I start from my personal experience[...]. The university for which I
work, the Polytechnic of Turin, deals with the issue of dual use on a
daily basis. Consider, for example, that the technologies for launching
satellites into Earth orbit and those relating to space exploration are
no different from those used for the development of intercontinental
ballistic missiles. A rocket is still a rocket. It is therefore not
completely implausible to think that at this moment, holed up in her
office a few steps away from me, there is a hypothetical colleague who
is about to send her scientific treatise on the aerodynamics of rockets
to a prestigious international magazine. After years of studies, team
efforts and laboratory tests, the colleague will receive an evaluation
of her work from the scientific journal, she will make the necessary
changes and in a few months she will see her article published and
scientifically validated. At that point, other subjectivities of the
scientific community will relate to the same, and anyone will be able to
draw on that form of knowledge, given its public nature. Those who read
this book will be able to do so, scholars from all over the globe, but
also the research unit of the MBDA consortium, the main European
consortium for the production of missiles and defense technologies,
which will take from my colleague's study what it it seems to him, to do
what is convenient for him. Moral: every day you, myself and the entire
Polytechnic are exposed to the issue of dual use. This is a first point.
But there is a second.
This same Polytechnic has numerous direct collaborations in place with
companies operating in the military universe. I am talking about real
agreements that lead our researchers to work on shared projects with
companies that produce armaments, collaborations that include the
development of research topics and continuous exchanges of knowledge.
One of these companies is Leonardo, formerly Finmeccanica, the European
Union's "defense" company with the highest turnover. When, in a
university assembly, I publicly asked the rector of the Polytechnic of
Turin to problematize our relationship with Leonardo, the answer I got
was enlightening: Leonardo, the rector told me, does not only produce
weapons. Not only that: the projects that the Polytechnic has with
Leonardo are not related to armaments but to "dual" technologies that
have civil purposes, such as for example the production of photovoltaic
panels that will power the next NASA-ESA missions to the Moon and Mars.
To underline this point, the rector told me that the Polytechnic would
never collaborate with companies that exclusively produce armaments such
as - an example given by himself - Beretta.
With this type of reasoning, the agreements between the Polytechnic
University of Turin and Leonardo become unassailable, because they
discursively end up within the trap issue of dual use. What's wrong,
after all, if we collaborate on the production of space robots with a
leading company in the aerospace sector? The knowledge produced, here
too as in the case of my colleague who researches rockets, can be
appropriated by the military, but we are not the ones who directly give
it into their hands. In essence, we - male and female scientists -
cannot have responsibility for what is not our responsibility.
The two points illustrated starting from the case of the Polytechnic of
Turin are brought back to a single common denominator. The operation,
semantically speaking, is very effective: it allows us to avoid a series
of issues which, despite being substantially different, are brought
together under the dual use theme.[...]To understand something about it,
we need to get out of this trap and look at the problem differently. The
question to ask is the following: what does the institutional
relationship between the Polytechnic of Turin and Leonardo entail, in a
broad sense? As regards dual use, we have seen that the Polytechnic,
although collaborating with Leonardo, does not produce weapons but
shares knowledge for the production of intergalactic solar panels, and
what can be done subsequently with this knowledge is not up to it.
But there are at least three other points that are not talked about. The
first is cultural, linked to the scientific legitimacy that Leonardo
obtains from working with the Polytechnic and the political prestige
that the Polytechnic obtains from working with Leonardo. The second is
social, linked to the logistical proximity of the knowledge that is
circulated in the collaboration. The third is economic and is linked to
the type of market value generated by the relationship between the
parties, and the possibility of profit that it activates.
On a cultural level, the mutual interest of Leonardo and the Polytechnic
in collaborating lies in the positivist roots of what is considered
"science", especially in fields such as biosciences or engineering. In
essence, we have two players on the field with great epistemic value,
i.e. relative to what is considered "knowledge". On the one hand there
is Leonardo: a highly successful technological company in international
markets; on the other, the Polytechnic: one of the most renowned
examples of academic excellence in Italy and Europe. The former
benefits, culturally speaking, from the relationship with the latter
because in doing so it gives its market operations a scientific aura;
the second, for its part, can correctly state that the research carried
out within its walls are not useless theoretical speculations but have
direct applications. The roots of this mutual cultural affection are
"positivist" because they are structured around the technical and
functional value of knowledge: it is a reading of the world's problems
as a set of causes and effects on which to act directly and precisely.
