foreignscientistswere among the first tobe squeezed out by such new policies.79n2002comparedwith the yearbefore,the UnitedStatesgave 8,000fewer visas to visiting scholars,researchers,each-ers, and speakers.Some individuals caught in this squeeze were prominentforeign scholars invited to speak at scientificmeetings or teach at Americanuniversities. In December2002the threepresidentsof the U.S.NationalAcad-emies of Sciences,Engineering,and Medicine issued a statementwarningthatongoing researchcollaborationshad alreadybeen hampered,outstandingfor-eign scientists had alreadybeen preventedfromenteringthe country,and im-portant international conferenceswere already being canceled or disruptedbecause of visa delays.soIn 2003 a new rule requiredmost visa applicantstoundergo in-person interviews with U.S. consular officials overseas, causingstill more delays.81Valuablescience students are being kept out of the United Statesby thesenew procedures.Accordingto a spring 2003 report by the AmericanInstituteof Physics, numbersof internationalstudents entering graduatephysics pro-grams dropped by roughly 15 percent after September11, and a survey ofphysics departmentchairsrevealed thatat the beginning of the 2002 academicyear,about 20percentof international tudentsadmittedinto graduatephysicsprogramshad been unable to startspecificallybecause of visa problems.82Allthree of the top students (from an applicant pool of 224) accepted by theBiostatisticsDepartmentat JohnsHopkins University in 2003 could not startbecause of visa problems.83n one case, several hundred outstanding young79. Dana Wilkie, "Foreign Scientists Steer Away from States," Scientist, March 24, 2003.80. As an example, when the World Space Congress was held in Houston, Texas, in 2002, morethan 100 overseas delegates-including an eminent Russian astrophysicist-could not get visas intime and missed the meeting. See "Current Visa Restrictions Interfere with U.S. Science and Engi-neering Contributions to Important National Needs," statement from Bruce Alberts, president,National Academy of Sciences; William. A. Wulf, president, National Academy of Engineering;and Harvey Fineberg, president, National Institute of Medicine, December 13, 2002,http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/s12132002?OpenDocument.81. Marjorie Valbrun, "U.S. Passport Rules Could Hit Allies," Wall Street Journal,June 20, 2003,p. 2.82. John A. Armstrong, "The Foreign Student Dilemma," Issues in Scienceand Technology,Vol. 19,No. 4 (Summer 2003), pp. 22-23.83. Joseph Joffe, "Locking Out the Brainpower?" WashingtonPost, November 23, 2003, p. B7.


29/31


Pakistani students who had been carefully selected by their government as po-tential future university leaders, and who had been accepted for graduatetraining in the United States, experienced a 90 percent visa denial rate in theUnited States post-September 11. These denials are now discouraging new ap-plicants. At 90 percent of American colleges and universities in 2004, applica-tions from international students had fallen, with applications from Chineseand Indian students dropping by 76 percent and 58 percent respectively. Mean-while in Australia, France, and the United Kingdom enrollments are risingrapidly.84

Many visa applicants also experience a kind of virtual denial, due to longerprocessing delays post-September 11. In the months following the attacks, thenumber of names on the State Department's antiterrorist lookout list doubled,and consulates were required to run more visa applicant names through Wash-ington's cumbersome interagency clearance system. Thus by the fall of 2002,the State Department had a backlog of 25,000 visa applications that had notbeen processed."8 For science and technology students, the average wait to re-ceive a visa increased to sixty-seven days, and in some cases delays extendedup to a full year.86Publicly funded science research in the United States has al-ready been disrupted by these new security measures. At the Fermi NationalAccelerator Laboratory, a government facility in Illinois that employs 500 sci-entists from eighteen different countries, those scientists who make routinevisits home to see family experience visa troubles that can block their timelyreturn to work. At the National Institutes of Health, where nearly half of the5,500 staff members with advanced degrees are foreign nationals, employeesare being informally warned about the perils of visiting home.87

Tighter surveillance and security procedures have also begun to discouragetalented foreign scientists from coming to the United States. New federal pro-cedures imposed in May 2002 require universities to monitor the activities oftheir international students more closely. For international students from coun-tries that the U.S. government considers to be sponsors of terrorism, the Na-tional Security Entry and Exit Registration System began to require specialprocedures such as fingerprinting, photos, and trips to check in at district

84. Robert M. Gates, "International Relations 101," New YorkTimes,March 31, 2004, p. A23.85. Bernard Wysocki Jr.,"Foreign Scientists Are Being Stranded by Waron Terror,"WallStreetJour-nal, January 20, 2003, p. 1.86. Diana Jean Schemo, "Decline Seen in Science Applications from Overseas," New YorkTimes,February 26, 2004, p. A16.87. Wysocki, "Foreign Scientists are Being Stranded by War on Terror."


