{"id":35447,"date":"2018-10-31T17:37:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35447"},"modified":"2018-10-31T17:37:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:07:59","slug":"the-geopolitical-prowess-of-science-and-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-geopolitical-prowess-of-science-and-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"The geopolitical prowess of science and technology:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/Opinion\/bKSTM2yZFumOXPd9aRP1HN\/The-geopolitical-prowess-of-science-and-technology.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The geopolitical prowess of science and technology<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">S&amp;T is critical for ensuring national security and opening new market opportunities. Moreover, economic competitiveness has become a proxy for military influence. Ownership of superior technology brings greater power and control.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To build capacity, nations rely on several policy levers\u2014patent laws, tax incentives, and grants to labs, to spur the public sector, private enterprise and academia.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Setting examples<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Middle powers such as Canada and Switzerland, their S&amp;T capabilities helps them stay relevant in the international arena.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Estonia is another remarkable example of how a country can leverage its digital ecosystem to boost its position in the international arena.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Israel, has been able to consistently punch above its weight because of its technological prowess.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, one of the reasons for India\u2019s recent tilt towards Israel is the latter\u2019s strength in S&amp;T, especially in agriculture.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, Israel\u2019s thriving high-tech ecosystem serves the triple purpose of boosting economic growth, ensuring national security, and offering international leverage.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The era of scientific development in USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The increased pace of scientific development came at the beginning of World War I with the establishment of the Council of National Defence and the National Research Council.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">World War II also had a dramatic impact leading to the development of the atomic weapon and the radar.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Foundations of Silicon Valley were laid during and because of the war. The Cold War gave a big push to the US space programme.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American\u2019s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is a national treasure giving birth to the internet and the global positioning system (GPS), and ushered in an unparalleled era of US hegemony.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The military and the Central Intelligence Agency maintain separate arms investing in the world\u2019s leading technologies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alphabet and Palantir act as proxies for their state and play a geopolitical role. Google\u2019s origins can be traced to a grant from the National Science Foundation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook has some data centres offshore but it is a distinctly American corporation which controls large amounts of data generated around the world. This is power in today\u2019s age.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US continues in its leadership position because of its enviable university system and islands of excellence such as Boston and Seattle.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>China\u2019s ambition<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China aspires for global domination and it is playing the long game.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China has identified 10 technology areas as part of its New Industry Policy 2025 and aims to become an \u201cinnovative country\u201d. Some have begun to call this the Beijing Consensus.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China\u2019s investments in clean energy and space have made technology an important pawn in the power play between the West and China.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, China aims to become a superpower in Artificial Intelligence, leading to a technology race with the US.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In biotechnology, there is already a US-China dispute over genetic data. China controls 70% of all the mining capacity of bitcoins and it is giving researchers significant financial incentives to publish in reputed journals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chinese government also invests strategically in the US, particularly in Silicon Valley.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>India rediscovering itself<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is trying to rediscovers its foreign policy, it must act on similar lines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s recent efforts to shore up its domestic defence manufacturing industry, develop a regional satellite for South Asia and a home-grown GPS, as well as establish 20 world-class universities, are all steps in the right direction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As per the 2015 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US spent $433 billion that\u2019s 2.7% of its GDP on research and development (R&amp;D) in 2013.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">South Korea and Israel each spent 4% of their GDP while China is targeting 2.5% by 2020. India currently spends only 0.9% of GDP on R&amp;D.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Way forward<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India needs to recognize the geopolitical reality of S&amp;T.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India needs to identify focus areas, analyze what kind of role it can play and where the state can make tactical investments overseas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More specifically, India needs to build the infrastructure which can generate new technologies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It needs to invest in human capital, maintain a cadre of top scientists and professionals, and develop industry-lab links.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The geopolitical prowess of science and technology:\u00a0 Context S&amp;T is critical for ensuring national security and opening new market opportunities. Moreover, economic competitiveness has become a proxy for military influence. Ownership of superior technology brings greater power and control. To build capacity, nations rely on several policy levers\u2014patent laws, tax incentives, and grants to labs,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-geopolitical-prowess-of-science-and-technology\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The geopolitical prowess of science and technology:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704934833},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}