Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Speech to Association of American Universities
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Speech to Association of American Universities (Washington, D.C.), Monday, 14 April 2008.
“The Chinese government publishes a tremendous amount of information about military and technological developments on an open-source basis. However, it is often inconvenient, if not impossible, for American researchers to get access to this material since it is often available only in China. A real–or virtual–archive of documents acquired by researchers and others abroad would help us track Chinese military and technological developments.”
“Faculty members at the Naval War College have already instituted a smaller version of this idea focusing on the Chinese Navy. If other colleges and universities were to specialize in other areas, then a consortium–with a common ‘card catalogue’ and interlibrary loan–would allow scholars and schools to pool resources. Further, by holding conferences and sponsoring research, such a consortium would make a very real contribution to our understanding of the intentions of an important world power and military power–an understanding that would have real impact on public policy.”
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Speech to Association of American Universities (Washington, D.C.), Monday, 14 April 2008.
Accompanying media report:
Jeffrey Brainard, “U.S. Defense Secretary Asks Universities for New Cooperation,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 April 2008.
Jeffrey Brainard, “U.S. Defense Secretary Asks Universities for New Cooperation,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 April 2008.
Washington — Even as many academics impatiently await the end of the Bush administration, Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense, is offering university presidents detailed proposals for closer ties between his agency and academe, in areas like studying terrorists and China’s military.
In a speech on Monday to the Association of American Universities, Mr. Gates offered warm and conciliatory words for academe, calling it “this pillar of American society.” He said his remarks had been shaped by his stint as president of Texas A&M University from 2002 to 2006.
Mr. Gates even invoked the words of the liberal historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who said after Sputnik’s launch, in 1957, that the United States “must return to the acceptance of eggheads and ideas if it is to meet the Russian challenge.” The same is true today, Mr. Gates said, if America is to confront new threats.
He said his agency was developing a proposal to finance a new “Minerva Consortium,” named for the goddess of wisdom, of universities to carry out social-sciences research relevant to national security. Among the group’s tasks could be predicting the likely evolution of jihadist extremism, he said.
Mr. Gates promised that such a consortium would operate under “complete openness and rigid adherence to academic freedom and integrity,” and he said the department would accept criticism. Without mentioning the Iraq war, he said, “Too many mistakes have been made over the years because our government and military did not understand — or even seek to understand — the countries or cultures we were dealing with.” … … …
