Mirabile Dictu: Tom Friedman Is Right on American Industry’s Shortsightedness Concerning U.S. National Security
(Washington, D.C.): It is not every day that the New York Times
syndicated columnist
Thomas Friedman writes an essay with which the national security-minded can
wholeheartedly
agree. When he does, however, the latter should acknowledge the achievement. Such an
occasion occurred with the publication in the Times of 18 April of
under the marvelous headline “Techno-Nothings.”
Friedman uses this essay to excoriate America’s high-tech industry centered in Silicon Valley
which he correctly charges with “becom[ing] so enamored of its innovative and profit-making
prowess that it has completely lost sight of the overall context within which this is taking
place.” He observes that, “There is a disturbing complacency here toward Washington,
government and even the nation. There is no geography in Silicon Valley, or geopolitics.
There
are only stock options and electrons.” (Emphasis added throughout.)
The ‘Invisible Fist’
Mr. Friedman eloquently describes the critical — if altogether unappreciated — role
played by
the U.S. military in preserving market conditions favorable to American firms’ successful
competition in the “global” economy:
- “What’s wrong with this picture is that all the technologies Silicon Valley is designing
to carry digital voices, videos and data farther and faster around the world, all the trade
and financial integration it is promoting through its innovations, and all the wealth it is
generating, is happening in a world stabilized by a benign superpower called the
United States of America, with its capital in Washington D.C.
“The hidden hand of the global market would never work without the
hidden fist. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s
technologies to flourish is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and
Marine Corps (with the help, incidentally, of global institutions like the U.N. and
the International Monetary Fund). And those fighting forces and institutions are
paid for by all the tax dollars that Washington is ‘wasting’ every year.”
It’s Bigger Than Silicon Valley
Unfortunately, while Silicon Valley — whose leading companies have been all too willing to
sell
supercomputers to the Chinese and Russian military-industrial complexes (including their
respective nuclear weapons laboratories)(1) — is a
particularly inviting target for criticism, the
Friedman indictment applies to altogether too much of U.S. industry, and to a similarly
minded Clinton Administration.(2) Technology
transfers relevant to ballistic missile guidance
systems, modern jet engines, advanced aerospace manufacturing, anti-submarine warfare, secure
communications, etc. have been blithely approved, even when the buyers are known to be
potential adversaries.
Perhaps a contributing factor to this cavalier attitude toward arming prospective enemies is
the
relatively small percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs who have had military service. Some estimates
indicate that the number of those leading America’s largest companies with any firsthand
experience of receiving hostile fire may be less than 20%.(3)
Such individuals could be less
sensitive to the fact that the source, targeting or lethal effect of such fire was Made in America.
The Bottom Line
Whatever the cause of the dearth of security-mindedness in Silicon Valley and much of the
rest of
America’s industrial base, it is fairly evident why Tom Friedman’s column is so sensible. The
author credits “a running debate” he has had with “a neo-Reaganite foreign-policy writer,”
Robert Kagan, from the Carnegie Endowment,
technology on geopolitics:
- “He says I overestimate its stabilizing effects; I say he underestimates it. We finally
agreed that unless you look at both geotechnology and geopolitics you can’t
explain (or sustain) this relatively stable moment in world history. But Silicon
Valley’s tech-heads have become so obsessed with bandwidth they’ve forgotten
balance of power. They’ve forgotten that without America on duty there will be no
America Online.
“‘The people in Silicon Valley think it’s a virtue not to think about history
because everything for them is about the future,’ argued Mr. Kagan. ‘But their
ignorance of history leads them to ignore that this explosion of commerce
and trade rests on a secure international system, which rests on those who
have the power and the desire to see that system preserved.‘”
Amen.
– 30 –
1. See the Center for Security Policy’s Decision
Brief entitled Clinton Legacy Watch # 21:
Efforts to Help Chinese Missile Program Reek of Corruption, Betrayal of U.S.
Interests (No.
98-D 61, 6 April 1998).
2. See What’s Good for Silicon Graphics Is Not
Necessarily Good for America: Some
Supercomputer Sales Imperil U.S. Security (
3. This is an even smaller percentage than the number of Members of
the U.S. House of
Representatives (some 33%) and U.S. Senators (roughly 50%) who have served in uniform — a
fact that Senator John Warner (R-VA) told a Center for Security Policy audience today. This is
surely contributing to the paucity of serious attention currently being given to national security
issues on Capitol Hill.
4. N.B. This is a remarkable host for an individual with Mr. Kagan’s
pedigree and policy
predilections. Before you know it, the Council on Foreign Relations will be taken over by
conservatives!
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