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Executive Summary
In March 1995, President Clinton ordered a sweeping reexamination
of the United States Government s approach to putting science and technology to
the service of national security and global stability in light of the changed
security environment, increasing global economic competition, and growing
budgetary pressures. This National Security Science and Technology
Strategy, the product of that reexamination, is the country's first
comprehensive Presidential statement of national security science and
technology priorities. It augments the President's National Security
Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement by articulating science and
technology policies and initiatives that support the President's three primary
national security objectives: enhancing our military readiness and
capabilities, preventing conflict from occurring through engagement with other
nations, and promoting prosperity at home. It advances that document's central
approach of preventing conflict and maintaining the capability to respond
should conflict occur. It is built on the recognition that our security depends
on economic strength as well as military power. And it is grounded in the
conviction that investment in science and technology is central to our ability
to meet the challenges ahead. This National Security Science and Technology
Strategy defines our new approaches to applying science and technology to the
challenges that most directly affect our nation's security.
The National Security Science and Technology Strategy recognizes
that, with the end of the Cold War, our nation faces more diverse and complex
challenges. The central security concern of the past half century the threat of
communist expansion is gone, but civil conflict is spreading and rogue states
pose a danger to regional stability. The rapid diffusion of information,
people, capital, and technology raises the risk of proliferation of advanced
weapons, including weapons of mass destruction. And demographic pressures
contribute to large-scale environmental and resource degradation, which saps
economic strength and can undermine political order. Meeting these modern-day
threats to stability and security requires an enduring commitment to diplomatic
engagement, military readiness, and economic performance. In each instance,
science and technology cooperation and investments play a central role. For
five decades, scientific discovery and technological innovation have advanced
our military capabilities and economic prosperity, ensuring the United States'
position as a world leader. Now, as the demands of international leadership are
growing, so too are the demands on our financial resources. This document
describes how investments and international cooperation in science and
technology can contribute to our national security goals in a fiscally
responsible manner.
In the military arena, the challenge is to ready our forces to address a
more varied set of threats while at the same time downsizing and restructuring
our forces to respond to the defense needs of the 21st century. To achieve
these objectives, the Administration has launched a series of initiatives
designed to develop and apply the most advanced technologies, maintain critical
defense-related industrial capabilities, and accomplish these goals in the most
affordable manner.
The Administration is committed to a sustained investment in the
technology base needed to ensure that our nation maintains the best-trained and
best-equipped forces in the world. Our investment strategy involves long-term
research as well as near-term applications as it is only in hindsight that we
are able to discern the revolutionary military capabilities provided by
breakthroughs such as radar, digital computers, semiconductor electronics,
lasers, fiber optics, and navigation systems capable of great accuracy.
New technologies have dramatically enhanced our ability to both prepare
for and execute military actions. By supporting advances in information
technologies, sensors, and simulation, we strengthen our ability to plan and
conduct military operations, quickly design and produce military systems, and
train our forces in more realistic settings. These technologies are also
central to greater battlefield awareness, enabling our forces to acquire large
amounts of information, analyze it quickly, and communicate it to multiple
users simultaneously for coordinated and precise action. As Defense Secretary
William J. Perry has noted, these are the technological breakthroughs that are
"changing the face of war and how we prepare for war."
Steady investment in science and technology also underlies our ability
to succeed in high-priority missions, to minimize casualties, to mobilize all
of our military services swiftly in coordinated action, and to act in concert
with other nations to achieve shared security objectives. New technologies are
being developed to strengthen our efforts in peacekeeping,
counterproliferation, counterterrorism, and the stewardship of a safe and
reliable nuclear weapons stockpile. Technological advances are also being
pursued to fortify the joint fighting capabilities of our services. And
advanced technologies support multilateral efforts to enhance mutual defense
capabilities through standardization and interoperability with the forces of
friendly and allied countries.
To increase the performance and reduce the costs of new defense
technologies, the Administration has launched initiatives that reflect new ways
of doing business. Acquisition reform removes barriers that separate the
defense industry from the commercial industry and thus ensures that the
military acquires the highest quality equipment at the lowest cost. Our
dual-use technology policy recognizes that our nation can no longer
afford to maintain two distinct industrial bases and allows our armed forces to
exploit the rapid rate of innovation of commercial industry to meet defense
needs. The Technology Reinvestment Project supports that policy by leveraging
commercial technology advances to create military advantage. In addition, to
continue the development of advanced, operationally-relevant technologies
without making expensive commitments to product procurement, the Administration
has developed the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration
initiative.
Stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a priority
that requires both science and technology investments and cooperation. The
United States is expanding its cooperation with the states of the former Soviet
Union to dismantle the massive arsenals left from the Cold War at an
accelerated pace, to ensure that weapons and weapons materials are secure and
accounted for, to assure the scientifically sound disposition of these
materials, and to employ former weapons scientists in needed civilian
research.
