The Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) recently released its latest white paper, Emerging Science and Technologies: Securing the Nation through Discovery and Innovation. The paper, authored by the INSA Technology and Innovation Council, makes a case for the investment of science and technology saying in its Executive Summary, investment is “integral to the economic growth and development as well as national security.”
The paper cites the erosion of U.S. leadership in science and technology (S&T) to the Asian S&T investment and the results of the European Union’s (EU) effort to boost its relative competitiveness in research and development (R&D), innovation and high technology.
“The white paper offers a comprehensive look across the S&T community and provides provocative ideas for future research,” said Joseph DeTrani, INSA’s president ambassador. “I applaud our Council on Technology and Innovation for taking on this important task. The U.S. Intelligence Community is the best in the world and continued emphasis on basic research, even in tough budget times, will ensure our intelligence agencies are able to protect our nation and enhance our global leadership in the future.”
The white paper brings to light the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) identification of the five capability gaps that may enable the U.S. to better collect and assess intelligence. The idea is to maintain an advantage over our adversaries. Those five capability gaps include:
- bio-inspired computing architectures
- energy harvesting
- advanced materials for computing
- human-inspired big data
- self-protecting data
The authors of the paper used ODNI’s five high-priority technological needs, as an outline for year’s white paper. The five high-priority technological needs include the following: Technical Collection, Communication and Sharing Intelligence, Human Intelligence (HUMINT)-Collection and Operations, Intelligence and Analysis, Protection of the Intelligence Enterprise.
Dr. Allan Sonsteby, INSA Technology and Innovation Council white paper lead and Associate Director of the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State University, said, “The INSA Technology and Innovation Council’s white paper identifies areas for more detailed focus in S&T and will serve as a basis for government and industry leaders addressing the future development of and investment in our nation’s security. The analysis, data and recommendations included in this paper are not meant to be all-inclusive or prioritized, but serve as a catalyst for government and industry discussion of S&T investments for the IC’s future.”
