DOWNLOAD PDF
Overview
Something important to the Nation’s defense has vanished,
yet the top Pentagon brass never noticed. Not the stuff of headlines,
this loss would not arouse public concern, especially during
these times of terrorist massacres, anthrax attacks, corporate
scandal, and war. Nevertheless, like the miner’s canary that is first
to die with the rush of an ill wind, this loss is a warning.
In the span of 18 months, the Department of Defense (DOD)
lost a key part of its 25-year-old ability to perform fiber optics
research at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the only site
with this world-class defense capability. It was not time for DOD
to exit this critical field. Urgent security needs not being met anywhere
else were being addressed. Both the scale of the loss and
the speed with which it occurred reveal a growing problem: the
private sector’s increasingly successful recruitment of the best
scientists working for the DOD Defense Laboratories. While personnel
losses are to be expected in any enterprise, public or private,
this particular loss exposes the diminished DOD ability to
retain the technical talent necessary to accomplish its mission.
The death of this “canary” sends warning that an ill wind is
blowing for the Defense Laboratories.1 Without reform, their loss
of expertise will worsen, eventually to the point where it affects
good government and poses significant risks to national security.
Should this happen, the Nation will suffer what President Dwight
Eisenhower called “a disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
READ MORE >>