The Administration is pursuing a broad range of efforts to reduce
existing military threats and stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction
and their missile delivery systems, including new agreements, improved
safeguards, and new technologies for monitoring and verification. We have
secured agreements with Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan to send all the nuclear
weapons on their soil to Russia. We have also achieved an indefinite extension
of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and we are working toward a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Ban on Fissile Materials; for the
ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention; and the strengthening
of the Convention on Biological Weapons.
Science and technology are fundamental to arms control treaty
verification and nonproliferation. The Administration's strategy for investing
in science and technology to support our nonproliferation and arms control
policies focuses on three critical elements: strengthening the technical
know-how to build effective arms restraint; continually improving detection,
monitoring, and verification capabilities; and promoting science and technology
cooperation to advance arms reduction and nonproliferation goals.
The Administration recognizes that there is a broad class of global
threats that endangers the security and well being of Americans and others
around the world. The United States is not isolated from the effects of
disease, disasters, or human suffering a abroad. In the modern world, diseases
readily cross borders; chronic hunger can set off a cycle of instability and
migration that can lead to war; and environmental degradation can have global
consequences that threaten the populations of all nations. Our strategy for
addressing these challenges rests on three pillars: preventive diplomacy,
promoting sustainable economic development, and responding to global threats.
In all aspects of this strategy, science and technology play a central role. By
investing in research and monitoring, this Administration is seeking to
mitigate stresses that can lead to conflict, strengthening efforts in
population stabilization, food security, resource stewardship, natural disaster
mitigation, infectious disease control, and the promotion of scientific
knowledge.
Scientific research and monitoring underlie our ability to respond to
threats such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Global surveillance and
basic biomedical research are key to addressing emerging and reemerging
infectious disease. The Administration is putting into place a national
response to this threat and is working to improve international monitoring
efforts. Science and technology can also assist population stabilization
through education, planning, reproductive health care, and better methods of
contraception; food security through increased agricultural productivity and
improved food preservation, storage, and distribution; resource stewardship
through research that strengthens the sustainable management of temperate and
tropical forests, coastal and marine resources; natural disaster mitigation
through developing and implementing technologies for both monitoring and
mitigation; and the promotion of scientific knowledge about sustainable
development through electronic networks.
To strengthen policies in these areas, the Administration has pursued a
strategy of comprehensive science and technology cooperation with countries in
transition with the goal of promoting scientific discovery and technological
innovation. While in each instance the fundamental objective is the advancement
of knowledge, these "country strategies" are designed to strengthen the science
and technology communities in these countries so that they might contribute to
political and economic reform, economic growth, regional stability, and
sustainable development.
Our nation s security and global stability depend fundamentally on the
strength of our economy and a vibrant, open, international economic system. Our
ability to exercise international leadership, maintain military readiness, and
build a safer and more se secure world depends on the vitality of our economy.
Our economic engagement with other nations strengthens regional stability and
acts to mitigate sources of conflict.
To advance our economic security at home, this Administration places
priority on creating a climate that fosters private-sector innovation:
supporting industry-led partnerships for advanced technology development,
facilitating the rapid deployment of civilian technologies, building a 21st
century infrastructure, maintaining strong support for basic science,
supporting education in science and technology, leveraging dual-use
technologies for commercial markets, and promoting international economic
development and trade through international collaboration.
These investments strengthen innovation and the economy by sharing
risks, enhancing communication, investing in the creation of new knowledge,
improving the infrastructure for societal development, and promoting links to
other nations so that we move forward with the best information and with access
to global markets, strengthening economic stability globally as we enhance
security at home.
Economic security also lies in the creation and expansion of free
markets and the integration of other nations into a larger, more open economic
order. We pursue these objectives by promoting U.S. trade with and investment
in not only established trading partners but also economies in transition. Our
engagement with these rapidly changing economies encourages their adoption of
the norms of free trade-thereby reducing international tensions; provides the
United States with access to capabilities found abroad that strengthen our
economy; and promotes economic growth and political stability in regions
throughout the world. The Administration's "country strategies" for
comprehensive science and technology cooperation are designed to advance these
goals.
Finally, underlying this National Security Science and Technology
Strategy is a recognition that the Federal Government is but one player in
advancing the security of our nation. Industry, academia, nongovernment
organizations, and individuals also play i important roles. For example,
throughout the Cold War, Western scientists and scholars worked with their
Soviet counterparts to advance scientific discovery and to build a basis for
cooperation in arms reduction and nonproliferation. By sustaining and expanding
these professional ties in the post-Soviet era, they can strengthen the Russian
scientific community, which is a force for political reform and whose
participation in the Russian economy is essential to economic reform. Now
private-sector investments in economies in transition can fuel economic growth
that is the basis for political stability. Universities, nongovernmental
organizations, labor, and industry can all play a major roles in promoting the
security of our nation.
The security of this nation depends on our unwavering commitment to
international engagement and science and technology investments designed to
address the complex challenges that we face. This National Security Science
and Technology Strategy describes the Administration's approach to
cooperation and investment in science and technology to keep our nation strong,
prosperous, and secure.
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