Science, Technology, and Defense

The founding fathers of the United States distrusted and feared government. Nevertheless, they built a central government largely because they deemed it necessary for national defense. They understood that government could also become an engine of tyranny within America. For this reason, they inserted strict binding limitations on federal power into the Constitution. Tyranny has been gnawing at those bindings for 200 years. A combined taxation rate of 50%, depreciating fiat money, enslavement to a vast regulatory bureaucracy, and toleration of the murders in Waco and Idaho (they could have happened in any country - but not without punishment for those involved) are indications that federal power has become too great.

Nevertheless, America is a wonderful country. Moreover, it is our country. It is our duty to improve it where we can, to change it where we must, and to defend it always against its enemies.

For the past century, our defense has been based upon our superior science and technology, the productive industries that these and our free-enterprise economy made possible, patriotic scientists and engineers who devoted their lives to defense applications, and our soldiers, sailors, and aviators who risked their lives in combat.

Until about 1950, the possession of advanced industry, science, and technology and maintenance of a core military organization were, in themselves, sufficient. The nature of weapons and warfare was such that, in the event of national peril, there was adequate time to mobilize these assets and apply them to military needs.

After World War II, however, military technology had become so sophisticated and the time required for its use so short that it was necessary to build and maintain a modern war machine for immediate use. Otherwise, our country could have been defeated and its citizens enslaved in less time than was required for military mobilization.

This perpetual state of mobilization, however, weakened us with respect to other dangers. High military expenditures weakened our economy; fear of a continuous external threat made our people more willing to tolerate a vast expansion of federal power; possession of great and immediate military power tempted our leaders to engage in military adventures of little or no relevance to our defense; and an egotism grew within our ruling elite who came to feel that they should dictate the affairs of the people in other sovereign countries and in the whole world. The dangers of these side effects have grown as the inevitable leveling effect of knowledge erodes our superiority.

Moreover, the latter two dangers gradually changed our military preparations until they emphasized offense and de-emphasized defense. While we (and our enemies) built enormous capabilities for killing the citizens of other countries, we built essentially no defensive protections for our own citizens. Our scientists and engineers developed excellent civil defense technology for protection against chemical, biological, and nuclear attack (lifesaving in war, terrorism, or even accidents), but this was never built for the American people. The people of Switzerland have this defense, but we do not.

Later, our scientists and engineers developed excellent and effective technology for strategic defense. Even if we had no safe shelters from nuclear, biological, or chemical attack, we could diminish the effect of that attack - but we have not built a strategic defense either.

Offensive military technologies have always given rise to mitigating defensive technologies. It is very dangerous for a civilization to ignore the need for modern defenses. This danger does not arise solely from the potential actions of a conquering enemy. Terrorism alone could cost us our freedom. If an anthrax attack killed most of the people in New York City - or a small nuclear weapon were detonated on a boat in San Diego harbor - or fuel-air explosions began to level city blocks here and there in America, what would be our national response? It is easy to imagine that our response would spawn so much repression that we would have lost our freedom.

Some say that we should, at least, limit our risks by disengaging from world affairs so that we have fewer enemies. This is very wise, but the world is a small place. We cannot disengage entirely.

Others say that we should manufacture new enemies that cannot fight back and then vent the whole world's aggressive tendencies on these artificial enemies. This is part of the intellectual basis for the world environmental movement. The apocalyptic aspects of environmentalism are, however, not based upon truth and are not sustainable.

Certainly we should build a civil defense and a strategic defense, but so far this has proved politically impossible.

There is probably no single solution to this problem, but there is one possibility that I have long thought has been overlooked.

Every human being has, within his nature, a hope for greatness - a hope that he or a group to which he belongs will be a part of some great thing that transcends the ordinary prospects of life and death. This hope drives not only the leaders of great human enterprises but also the ordinary citizens who follow them. This hope has made possible some of the great accomplishments of human civilizations, but it has also contributed substantially to the popularity of war.

War is enormously popular - especially among those who have no immediate involvement in the death and destruction. During the recent Gulf War, many Americans were literally dancing in the streets in anticipation and celebration. Tyranny sometimes makes war unavoidable, but it is a flaw of human nature to enjoy it. I do not think that this flaw involves an innate desire to kill - I think it is instead a perversion of the human desire for greatness. We cannot change this desire, but we might make better efforts to redirect it.