The following is a discussion of the publication Reconsidering Research Security by John C. Gannon, Richard A. Meserve, Maria T. Zuber, published in the journal "Issues in Science and Technology."

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Congress mandated the creation of the National Academies Roundtable on Science, Technology, and Security to address concern that untoward and illicit actions by China and other countries posed serious risks to American security and economic preeminence. John C. Gannon, Richard A. Meserve, and Maria T. Zuber, who cochaired the roundtable, correctly conclude that zealous measures to defend against foreign exploitation of university-based research would be inadequate to preserve US preeminence in science and technology (S&T) without much greater effort to strengthen US capabilities.

I was privileged to serve as a member of the roundtable and am both heartened and deeply disturbed by what we learned. As their article’s summary of key observations makes clear, the magnitude and efficacy of untoward foreign government actions to exploit American university-based research are less than feared, awareness and understanding of the problem in academic institutions and federal funding agencies have improved greatly, and steps underway to ameliorate the problem without seriously damaging the efficacy of open research appear promising. But as the authors also make clear, illicit foreign actions to exploit American S&T are neither the only nor most serious threats to sustained US preeminence and the security and competitive advantages it provides. We have a “Pogo problem.”

The comic strip character Pogo once famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The roundtable pulled together findings from multiple studies that revealed serious and worsening internal threats to US S&T capacity and preeminence. They also demonstrated that some of the adopted and proposed measures to prevent foreign exploitation will make the internal weaknesses greater and accelerate the relative and absolute decline of US capacity.

For example, as the authors correctly emphasized, the nation needs to give immediate and serious attention to factors that limit the ability of secondary schools to interest and educate young people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We do not now graduate enough seniors interested in STEM fields to fill university classes or existing corporate demand for scientists and technicians. Our broken immigration system compounds the problem in ways that reduce domestic capacity and shift commercial application of discoveries to other countries with better-prepared workforces. The already serious problems are further compounded by research security demands that effectively drive smaller research universities out of the game by making it too costly to utilize available talent or compete for federal grants.

As a member of the roundtable, I fully endorse the conclusions of our cochairs and their call for approaches that emphasize maintaining and improving US STEM capacity more than limited utility efforts to build perfect defenses against exaggerated foreign threats. We must revitalize and adapt the policies that made the United States preeminent if we are to regain and retain that status.