We need continued innovation to stay on top of global challenges.
In the end, the secret program dubbed Operation Paperclip brought over some 1,600 German scientists and engineers. These were not the earlier migrants, like Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had escaped Germany to the US in 1933 and 1936 respectively. No, these men (and they all were men) had been crucial wheels in propelling the Nazi war machine.
Wernher von Braun was the lead engineer of the V-2 rocket program, while Arthur Rudolph was the technical director for the same at the Mittelwerk facility. The program used forced labor extensively, including from concentration camps. Both became key figures in the American space and defense industries. (Rudolph ended up leaving the country in 1984 when the Justice Department started investigating his wartime activities.) Kurt Debus who became the first director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and oversaw the launch operations of the Apollo program, had worked on V-2 rocket launches and was a member of the SS before coming to America.
Hubertus Strughold developed medical protocols for manned spaceflight earning the nickname “father of space medicine”. He was accused of conducting unethical medical experiments on prisoners of war.
Not everyone continued with strategic research. Heinz Haber, a former Luftwaffe officer, turned himself into a popular science communicator in Disney’s employ.
The point I’m making here is that American policymakers understood the importance of scientific research to solidify the country’s global leadership. Before the war, Germany had been the world’s scientific leader. Now its scientists, although some were politically and ethically less than kosher, were to make pivotal contributions to the U.S. supremacy during the Cold War.
After World War II, USA prioritized scientific research without which it would lose out to the Soviet Union and other rivals in the world. This prioritization has continued up until this year. It was understood that science, technology, and innovation were necessary for national strength and advancement. Although much of this was driven by the space race and the military-industrial complex, there were enormous spillovers to other important areas, including medicine, telecommunications, energy—and not least semiconductors, computing, and eventually the Internet.
At the same time, America built world class research institutions, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Laboratories conducting cutting-edge research in energy and technology. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) became a star among medical research establishments in the world. Federal funding ensured an environment where scientific inquiry and innovation in medicine, engineering, and basic science thrived.
This also boosted the country’s image and attractiveness. Its universities became global magnets for scientific talent. Many international collaborations, from the International Space Station to the Human Genome Project, featured American institutions and scientists.
All these developments played a crucial role in driving the U.S. economy and positioning the country as world leader in virtually all fields of human endeavor. It became to be seen as truly the land of opportunity and progress. Its soft power was unparalleled, influencing aspirations, opinion, and culture world over.
It now seems that this era of progress and enlightenment may be coming to an end, at least temporarily. The recent cuts to science funding are previously unimaginable. The Big Beautiful Bill, which has not yet passed all Congressional hurdles, proposes to cut NSF funding by 55% from $9 billion to $3.8 billion (by contrast, the budget of its Chinese counterpart is $30 billion).
NIH faces a proposed reduction of 40%, from $47 billion to $27 billion, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would have to accept a 44% cut from $9.2 billion to $5.2 billion.
NSF currently funds 24% of all basic research outside of medicine. In fields like engineering the NSF contribution is much higher. For instance, in computer science, NSF funds about 80% of basic research, from which private companies, as well as the government, benefit so much.
The cuts enacted as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seem to rely on keyword searches to weed out “woke” programs. According to a friend working at NSF, out of the some 30,000 awards made by the Foundation, maybe 50 or 60 can be classified as “woke“. Cutting entire categories of programs is throwing the baby with the bathwater. The Social Sciences and Humanities includes soft targets, such as anthropology, but also the entire economics research program. A program that has produced 20 Nobel laureates is being cut because it falls under “education.”
Apart from the scientists who moved here before and after World War II, USA has continued till this day to attract global talent. There are currently more than 1.1 million foreign students in American universities. Slightly over half of them come from just two large countries: India and China. The third largest country of origin is South Korea, but its share is an order of magnitude smaller. It is followed by Canada and Vietnam.
In top universities the share of foreign students is particularly high. Harvard, the administration’s object of ire, has some 7,000 foreign students, translating into about a quarter of its entire student population. (Xi Mingze, the daughter of China’s supreme leader, graduated from Harvard in 2014 and has stayed in the USA since then.)
Even more dramatic is the fact that in STEM subjects, including mathematics, engineering and computer science, more than half of graduate students are foreign-born. The US tech companies depend on them to stay competitive.
Apart from the importance of cross-cultural education and experience benefiting both sides, foreign students, who usually pay full tuition, are also an important source of income for universities. NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, estimates that foreign students contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy in the 2023-2024 academic year.
The number of international students, however, is dropping rapidly as their backgrounds are scrutinized and universities are being pressured to reign in allowable research topics. This doesn’t affect only pro-Palestinian students from the Middle East. Even a Finnish doctoral student had her visa and Fulbright scholarship canceled upon a re-evaluation of her research topic (racism in teacher education). There are also concerted efforts to revoke foreign students’ visas and to deport those who participate in political activism. Friends tell me that they have to go further down the lists of applications as top candidates opt out and instead choose to go elsewhere. Countries like Canada, Australia and some European nations are the obvious beneficiaries, but some (especially from Asia and Africa) opt to go to Japan and even China. In the words of one European student who canceled his application to the USA: “Would you choose to go to a university in the 1930s Germany?”
It is not only foreign students who leave or simply don’t come in the first place. Also more established professionals have made the decision to leave. The move of three high-profile professors—Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore and Jason Stanley—from Yale to the University of Toronto caught some headlines, at least in academic circles. At the same time, the interest of U.S. physicians to relocate north of the border will potentially be a greater problem.
Apart from Canada, China is clearly one country that is willing and ready to take advantage of the closing of the American academia. Its rapid rise has been the result of conscious policy decisions and investments into scientific capabilities and innovation in emerging areas, such as AI, quantum technology, and materials science. China has by now caught up with the U.S. in several areas and even surpassed it in some metrics. Between 2018 and 2020, China published 23.4% of the scientific papers in the world, compared with 16.5% by the USA. It also leads the world in high-impact research. In particular, China has taken leadership in natural sciences. In 2024, China accounted for over 40% of global patent applications in material science, double that of the USA. China’s spending on research and development (R&D) reached $496 billion in 2024.
Science is essential to tackling global challenges, from climate change and biodiversity loss to feeding the still growing global population. Similarly, we will rely on medical science to enhance our quality of life and longevity. When the next pandemic arises (and there is no question that there will be a next one) we need both scientific advances and international cooperation to cope with it. Both of these are currently under the gun.
The beginning of June marks the start of the Atlantic hurricane season. It is predicted to be above-average in intensity, with 13-19 named storms of which 3-5 may grow to be Category 3 or stronger. At the same time, institutional capacity to deal with them is rapidly brought down. The budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is proposed to be cut by 26%, from $6.1 billion to $4.5 billion, with plans to entirely eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in chaos, with hundreds of employees including more than two dozen senior staff leaving the agency. None of this bodes well for the country’s ability to forecast, prepare for, and respond to weather-related disasters that are without doubt on the horizon.
Both for the safety and well-being of people at home and for international competition, science and technology are essential. As we know, nature abhors a vacuum and there are other nations that are eager to fill it, should the U.S. abandon its leadership. We’d all be worse off for it.
[Originally published at https://juhauitto.substack.com on June 2, 2025.]
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