[Infowarrior] - DoD Suppressed Critique of Military Resea

[Richard Forno]

DoD Suppressed Critique of Military Research [Oct. 8th, 2009|04:41 pm]
fassecrecynews
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2009/10/dod_suppressed.html

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/?p=2842

“Important aspects of the DOD basic research programs are ‘broken’,”  
according to an assessment performed by the JASON defense science  
advisory panel earlier this year, and “throwing more money at the  
problems will not fix them.”

But that rather significant conclusion was deliberately suppressed by  
Pentagon officials who withheld it from public disclosure when a copy  
of the JASON report was requested under the Freedom of Information  
Act.  Instead, it was made public this week by Congress in the  
conference report on the FY 2010 defense authorization act, which  
quoted excerpts from the May 2009 JASON report, “Science and  
Technology for National Security.”

“Basic research funding is not exploited to seed inventions and  
discoveries that can shape the future,” the JASONs also determined, as  
quoted in the congressional report (large pdf, in discussion of the  
act’s section 213).  Instead, “investments tend to be technological  
expenditures at the margin.”

Furthermore, “the portfolio balance of DOD basic research is generally  
not critically reviewed by independent, technically knowledgeable  
individuals,” and “civilian career paths in the DOD research labs and  
program management are not competitive to other opportunities in  
attracting outstanding young scientists and retaining the best people.”

These dismal findings, and the large bulk of the unclassified 60 page  
JASON report, were withheld under the Freedom of Information Act by  
the Office of Director of Defense Research and Engineering.  They  
constitute “subjective evaluations, opinions and recommendations which  
are currently being evaluated as to their impact on the planning and  
decision-making process,” according to the August 31, 2009 FOIA denial  
letter (pdf).

The few paragraphs of the study that were released (pdf) nevertheless  
including some interesting observations.  Citing a 2008 report in  
Science magazine, for example, the JASONs noted that “Peking and  
Tsinghua Universities have now overtaken Berkeley and Michigan as the  
largest undergraduate alma maters of PhD recipients in the U.S.”

The DoD research laboratories should be abolished, the late Gen.  
William Odom suggested some years ago.  “Few of them have invented  
anything of note in several decades, and many of the things they are  
striving to develop are already available in the commercial sector,”  
he wrote.

“Sadly, these laboratories not only waste money on their own  
activities; they also resist the purchase of available technologies  
from the commercial sector. Because they are generally so far behind  
the leading edges in some areas, they cause more than duplication;  
they also induce retardation and sustain obsolescence,” Odom wrote  
(”America’s Military Revolution,” American University Press, 1993, p.  
159).

But Don J. DeYoung of the National Defense University argued that the  
decline of the military laboratories should be reversed, not  
accepted.  “The loss of in-house scientific and engineering expertise  
impairs good governance, poses risks to national security, and  
sustains what President Dwight Eisenhower called ‘a disastrous rise of  
misplaced power’.”  See “Breaking the Yardstick: The Dangers of Market- 
Based Governance” (pdf), Joint Forces Quarterly, 4th Quarter, 2009.