On this cultural conception, the social value of the relationship
between the two is established: by building projects together, occupying
the same laboratories, having access to the same databases, Leonardo and
the Polytechnic can increase and speed up their respective capacity for
action. To use a language dear to the management of the Polytechnic,
this means "activating synergies", or optimizing the resources available
to achieve the goals set.
The discussion that is never addressed, unfortunately, is related to how
the optimization of resources is not just a technical process, but
precisely a social issue, that is, a process through which both beliefs
and objectives are explicitly and implicitly redefined. . It is
precisely thanks to the continuous cultural and social rapprochement
already underway for years between these realities that today a further
distortion of the mandate of public research is taking place, which
should be free and open, not functional to a partisan interest. Let's
talk about a concrete fact. A few years ago it would have been
unthinkable to use public money - in this case, coming from the National
Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) - to invest in the development of
aerospace and military technologies through a partnership between
Leonardo (arms manufacturer), Polytechnic (in theory still a university)
and NATO (a military alliance). Today, however, it is possible, with a
non-existent public debate, and it will be achieved with the
construction of the Aerospace Citadel in Corso Marche in Turin: a
"synergistic" hub where the knowledge needed to make robots will be
increasingly integrated with that to produce drones attack and fighter
aircraft.
This is the point where the economic issue becomes glaring. A hub like
the Citadel is not just a matter of large public investments - therefore
made with citizens' taxes - but it is above all a great opportunity for
the creation of more extensive chains of profit, made up of patents,
projects, technologies and goods, which they will be generated
synergistically in Corso Marche and will be sold on world markets to the
highest bidder. Both Leonardo and the Polytechnic will benefit from it,
depending on the agreements made from time to time on the individual
contracts: the dual use, from this point of view, is a precious profit
opportunity. Consider the fact that, to use patented civilian technology
for military purposes, concessions and fees will have to be paid. In
this mix of economic interests, the ethical question is not only related
to who we sell the Eurofighter Typhoons built by Leonardo (spoiler
alert: the Egyptian military regime is vying to buy twenty-four of them,
for a cost of four billion euros). But it also becomes the following:
how the technologies were generated within the Eurofighter, and who is
responsible for what, in its construction, when the cultural, social and
economic networks between research and "defence" are entangled in a
spirit and in a common interest, and are therefore functional to each
other - in a word, mutually militarized?
*Taken from: University and Militarization, ERIS Edizioni (2023)
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
work, the Polytechnic of Turin, deals with the issue of dual use on a
daily basis. Consider, for example, that the technologies for launching
satellites into Earth orbit and those relating to space exploration are
no different from those used for the development of intercontinental
ballistic missiles. A rocket is still a rocket. It is therefore not
completely implausible to think that at this moment, holed up in her
office a few steps away from me, there is a hypothetical colleague who
is about to send her scientific treatise on the aerodynamics of rockets
to a prestigious international magazine. After years of studies, team
efforts and laboratory tests, the colleague will receive an evaluation
of her work from the scientific journal, she will make the necessary
changes and in a few months she will see her article published and
scientifically validated. At that point, other subjectivities of the
scientific community will relate to the same, and anyone will be able to
draw on that form of knowledge, given its public nature. Those who read
this book will be able to do so, scholars from all over the globe, but
also the research unit of the MBDA consortium, the main European
consortium for the production of missiles and defense technologies,
which will take from my colleague's study what it it seems to him, to do
what is convenient for him. Moral: every day you, myself and the entire
Polytechnic are exposed to the issue of dual use. This is a first point.
But there is a second.
This same Polytechnic has numerous direct collaborations in place with
companies operating in the military universe. I am talking about real
agreements that lead our researchers to work on shared projects with
companies that produce armaments, collaborations that include the
development of research topics and continuous exchanges of knowledge.
One of these companies is Leonardo, formerly Finmeccanica, the European
Union's "defense" company with the highest turnover. When, in a
university assembly, I publicly asked the rector of the Polytechnic of
Turin to problematize our relationship with Leonardo, the answer I got
was enlightening: Leonardo, the rector told me, does not only produce
weapons. Not only that: the projects that the Polytechnic has with
Leonardo are not related to armaments but to "dual" technologies that
have civil purposes, such as for example the production of photovoltaic
panels that will power the next NASA-ESA missions to the Moon and Mars.
To underline this point, the rector told me that the Polytechnic would
never collaborate with companies that exclusively produce armaments such
as - an example given by himself - Beretta.
