Accessory to War

by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

  The Burbidge team’s research was published in October 1957—the same month the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, starting gun of the space race. While their paper was neutrally titled “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars” and its tone was unvaryingly objective, their work was supported in part by a joint program of the Office of Naval Research and the US Atomic Energy Commission.31 As Fowler had written earlier, the californium 254 produced at Bikini contributed significantly to the team’s conclusions. And if, ignoring the arcane science, you read the last few pages of Burbidge et al.’s paper, you cannot help but pick up an implicit expectation or hope that Bikini-like tests will continue, in part because of the notable benefits to astrophysics:

  The identification of Cf254 in the Bikini test and then in the supernova in IC 4182 first suggested that here was the seat of the r-process production. Whether this finally turns out to be correct will depend both on further work on the Cf254 fission half-life and on further studies of supernova light curves.32

  No endeavor is ceaselessly noble or electrifying. Eventually the question of money intrudes. Space probes, space telescopes, and frontier research hardware do not come cheap. Yet it’s clear that the bill for worldwide astrophysics research is many orders of magnitude less than the bill for worldwide war33—that other collaboration of nations besides the Olympics and the World Cup. Even when the world isn’t actually waging all-out war, we spend trillions preparing for it.

  Today, astrophysics around the globe is funded at less than $3 billion a year,34 while global military spending is nearing $1.7 trillion. With a 2016 world GDP of almost $76 trillion, that amounts to .004 percent for astrophysics and 2.2 percent for the military.35 One year’s worth of that level of military spending could lavishly fund every astrophysicist in the world for half a millennium.

  Now for America. Consider the US contribution to World War II. In just a single year, 1943, military spending on the war swallowed 42 percent of America’s national income.36 Direct, upfront spending on American military operations was $75 billion a year. If the United States funded a war today at the same rate, relative to GDP, that $75 billion would turn into almost $7 trillion a year, or $19 billion a day.37 Two hours’ worth of that level of war spending could fund American astrophysics for an entire year.

  You’ve heard the journalists’ maxim “follow the money”? What a country funds is what that country prioritizes. By definition. Decades ago, la dictadura fascista Benito Mussolini, speaking about the Italian economy, declared that “the state will only take up the sectors related to defense, the existence and security of the homeland.”38 Well, the American economy has been sliding in that direction. It’s what General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower lambasted, and it’s a dubious route to genuine security. In 2015 the US government allocated $600 billion—54 percent of its discretionary dollars—to military spending, versus $30 billion, or 3 percent, to science and engineering. In 2016 the United States accounted for a greater share of global military spending—$611 billion of the world’s $1.7 trillion—than the next eight countries combined (China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, UK, Japan, and Germany, in descending order).39

  Given all those billions flowing through the system, is it possible there’s no money available to modernize New York City’s century-old subways, to keep New Orleans from drowning again, to build truly affordable housing for the people who collectively make our cities run, to help the Metropolitan Museum of Art reinstate its voluntary admission fee for all visitors, and to expand the search for other habitable planets?

  The almost-final word goes to the anonymous carrier of a placard at one of the six-hundred-plus Marches for Science that took place around the world on April 22, 2017. “THINK WHILE IT’S STILL LEGAL,” urged the placard. And while you’re thinking, try to imagine that each of us is a transient assemblage of atoms and molecules; that our planet is one small pebble ambling in orbit through the vacuum of space; that astrophysics, a historical handmaiden of human conflict, now offers a way to redirect our species’ urges to kill into collaborative urges to explore, to uncover alien civilizations, to link Earth with the rest of the cosmos—genetically, chemically, atomically—and protect our home planet until the Sun’s furnace burns itself out five billion years hence.

  Try to imagine such things not because they are imaginary, but because they are true.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We are separately and jointly grateful to the innumerable individuals and institutions whose writings, lectures, emails, conversations, fact checks, critiques, queries, responses, and resources enabled us to construct this book.

