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Cosponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and the
Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Commentary on the NAS Report

Rosemary Chalk

The National Academy of Sciences' report Scientific Communication and National Security presents an attractive but incomplete solution to a political problem that contains irreconcilable social choices. It also provides an interesting example of how a "technical fix" can be used in the interactions of science and politics. The report emerged from a process in which a select group of scientists and policy-makers translated politically divisive issues into a set of cost-benefit questions based on unstated assumptions. Those questions were then substituted for the policy conflict itself and, in the process, changed the terms of the debate.

The report emerged from the discussions of a nineteen-member panel chaired by Dale Corson, President emeritus of Cornell University. Appointed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in May 1982, the panel met several times during Summer 1982 with governmental officials and with representatives from various scientific and educational groups. Initially commissioned as a one-year study, the final report was prepared and published about six months after the panel was formed.

The panel was charged by the NAS

to examine the various aspects of the application of controls to scientific communication and to suggest how to balance competing national objectives so as to best serve the general welfare.

Rosemary Chalk is an Exxon Research Fellow for 1982-83 in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is on leave as Program Head of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC 20005.

The original goals therefore were to identify the various social interests at stake in the scientific communication/national security debate ("to balance competing national objectives"), to formulate a set of objectives which would promote the national interest in this debate ("best serve the general welfare"), and to suggest ways in which alternative forms of information controls would promote or weaken the common good.

Political debate on these issues has centered on competing views over how U.S. national security interests should be fostered and protected. One school of thought-represented primarily by those associated with scientific and educational interests argues that openness is an essential feature of our national strength, and that openness should be protected even though the United States might "lose control" over state-of-the-art information in selected scientific or technical fields. Those who share this concern believe that openness in science is both an end in itself-part of traditional American respect for freedom of speech-and a means to enhancing greater scientific productivity and creativity, economic growth, and education. These factors in turn not only contribute to the advancement of military strength but also independently foster a broader foundation for national security. Those who advocate controls-primarily persons with ties to the defense and/or intelligence communities-argue that without military strength there is no national security and that increased attention should be given to maintaining U.S. control over advanced technology. To foster military superiority, therefore, the Federal government should restrict (and certainly should not aid) the transfer (or "leakage") of advanced technologies or information about those technologies to adversary nations. From the perspective of the advocates of control, even though state-of-the-art

1983 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Science. Technology, Human Values, Volume 8, Issue 1, pp. 21-24 (Winter 1983)

CCC 0162-2439/83/010021-04501.80

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22 Science, Technology, & Human Values-Winter 1983

information may at times result from university research, such information should be restricted, whatever its source.

It is possible to imagine two approaches that could resolve these differing views. One approach, based on the issue of openness, could carefully review how openness either fosters or weakens national security. Asking how much openness is desirable would explore how much risk a nation should assume to maintain its open character in the face of possible losses to its military strength. Such a review would involve both a critical assessment of how concepts of national security are defined, and an examination of how competing interests between openness and military strength relate to this concept.

A second approach could be derived from the concerns of those who advocate the need for stronger controls. Rather than looking at openness as a central issue, the focus instead would be on protecting military interests, and would include analysis of threats resulting from unwanted technology transfer. Concerns about openness, or other cultural values, then become "satellite issues" ringing this central question.

From my perspective, the assignment given to the NAS panel was to seek a balance between these competing approaches. What the panel actually did, however, was to accept the latter model as the sole framework for their study, as is clear from their own re-statement of their charge:

In order to determine how and where controls might further the national welfare, it is necessary to balance many factors, including the military advantage from controls, their impact on the ability of the research process to serve military, commercial and basic cultural goals, and their effects on the education of students in science and technology. (pp. 11-12)

The central feature of the NAS study was therefore the issue of "controls" rather than openness. The panel did not attempt to develop a model based on the issue of openness. Instead it sought to derive a formula that would be responsive to the terms of the problem as presented by the defense and intelligence agencies, and yet would impose minimal damage or costs upon their own research and education interests:

(The panel sought to develop solutions that will provide maximum benefits, both in terms of maintaining the health of the U.S. scientific en

terprise and safeguarding national security, while incurring minimum national costs. (p. 16]

Such an approach translated the national policy debate between openness and military controls into a problem of minimizing the impact of military objectives on other national interests. The translated problem was then substituted for the policy debate itself.

From the outset, the panel looked at the question of technology transfer only in a military context Once the members were convinced that some undesirable transfer of technical goods and information had occurred, they explored how the controls sought by the Department of Defense could be developed without seriously damaging the research and education functions of the university. In the process, the panel accepted a set of unstated premises about the military's right to dictate how national security interests should be protected in times of national conflict:

All parties have an interest in ... research and in educating. scientists and engineers These objectives must fit, however, within a system that enables the government to classify work under its sponsorship... and that enables the university to select only work compatible with its principal mission. pp. 4-5, emphasis added]

"Fitting" research and education activities into a national security context, without also addressing such activities in a context based on openness, created a major source of bias within the panci discussions. As a result, the panel did not fully explore the benefits of openness, except as a "cultural factor" that might be harmed by military controls. A notable exception to this approach is the following paragraph, which clearly identified some of the benefits:

The Panel believes that the costs of even a small advance toward government censorship in Amer ican society are high. The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and a free press help account for the resiliency of the nation. It political authority is to be exercised effectively, there must be trust in government on the part of those atfected-a trust that is promoted by openness and eroded by secrecy. Openness also makes possible the flow of information that is indispensable to the well-informed electorate essential for a healthy democracy. Openness also strengthens U.S. in stitutions by allowing comparison with the per formance of others and nurturing adaptation to changed circumstances. [p 50j

The panel thus succinctly identified four major benefits that result from national policies encouraging openness: national resiliency, effective political authority, a responsive democracy, and adaptation to changing circumstances. It noted that the costs of reducing these benefits are high. The report emphasized, however, that costs to military strength resulting from a policy of openness are also high.

