EX-​​SECDEF: RESEARCH CUTS HURT SECURITY

It’s not just the geeks who are wor­ried. Last week, com­puter sci­en­tists voiced con­cerns about the Pentagon’s retreat from fund­ing blue-​​sky research. In a Times op-​​ed today, for­mer Defense Secretary William Perry and CIA chief John Deutch say they’re ner­vous, too. And not just about the Defense Department’s shrink­ing purse for open-​​ended, basic research. But about the larger step back from the future that the Pentagon seems to be taking.

Of the Pentagon’s $419.3 bil­lion bud­get request for next year, only about $10.5 bil­lion — 2 per­cent — will go toward basic research, applied research and advanced tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment. This rep­re­sents a 20 per­cent reduc­tion from last year, a dras­tic cut­back that threat­ens the long-​​term secu­rity of the nation. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should recon­sider this request, and if he does not, Congress should restore the cut…
Of course, the admin­is­tra­tion and Congress need to make tough bud­get choices. But to shift money away from the tech­nol­ogy base to pay for Iraq, other cur­rent mil­i­tary oper­a­tions or research on large, expen­sive ini­tia­tives, is to give pri­or­ity to the near term at the expense of the future. This is doubt­ful judg­ment, espe­cially at a time when the nature of the threat con­fronting America is chang­ing. New threats, like cat­a­strophic ter­ror­ism and the spread of weapons of mass destruc­tion, urgently call for new technology.

April 13th, 2005 | Money Money Money | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.