  Without the space-time intersection provided by Natural History magazine, we would never have begun our long association. Without the staffs of the Hayden Planetarium, the American Museum of Natural History, and the museum’s Research Library—especially Tom Baione, Gwen King, Mai Reitmeyer, Elizabeth Stachow, and Rachel Wysoki—we would have had far more difficulty carrying out our collaboration.

  For sharing their worldviews and expertise over the past two decades, whether or not they knew a book was percolating at the time, Neil would like to thank Buzz Aldrin, former NASA astronaut; Wanda M. Austin, former president and CEO, Aerospace Corporation; Ashton Carter, former US secretary of defense; John W. Douglass, former president and CEO, Aerospace Industries Association; Commander Sue Hegg, US Navy (ret.), formerly of Intelligence and Security Systems, Boeing; General Lester L. Lyles, US Air Force (ret.), former commander, Air Force Materiel Command; Joanne M. Maguire, former executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Space Systems; Arati Prabhakar, former director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; the late Elliot Pulham, former CEO, Space Foundation; William Schneider Jr., former chair, Defense Science Board, US Department of Defense; Michael Shara, astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History; Robert J. Stevens, retired chair, president, and CEO, Lockheed Martin; Robert Walker, former chair, House Science Committee, Reagan administration; and Heidi Wood, former managing director and senior aerospace and defense analyst, Morgan Stanley.

  For their generous assistance, Avis is especially grateful to Vivek Chibber of New York University; Mark Harrison of the University of Warwick; Alexander R. Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University; John P. C. Moffett of the East Asian History of Science Library, Needham Research Institute, University of Cambridge; James Clay Moltz of the Naval Postgraduate School; Stephen C. Sambrook of the University of Glasgow; and Louise S. Sherby of the Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, City University of New York. For their gracious response to requests for information, translation, confirmation, or elucidation, she thanks Peter Abrahams, Linda J. Bilmes, Michael Buckland, Anita Cochran, Larry J. Curtis, Neal Evans, Gary W. Ewer, Alexander Field, Toby Huff, Mark Johnson, Mary Knight, Walter F. LaFeber, Norton D. Lang, Theresa Levitt, Russ Levrault, John Logsdon, Lu Xiuyuan, Steve Maran, Andy Martin, Surendra Parashar, Kenneth Pomeranz, Charles Post, Jessica Rawson, Stéphan Reebs, M. Eugene Rudd, Michael Scholtes, Anwar Shaikh, Maryline Simler, Steven Soter, Steven Topik, Jason Walkowiak, Micah Walter-Range, and James G. Wilson.

  Avis is more than grateful to Neil for presenting her with an immense challenge and having confidence that she will deliver. In addition, for their counsel and encouragement throughout the book’s prolonged gestation, she thanks Nan Bauer-Maglin, Josely Carvalho, Nivedita Majumdar, Fran Nesi, Julia Scully, Gerry Wallman, and Shelly Wallman. And on the broadest planes of life itself, she is grateful to Elliot Podwill—minister of culture, cuisine, tourism, and human services in the Lang–Podwill domestic polity.

  Throughout our decade and a half of work on Accessory to War, our publisher, W. W. Norton, has tolerated our delays and supported our progress. We particularly thank our editor, John Glusman—editor-in-chief at Norton—for his persistent patience, his attentiveness to every word in our manuscript, his flexibility, and his capacity to share our enthusiasm for this project even when our rate of progress cou
ld not have justified it. We further thank our agent, Betsy Lerner, who greatly valued where we were coming from, where we were going, and why.

  Finally, the authors want to thank each other—for perseverance, for ruthless mutual editing, for the willingness to rationally adjudicate the other’s justifications for a word, a phrase, a deletion, or a digression.

  NOTES

  ABBREVIATIONS USED IN TITLES OF PERIODICALS

  Amer. American

  Assoc. Association

  Brit. British

  Bull. Bulletin / Bulletin of the

  Int. International

  J. Journal / Journal of the

  Proc. Proceedings / Proceedings of the

  Rev. Review

  Transac. Transactions / Transactions of the

  1. A TIME TO KILL

  1. Edmund Phelps interviewed by Steve Evans, Business Daily, BBC World Service, Dec. 11, 2008.

  2. Christopher Bodeen, AP, “China Breaks Ground on Space Launch Center,” US News & World Report, Sept. 14, 2009.

  3. Christiaan Huygens, The Celestial Worlds Discover’d: Or, Conjectures Concerning the Inhabitants, Plants and Productions of the Worlds in the Planets (London: Timothy Childe, 1698), 39–41.