Are these costs comparable? If so, what criteria should be used to determine which costs are acceptable? Are both costs restorable over the same time frame, or is one set of interests more vulnerable than the other? Unfortunately, the NAS panel made no effort to grapple with these questions. Instead, it chose an approach that arbitrarily placed priority on reducing damage to U.S. military interests. As a result of this bias, the report seems more concerned about the scientist who slips into areas of military concern than about military interests that may spill over into the working environment of the scientist. For example, the report noted that "scientists working at the research frontier are closer to military applications than they may have intended to be" and that some "scientists may ... extend their research into applications of technology with military relevance." In many cases this may well be the situation, but the report nowhere acknowledged the possibility that the reverse may also be true—that is, that military concerns may be reaching beyond the technical products of scientific work into the processes of science itself: from the what to the how. Instead, the reader is left with the image of the unsuspecting scientist, poor fellow, who stumbles into areas of military application and, as a result, needs guidance.

Having translated the national security/scientific communication debate into a problem of undesirable technology transfer, the NAS panel then proceeded to develop a set of specific recommendations. First, it reviewed the extent and nature of technology transfer from the United States to the Soviet Union, drawing on briefings primarily from classified sources within the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies. When presented with evidence of technology "leakage," the panel concluded that "there had been transfer of U.S. technology of direct military relevance to the Soviet Union from a variety of sources." They did not seek to assess how such transfer may benefit other interests, but accepted such transfer as a serious threat in itself.

Chalk: Commentary on NAS Report 23

The Panel then asked whether this transfer involves a significant amount of research from university sources or the open scientific literature, and concluded:

there is a strong consensus that scientific communication, including that involving the university community, appears to have been a very small part of this transfer up to the present time. Open communication on [sic] basic research results... has, however, contributed to the scientific knowledge base of the Soviet Union as well as to that of other nations.

Finally, the Panel asked whether any areas of university research should be restricted because of their benefit to the Soviet Union. They conIcluded that "limited restrictions short of classification are appropriate" for some "narrow gray areas," and then outlined four criteria that officials should consider in deciding when to impose gov. ernment controls:

The Panel recommends that no restriction of any kind limiting access or communication should be applied to any area of university research, be it basic or applied, unless it involves a technology meeting all the following criteria:

• The technology is developing rapidly, and the
time from basic science to application is short;
• The technology has identifiable direct military
applications, or it is dual-use and involves pro-
cess or production-related techniques;

• Transfer of the technology would give the
U.S.S.R. a significant near-term military benefit;
and

• The U.S. is the only source of information about
the technology, or other friendly nations that
could also be the source have control systems
as secure as ours. [p. 5]

The panel's narrow interpretation of its task is evident in the sole emphasis on military interests I believe that the list would have been strengthened if the panel had added a fifth consideration requiring the military benefits of restricting sensitive information to be balanced against the costs of depriving non-military groups (e.g., the general public) of the data This consideration would urge an assessment of the non-military value of the information deemed to be sensitive to national security concerns, and would require a true balancing of national security interests: that is, weighing a perceived military edge against factors that directly contribute to national vitality and

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strength. For example, new information about the medical treatment of tropical diseases could conceivably fall within the criteria outlined by the panel. Would these criteria apply to a new development in genetic engineering which could have some application to bacterial or chemical warfare? Restricting such information in times of military conflict is at times considered to be appropriate. To do so in times of peace, however, requires stronger justification than the simple acknowledgment that the information may contribute to the military strength of an adversary

nation.

The press commentaries that appeared in the wake of the NAS study were disappointingly superficial. Both major newspapers and scientific news magazines emphasized the extent to which the NAS report agreed or did not agree with the government's assessment of the need for controls. The New York Times (1 October 1982) reported that "there has been 'substantial and serious' leakage of American technology to the Soviet Union," but that "open scientific communications and exchanges, particularly the activities of universities, played 'a very small part' in the leakage." Science magazine (15 October 1982) echoed this theme, emphasizing that the NAS report validated the belief that universities were only a small part of the larger problem of unwanted technology transfer. The Science article reported that the NAS "failed to find evidence that leaks of technical information from universities or other research centers have damaged the national security." Neither article addressed the issue of how concerns about undesirable technology transfer had obscured the importance of questions related to the value of openness in science and in American society.

When the panel translated its charge of identifying and balancing competing national interests into a task of determining how the information controls sought by government officials could be imposed with minimal damage to university and research interests, the creation of a "gray zone of restricted data was inevitable Technology transfer, rather than the development of competing views over what actions best promote national security, emerged as the critical problem. As of the writing of this commentary, there has been no public assessment of the costs to national strength when the values of openness and public communication traditionally associated with American scientific work are compromised as a result of new strategic policies that place heavy reliance upon technical innovation as a primary measure of military superiority.

Given the short time-frame of the study, the temperature of the debate, and the fact that the Department of Defense was the major client for the NAS report, it may have been unrealistic to expect that the panel would seek to conduct an open-ended review of the competing interests at issue in this debate. We could have expected, however, that such studies not be framed as broadbased efforts to foster the common good when the participants accept at the outset a one-sided approach to the problem at hand without independent critique of the terms of the definition of the problem to be addressed. As a result it is necessary to maintain a healthy skepticism toward efforts that present short-term fixes to problems rooted in historical conflicts. Choices between the strengths of an open society and the strengths of military efficiency are difficult ones to make, because they are based on competing political and social perceptions of what combination of interests best promote the common welfare. Developing criteria to assist in the resolution of these choices is a task that still remains.

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