With this type of reasoning, the agreements between the Polytechnic
University of Turin and Leonardo become unassailable, because they
discursively end up within the trap issue of dual use. What's wrong,
after all, if we collaborate on the production of space robots with a
leading company in the aerospace sector? The knowledge produced, here
too as in the case of my colleague who researches rockets, can be
appropriated by the military, but we are not the ones who directly give
it into their hands. In essence, we - male and female scientists -
cannot have responsibility for what is not our responsibility.
The two points illustrated starting from the case of the Polytechnic of
Turin are brought back to a single common denominator. The operation,
semantically speaking, is very effective: it allows us to avoid a series
of issues which, despite being substantially different, are brought
together under the dual use theme.[...]To understand something about it,
we need to get out of this trap and look at the problem differently. The
question to ask is the following: what does the institutional
relationship between the Polytechnic of Turin and Leonardo entail, in a
broad sense? As regards dual use, we have seen that the Polytechnic,
although collaborating with Leonardo, does not produce weapons but
shares knowledge for the production of intergalactic solar panels, and
what can be done subsequently with this knowledge is not up to it.
But there are at least three other points that are not talked about. The
first is cultural, linked to the scientific legitimacy that Leonardo
obtains from working with the Polytechnic and the political prestige
that the Polytechnic obtains from working with Leonardo. The second is
social, linked to the logistical proximity of the knowledge that is
circulated in the collaboration. The third is economic and is linked to
the type of market value generated by the relationship between the
parties, and the possibility of profit that it activates.
On a cultural level, the mutual interest of Leonardo and the Polytechnic
in collaborating lies in the positivist roots of what is considered
"science", especially in fields such as biosciences or engineering. In
essence, we have two players on the field with great epistemic value,
i.e. relative to what is considered "knowledge". On the one hand there
is Leonardo: a highly successful technological company in international
markets; on the other, the Polytechnic: one of the most renowned
examples of academic excellence in Italy and Europe. The former
benefits, culturally speaking, from the relationship with the latter
because in doing so it gives its market operations a scientific aura;
the second, for its part, can correctly state that the research carried
out within its walls are not useless theoretical speculations but have
direct applications. The roots of this mutual cultural affection are
"positivist" because they are structured around the technical and
functional value of knowledge: it is a reading of the world's problems
as a set of causes and effects on which to act directly and precisely.
On this cultural conception, the social value of the relationship
between the two is established: by building projects together, occupying
the same laboratories, having access to the same databases, Leonardo and
the Polytechnic can increase and speed up their respective capacity for
action. To use a language dear to the management of the Polytechnic,
this means "activating synergies", or optimizing the resources available
to achieve the goals set.
The discussion that is never addressed, unfortunately, is related to how
the optimization of resources is not just a technical process, but
precisely a social issue, that is, a process through which both beliefs
and objectives are explicitly and implicitly redefined. . It is
precisely thanks to the continuous cultural and social rapprochement
already underway for years between these realities that today a further
distortion of the mandate of public research is taking place, which
should be free and open, not functional to a partisan interest. Let's
talk about a concrete fact. A few years ago it would have been
unthinkable to use public money - in this case, coming from the National
Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) - to invest in the development of
aerospace and military technologies through a partnership between
Leonardo (arms manufacturer), Polytechnic (in theory still a university)
and NATO (a military alliance). Today, however, it is possible, with a
non-existent public debate, and it will be achieved with the
construction of the Aerospace Citadel in Corso Marche in Turin: a
"synergistic" hub where the knowledge needed to make robots will be
increasingly integrated with that to produce drones attack and fighter
aircraft.
This is the point where the economic issue becomes glaring. A hub like
the Citadel is not just a matter of large public investments - therefore
made with citizens' taxes - but it is above all a great opportunity for
the creation of more extensive chains of profit, made up of patents,
projects, technologies and goods, which they will be generated
synergistically in Corso Marche and will be sold on world markets to the
highest bidder. Both Leonardo and the Polytechnic will benefit from it,
depending on the agreements made from time to time on the individual
contracts: the dual use, from this point of view, is a precious profit
opportunity. Consider the fact that, to use patented civilian technology
for military purposes, concessions and fees will have to be paid. In
this mix of economic interests, the ethical question is not only related
to who we sell the Eurofighter Typhoons built by Leonardo (spoiler
alert: the Egyptian military regime is vying to buy twenty-four of them,
for a cost of four billion euros). But it also becomes the following:
how the technologies were generated within the Eurofighter, and who is
responsible for what, in its construction, when the cultural, social and
economic networks between research and "defence" are entangled in a
spirit and in a common interest, and are therefore functional to each
other - in a word, mutually militarized?
*Taken from: University and Militarization, ERIS Edizioni (2023)
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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