  4. See Superfunction “National Defense” within the Office of Management and Budget’s Historical Table 3.1, “Outlays by Superfunction and Function: 1940–2021,” www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals (accessed Apr. 3, 2016). Regarding the updating of the table over time, the OMB notes: “To the extent feasible, the data have been adjusted to provide consistency with the 2017 Budget and to provide comparability over time.” As of spring 2016, the lowest spending for national defense during the 1970s was $76.7 billion in FY1973; the highest was $116.3 billion in 1979. By FY1983, the defense budget had exceeded $200 billion; by FY1989, it had exceeded $300 billion.

  5. Opening phrase of a 1984 campaign ad for Ronald Reagan, at Museum of the Moving Image, “The Living Room Candidate: 1984 Reagan vs. Mondale,” www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1984/prouder-stronger-better (accessed Mar. 20, 2016).

  6. Ronald Reagan, “Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981,” American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=43130 (accessed Mar. 20, 2016).

  7. For the story of the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph and its subject, see BBC News, “Picture Power: Vietnam Napalm Attack,” news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4517597.stm (accessed Apr. 5, 2016).

  8. As of early 2008, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) began to deliver public testimony in a campaign called Winter Soldier, which culminated in a four-day event in March 2008 near Washington, DC; see www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier; www.ivaw.org/blog/press-releases; www.ivaw.org/blog/press-coverage (accessed Apr. 5, 2016). Re demonstrators attending a mobilization on Feb. 17, 2003, the BBC states: “Between six and 10 million people are thought to have marched in up to 60 countries over the weekend—the largest demonstrations of their kind since the Vietnam War.” BBC News, “Millions Join Global Anti-War Protests,” Feb. 17, 2003, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765215.stm (accessed Apr. 5, 2016). Public opinion polls show a steady, and sometimes mounting, opposition to the war; see compilation of polls on the Iraq War from Pew Research, CNN, ABC News/Washington Post, and others at “Iraq,” PollingReport.com, www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm (accessed Apr. 5, 2016).

  9. Although the US Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war, no Congress has done so since 1942. Instead, Congress has agreed to resolutions authorizing the use of military force, controlled appropriations, and exercised limited oversight. Throughout World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, the Democrats held the majority in both the Senate and the House. United States Senate, “Official Declarations of War by Congress” and “Party Division,” www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/WarDeclarationsbyCongress.htm and www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm; United States House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives, “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives, 1789–Present,” history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/ (accessed Oct. 10, 2017).

  10. For a poison gas attack, see Dexter Filkins, “The Fight of Their Lives,” New Yorker, Sept. 29, 2014, 44–45. See also Chris Maume, “It Was Better to Live in Iraq under Saddam,” Independent, June 12, 2014; Costs of War Project, “Education: Universities in Iraq and the U.S.,” Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, costsofwar.org/article/education-universities-iraq-and-us (accessed June 27, 2014); Benjamin Busch, “ ‘Today Is Better Than Tomorrow’: A Marine Returns to a Divided Iraq,” Harper’s, Oct. 2014, 38.

  11. FTSE 350 Aerospace & Defence Index. See “Global Defence Outlook” (“Lex” column), Financial Times, Jan. 26, 2007.

  12. Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, Anyone, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, final report, Nov. 2002, 7–2, 7–4, history.nasa.gov/AeroCommissionFinalReport.pdf (accessed Apr. 3, 2016). Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001, Neil deGrasse Tyson was a member of the presidential commission that produced this report. In his analysis of aerospace consolidation, Andrew Cockburn (“Game On,” Harper’s, Jan. 2015) cites a watershed meeting in 1993 between deputy defense secretary William Perry and a “group of industry titans.” At this meeting (“the Last Supper”), Perry warned that budget cuts would necessitate consolidation and force some of them out of business. Cockburn writes, “Perry’s warning sparked a feeding frenzy of mergers and takeovers, lubricated by generous subsidies at taxpayer expense in the form of Pentagon reimbursements for ‘restructuring costs’ ” (68).

