The United States’ global primacy depends in large part on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than anyone else. For the last five decades, US scientific innovation and technological entrepreneurship have ensured the country’s economic prosperity and military power. It was Americans who invented and commercialised the semiconductor, the personal computer, and the Internet; other countries merely followed the US lead.Today, however, this technological edge — so long taken for granted — may be slipping, and the most serious challenge is coming from Asia. Through competitive tax policies, increased investment in research and development (R&D), and preferential policies for science and technology (S&T) personnel, Asian governments are improving the quality of their science and ensuring the exploitation of future innovations. The percentage of patents issued to and science journal articles published by scientists in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan is rising. Indian companies are quickly becoming the second-largest producers of application services in the world, developing, supplying, and managing database and other types of software for clients around the world. South Korea has rapidly eaten away at the US advantage in the manufacture of computer chips and telecommunications software. And even China has made impressive gains in advanced technologies such as lasers, biotechnology, and advanced materials used in semiconductors, aerospace, and many other types of manufacturing. This year, total US expenditures on R&D are expected to top $290 billion — more than twice the total for Japan, the next biggest spender. In 2002, the US R&D total exceeded that of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK combined. And although scholars from other parts of the world may write relatively more science and engineering papers than Americans do, US research continues to be cited the most.These strengths, however, should not obscure the existence of new threats to the long-term health of science and innovation in the United States. A record $422 billion budget deficit, for example, may undermine future government support for R&D. Recent shifts in federal spending will leave basic research — that driven by scientific curiosity rather than specific commercial applications — underfunded, depriving the economy of the building blocks of future innovation.Excerpted from Adam Segal from the November/December issue of ‘Foreign Affairs’
