Large-scale military funding induces culture clash
Abstract Mission-oriented research shifts the assessment of research products and potential from scientists to external factors. This is the point of mission funding, but it introduces what the author calls ‘epistemic drift’, which is part of a more general clash between different value systems and cultures. The culture clash between the military and industry has led to a shift in debate from spin-off to dual-use technologies. Similar conflicts and tensions are introduced into the university research system by large-scale mission funding such as that of SDI, and it is imperative that universities establish a strong civilian base for fundamental research funding instead of lobbying for military support.
Spin-Off and the Strategic Defense Initiative: Promises, Premises, and Problems
as defense problems should be primarily judged on political, military and strategic grounds. The following article analyzes the factors that determine the extent to which military R&D might create civilian benefits. The determinant can be categorized in technological ones on the one hand and economic, organizational, political ones on the other hand. Both are to some degree interrelated. The technological category regards mainly two facets: the convergence or divergence of military and civilian technology, and the specifics of the military R&D process and technology. The economic, organizational, and political categories comprise above all two aspects: the circumstances under which military programs might substitute civilian industrial policy with the Department of Defense as the main coordinator for economic planning; secrecy for national reasons as a main barrier for spin-off. This paper focusses on the technological factors and on the secrecy issue. 1
White house issues secrecy guideline.
In a reaffirmation of existing policy, the White House has officially stated that the results of fundamental scientific research shall, "to the maximum extent possible," remain unclassified, and thus exempt from constraints on publication or dissemination. In so doing, it appears to have settled a protracted dispute within the Administration over the handling of military research. "No restrictions may be placed upon the conduct or reporting of federally funded fundamental research that has not received national security classification, except as provided in applicable U.S. statutes," reads a statement released by press secretary Larry Speakes on 27 September. "Our goal is to maintain the free and open exchange of unclassified research so necessary to a free society and an expanding economy." This policy, which has been observed by the Defense Department for the last year and a half, essentially finesses a bitter argument between those within the Administration who are interested in blocking the flow of even unclassified technology to the Eastern Bloc through tight restraints on scientific publication and public discussion, and those who believe that U.S. technological superiority depends on as wide an exchange of data as possible within the scientific community. The statement does not rule out, for example, the possibility that the fruits of unclassified research conducted by colleges or universities might eventually be classified. But Colonel Donald Carter, the acting deputy under secretary of defense for research and advanced technology, says that it makes this "a very, very remote possibility." In short, it sets the tone, but leaves a loophole for circumstances where free discussion would reveal secret characteristics of weapons systems or military research facilities. It also does not rule out constraints on the presentation of unclassified yet highly sensitive data at scientific symposia, authorized by a provision in the 1984 defense bill (an "applicable U.S. statute"). In April, the Pentagon cited this law to block the presentation of several dozen papers at a meeting of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers open to foreign-