Stronger by Ryan Hass

Author:Ryan Hass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

U.S. government historical R&D spending, 1949–2018

Data from U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Fourth, the U.S. government needs to develop incentives that will help to restore the so-called iron triangle of innovation between government, academia, and the private sector. Vannevar Bush helped build this research triangle in the 1940s. In the ensuing decades, it paid dividends, helping to realize Bush’s vision of “pushing frontiers of mind.” Bush forecast that the innovation triangle would generate jobs, improve standards of living, and strengthen national security. He was right. U.S. society must relearn how to fire on all cylinders again, as opposed to keeping new ideas cordoned off in private labs for the sole purpose of maximizing profit.

Fifth, the United States needs to prioritize efforts to create more equal opportunities for academic advancement. Human capital is what differentiates the United States from all its competitors. The more the United States can unlock the talent of all its youth, the more productivity gains it will enjoy in the future.

Right now, the United States is underperforming in this field. According to the trade policy expert Ted Alden, “The influence of parental wealth on student achievement is stronger in the United States than anywhere else in the developed world.”32 The reasons are relatively straightforward. Most American schools are funded by local property taxes, meaning that schools in affluent areas have more resources to attract and retain the best teachers, and schools in poorer neighborhoods do not. The best school systems in the world share a trait of selectively hiring top talent, paying those teachers well, and giving them autonomy. Creating more equitable opportunities for students of all backgrounds needs to become a priority in the United States.

Last, the United States needs to strengthen its defenses against leakage or theft of cutting-edge and dual-use technology to China and other competitors. It can do so through enhanced foreign investment screening, updated export controls that are synchronized with other advanced economies, and improved counterespionage efforts. In all these areas, the key priority is to preserve America’s openness to the maximum extent possible.

An absolute effort to restrict the export of all sensitive technology to China would cede the Chinese market to other countries that might have fewer compunctions about trade relations with China, as occurred when the United States previously sought to restrict sales of machine tools and satellites. A more successful approach would be to coordinate with other like-minded countries to control the export of emerging and foundational technologies to Chinese end users of concern. By restricting transfers only to Chinese end users that pose a security risk or have a proven track record of complicity in human rights violations, this approach would strike a balance that serves U.S. innovation. It would not eliminate the risk of U.S. technology falling into the wrong hands in China, but practically speaking, neither would any other approach short of a full embargo of American-origin products to China. Even in that extreme circumstance, there would almost certainly still be carve-outs and illicit third-country transfers of American technology to China.

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