Soldiers in the Laboratory. (January 22, 2005)

     In the November/December issue of Australasian Science Peter Pockley noted:

Buried in the security policy of the Coalition, released only in the final week of the election and unreported, was confirmation of the government’s push to reverse CSIRO’s once-treasured and statutory responsibility as a purely civil agency of science... Now, under Howard, CSIRO has been fundamentally neutered by the government’s policy on science and technology for “national security”, quoted here in full [it is to]:

Establish a special collaborative research and development programme between the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation to further their work on counter terrorism related projects. Projects will focus on chemical and biological protection, intelligence support tools, explosive detection, biometrics and counter measures for civilian aircraft from shoulder fired missiles (MANPADS). This programme will be established using the existing resources of these three organisations.

As Dr Pockley points out, "By definition, the work and outcomes will be shrouded in secrecy. Equally serious is that CSIRO’s 'leadership' is having to fund it from existing appropriations with no defined limits."

Now the British group Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) has released an 81 page report, Soldiers in the Laboratory. "The main purpose of this Report is to document the power and influence of the military in the governance and direction of science, engineering and technology in the UK over the past fifteen years...

    "The report also examines whether some reallocation of the resources that the military currently devotes to weapons-related SET would contribute better to the goals of peace, social justice and environmental sustainability. In exploring this issue, we consider the argument that the concept of security can be more broadly defined, so as to include measures to forestall many of the pressing challenges facing the world today, such as climate change and a range of poverty-related issues."

Among others, physicist Stephen Hawking and astronomer royal Martin Rees are supporters of SGR.

The report bluntly recommends that up to half of British public spending on military research and development should be diverted to more socially useful activities. So for example SGR concludes that security would be better served by addressing global poverty issues, and that some British engineering companies would be fitter if they had to compete in non-military markets. The groups director claims that Britain spends 31% of its research and development budget on military work; only the United States spends more.

In rebuttal  the UK Ministry of Defence said that its weapons research is geared towards making weapons more accurate and bringing fighting to a "swift conclusion", reducing civilian casualties.

It seems it takes a tsunami which, as a single natural event, has caused the greatest loss of human life the planet has known to redress the imbalance shown in the developed world's spending priorities. But is it likely to be more than a one off?