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> In decades past, the West’s greatest scientific minds dedicated their careers to national security. John von Neumann, Alan Turing, and Kelly Johnson worked on cutting-edge science and engineering in the national interest....

> How did it come to this? Starting in the 1960s and building steadily in the decades that followed, our defense industry and government leaders became more interested in process than progress.

I also understand that "starting in the 1960s" a lot of scientists moved to totally disassociate themselves from the military and military applications for ideological reasons. I recall reading some article saying something along the lines of "engineers have tried heroically to fill the gap, but there's only so much they can do." I recall another where some scientist was seriously conflicted about doing radar work on a space probe, because his work could be repurposed for military applications.

I think there's only so much that calls to action like this one can accomplish, so long as that cultural trend continues.

Also, I understand that cultural trend is mainly an American/European thing, and not present in other countries (e.g. China).