30/31


offices."8n May 2003 the Homeland SecurityDepartmentannouncedas wella requirementfor "biometric"screening at U.S. borders (using photos andfingerprints) or an estimated23 million foreignnationalsenteringthe countryevery year, many of them science students or researchers.This new "FortressAmerica"approachto homeland security puts importantsocial and culturalvalues at risk. It is also demonstrablybad forthe competitivehealthof U.S.sci-ence, and hence for U.S. militaryprimacyin the long run.The homelandmaybe slightly more securein the short run because of these new procedures,butthe long-termhealth of U.S.science is being impaired.David Heyman,directorof the HomelandSecurityProgramat the CenterforStrategicand InternationalStudies, warned in April 2004 that "to win the war on terror,we [the UnitedStates]may lose our scientificpreeminence."89Conclusion: martWeapons,ndPolicies,againstAsymmetricThreatsMilitaryprimacytoday rests on scientificprimacy,and the scientificprimacyof the United States rests on a remarkablydurable foundation. Rather thanthreatening U.S. primacy in science, globalization has strengthened it. Yetscience-basedmilitary primacyon the battlefieldis clearlynot a guaranteeofsecurity.Determinedadversariescan innovate increasinglyasymmetrictacticsagainstan endless list of soft targets,and the more dominationand resentmentthey feel under U.S. conventionalmilitary hegemony,the more incentive theywill have to move toward these unconventionalresponses.Conventionalvicto-ries that makenew enemies may encouragea dangerousshift towardasymme-try, and if the United States then responds by indiscriminately denyingforeignersaccess to the homeland,U.S.primacyin sciencecould itself be criti-cally weakened.The war against internationalterror should be fought with science, ratherthan at the expense of science. The homeland security strategyof the UnitedStates should include much largerscience investments in disciplines such aschemistry, physics, biotechnology,nanotechnology,and informationtechnol-ogy, where promising new counterterrorapplications are sure to be found.Smart societies can develop not only smart new weapons for conventional useabroad, but also smart new capabilities for threat detection and soft target pro-88. Wilkie, "Foreign Scientists Steer Away from States."89. Quoted in Eugene Russo, "U.S. Security Bad for Science?" Scientist, April 26, 2004, p. 1.


31/31


tection at home. Forexample,nanofabricationmay hold the key to a timely de-tection system for some terrorbombing threats.Silicon polymer nanowires2,000 times thinner than a human hair can cheaply detect tracesof TNT andpiric acid in both water and air, and might someday be developed and de-ployed into "smart"cargocontainers,to protectagainst terroristbombs. Newinformationtechnologies using powerhouse terascalecomputing capabilitiesmay soon be able to help in trackingand anticipatingthe behavior of terrornetworks.90New systems capableof detectingdangerousamountsof radiationareincreasinglyaffordableand unobtrusive,and the Departmentof HomelandSecurityhas proposed development of a fully networkednationalsensor sys-tem to monitor the air continuously for pathogens,dangerouschemicals,andother public hazards. One line of defense alreadyin place in thirty cities is aLawrenceLivermoreNationalLaboratory-designed ystem formonitoringtheair for biological attack.Federal investments are alreadymoving the United Statesdown this smartscience-based response path. In the Bush administration'sFY 2005 budget,roughly $7 billion was proposed to develop high-technologydefenses againstterrorattacks, ncluding$3.5billion specificallyforresearchand development.Forexample, the Departmentof Energywill receive$232 million for researchon the detection of nuclearweapons production.PenroseAlbright,assistantsecretary or science and technologyat the Departmentof HomelandSecurity,defends this approachby arguingthat "scienceis the big advantagethe Westhas over these people who would throw us back to the Stone Age."91Sciencecan indeed bring big securitygains in asymmetricas well as in con-ventional military affairs. Yetprotectionof national security requiresthat allmilitaryadvantagesbe used with judgmentand care.Securityrequiressmartpolicies as well as smart weapons. When conventionalmilitary victories aremade easy by smartweapons, an extrameasureof cautionis needed to avoidthe careless creationof dangerousnew asymmetricadversaries.

90. Rita R. Colwell, director, National Science Foundation, remarks to Council of Scientific SocietyPresidents, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2001.91. Quoted in Ralph Vartabedian, "U.S. Funnels Billions to Science to Defend against Terrorism,"Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2004, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/ nation/la-na-homeland 7mar07,0,2406782.story?coll= la-headlines-nation.

Paalberg - Knowledge as Power

Documents