  13. Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, Report—Pursuant to Public Law 106-65, Jan. 11, 2001, www.dod.gov/pubs/space20010111.pdf (accessed Apr. 3, 2016). The phrase “Space Pearl Harbor” occurs seven times and echoes another intentionally fear-inducing phrase, common during the 1950s: “nuclear Pearl Harbor.” In the executive summary, the other phrases occur at xvi, viii, and xi.

  14. William D. Hartung et al., “Introduction,” Tangled Web 2005: A Profile of the Missile Defense and Space Weapons Lobbies (New York: World Policy Institute—Arms Trade Resource Center, 2005), www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/tangledweb.html (accessed Apr. 12, 2017): “From its inception during the Reagan administration to the present [2005], the current generation of missile defense development has cost over $130 billion. . . . The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that just launching enough Spaced-Based Interceptors (SBI) to ensure full global coverage could cost $40 billion to $60 billion. All of this expenditure might be justified if the ballistic missile defense system could be shown to work and if the ballistic missile threat were the most urgent danger facing the United States. But neither of these propositions is true.”

  15. Having contributed slightly more than $4 million total to just thirty members of Congress in 2001–2006, mostly to members of the Armed Services Committee or the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, the missile defense industry ensured strong advocacy. Campaign-finance reformers see such an arrangement as strongly favorable to the industry: $4 million spent in campaign funding, $50 billion received in missile defense program acquisition costs, yielding a 12,500 percent return on investment. The top two recipients of missile defense–related contributions in the Senate 2001–2006 were Alabama Republicans Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. Many members of the House outdid members of the Senate, especially Pennsylvania Democrat Jack Murtha, ranking Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee during the post-Clinton Republican administrations. The six most generous donations to House members ranged from $73,000 down to $41,000, three to Democrats and three to Republicans: (1) Lockheed Martin to Jim Saxton (R–NJ), chair, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, and member, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Projection Forces; (2) BAE Systems to Jack Murtha (D–PA), ranking Democrat, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; (3) Northrop Gr
umman to Jane Harman (D–CA), member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and member, House Committee on Homeland Security; (4) Boeing to James Moran (D–VA), member, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; (5) L-3 to Jerry Lewis (R–CA), chair, House Appropriations Committee, and former chair, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; and (6) Titan to Duncan Hunter (R–CA), chair, House Armed Services Committee. Hartung et al., Tangled Web; Brandon Michael Carius, “Procuring Influence: An Analysis of the Political Dynamics of District Revenue from Defense Contracting” (MPP thesis, Georgetown University, 2009), 3–6.

  16. Budget totals change retroactively as emergency spending gets added later and funds get reappropriated. Here, “2001” and “2004” refer to fiscal years. For the figures for FY2001 and FY2004, see Table 1-1, “National Defense Budget Summary,” in Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), National Defense Budget Estimates for FY2003, March 2002, and FY2007, March 2006, 4. For the explanation of budget authority and outlays, see “Overview” in, e.g., National Defense Budget Estimates for FY2009, 1. Beginning in FY2005, the total of budget authority plus outlays has exceeded $1 trillion. Unclassified defense budget information is summarized in the yearly “Green Books,” available at Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), “DoD Budget Request,” comptroller.defense.gov/budgetmaterials.aspx (accessed Apr. 3, 2016). For Iraq spending, see Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, “Billions Over Baghdad,” Vanity Fair, Oct. 2007; Matt Kelley, “Rebuilding Iraq: Slow but Steady Progress,” USA Today, Mar. 22, 2010. Through 2004, the US had spent $6.8 billion on reconstruction in Iraq; through 2009, it had spent $44.6 billion.