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by Voliokis
2125 days ago
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If war breaks out, it's too late. Especially nowadays, where technology is crazy complex and it takes absurd amounts of time, effort and coordination to get something like a new fighter plane all the way from the drawing board into production. And then trying to iron out all the bugs while fighting a shooting war? That might have worked out back in WW1 or 2, but modern wars would be over in a flash (comparatively). Either you have the technology and you win, or you don't and you lose. Our modern capabilities of blowing each other into oblivion are too effective to only start research when war breaks out (or is "near" to breaking out). That said, DARPA has always been one of the biggest funders of research in the US, whether it's basic research or applied. Just think of the DARPA Grand Challenge (self-driving cars in an off-road setting). While, yes, ultimately their goal is military application, this cultivation of research into self-driving cars is something that will benefit everybody, not just the military. |
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The reason to invest in civilian research while in times of peace is that you want products to go into the public domain and be mass produced. This means that the new fighters you can make are much cheaper to produce and can have much more advanced weapon capabilities. The only real difference between civilian and military research is if the knowledge gets into the public domain or not (with the exception for weapons, which is more niche than you'd expect). This is why DARPA does that funding, but it isn't just DARPA. The entire SBIR/STTR program exists to get companies to bootstrap themselves and mass produce things the government needs (yes, it is abused quite a bit). Many contracts exist for this reason too.
The last aspect is economic and cultural. If your country is doing well economically it is often able to avoid war in the first place. Rich countries often don't fight with soldiers and jets, they fight with computers and resources. Why invade a country when you can put economic shackles on it? China and the US are both doing this. The other part is cultural exportation. If your country is producing all the widgets that another country likes and enjoys then their people are not eager to fight you (as long as you're not being aggressive towards them).
All these, and more matter. War is much more than bullets and fighter jets.