Opinion | HIGH TECH, A SUBSIDIARY OF PENTAGON INC. (original) (raw)
Opinion|HIGH TECH, A SUBSIDIARY OF PENTAGON INC.
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/29/opinion/high-tech-a-subsidiary-of-pentagon-inc.html
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- May 29, 1985
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May 29, 1985
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America's technology future depends ever more on the Pentagon. But that future is too important to be left entirely to Pentagon strategists.
This year, America will spend about $107 billion on research and development - more than the combined research and development spending of Britain, France, West Germany and Japan. More than a third of this total will be devoted to defense, including 85 percent of our research in advanced technologies like lasers, sensing devices and computers capable of simulating human intelligence. Defense claims only 4 percent of West Germany's research and development budget and less than 1 percent of Japan's.
The trend toward militarization of research has quickened under the Reagan Administration. In the late 70's, only about half of federally sponsored research was defense-related; now it's 70 percent. Research and development is the fastest growing major category in the defense budget - next year, it's scheduled to rise by 20 percent over inflation. Much of this increase is due to the largest, potentially most important research and development project in our history: the Strategic Defense Initiative, or ''Star Wars.''
The amount budgeted for Star Wars research - 1.4billionthisyear,1.4 billion this year, 1.4billionthisyear,2.5 billion next year, the entire effort estimated to cost $26 billion over five years - is not so large relative to the nation's total research budget. But it covers the cutting edge. Measured by the numbers of scientists and engineers involved, and by the required technological breakthroughs, Star Wars promises to be more significant than the Manhattan Project (development of the atomic bomb) or the Apollo moon program.
The real importance of Star Wars is only tangentially related to national defense. But the consequences for national economic development will be profound. The technology used to create X-ray laser weapons could be applied to super-microscopes; the know-how garnered in designing particle accelerators could be applied to irradiating food products. Spinoffs and applications as yet unimaginable could create whole new generations of telecommunications and computer-related products that could underpin information-processing systems in the next century. Meanwhile, Japan is now hell-bent on commercial development of such technologies.
The Pentagon appears to understand the true implications. The campaign has been touted in Congressional hearings as a path to competitiveness in advanced technologies.
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