Research on Problems of American Society

Abstract

THE DIFFERENCES between the purposes and the character of our public organizations and our private ones, and the differences among those for profit and those not-for-profit are often not as fundamental as it may appear. These various kinds of institutions have been created to meet the highly varied needs of our society and each has an important contribution to make. The first area is our national security. What are its problems? To cite a few, the threat to Southeast Asia, the growth of Chinese nuclear power, the growing capacity of a number of countries to manufacture nuclear weapons, the political and social instability which is endemic in many poor countries and which lends itself to exploitation by at least the Maoist branch of Communist doctrine. To forestall or cope with these problems and other problems, we devote a substantial research effort: over $7 billion this year. Understandably, most of this is spent on defense research. However, by comparison, only about two-tenths of one per cent of this amount is spent by the Federal government on research in understanding the processes of economic and political development in the poor countries that can be a major contributing cause to possible conflicts that can directly affect our own security. This research effort-apart from its relative lack of emphasis on underlying political and economic phenomena abroad, is an impressive one in its scope, responsiveness to new situations, technical competency, and introduction of advanced methods. The subject of innovations in methods in defense research contains important lessons with wide possible applicability. Many kinds of institutions are involved and some have been invented for the purpose of conducting this research.