Tom Pepinsky

Category: Current Affairs

  • Science and International Studies are the Foundation of American Power

    The second Donald Trump administration has targeted science and international studies for devastating cuts in financing, coupled with unprecedented levels of ideological screening of scientific and educational activities. Led by Elon Musk, whose illegal access of private data and financial infrastructure is itself a shocking threat to national security, this lawless exercise of power by team of inexperienced private individuals without any security clearance whatsoever threatens to overturn a century of U.S. preeminence in science and higher education. Recent press coverage has begun to identify the depths of Musk’s threat to national security, and elected officials have begun to sound the alarm about the blatant illegality of these and other actions taken in Donald Trump’s name.

    These pieces focus on administrative law, legal process, and the separation of powers. But lost in this discussion are the concrete risks to the United States national security that would follow from these plans to cut funding for basic and applied science, monitor scientific research for politically incorrect speech, and gut core higher education funding mechanisms for topics like international and area studies. These programs were created in order to support U.S. national interests, and cutting them—even if doing so were fully legal—would amount to a full surrender of the United States to aspiring strategic competitors around the world.

    Great Powers Build Science and Education. Declining Powers Cut It

    First, the facts. There has never been a global power in the history of the world that did not invest public funds heavily in science and international studies through higher education. That is because every great power has understood the strategic value of higher education for creating a flexible knowledge base that can be deployed to confront unpredictable world events with national security implications. This is true of Germany before the wars, of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, of the UK during the 20th century, and the People’s Republic of China today. Funding to science and international studies is not an indulgence to support cozy academic communities and hifalutin theory work. Rather, it is a concrete way to commit public funds to encourage innovation, translational research, and deep knowledge building that creates repositories of expertise that every U.S. administration since Truman has recognized as foundational for U.S. national power.

    Great powers achieve these goals through advanced teaching and basic and applied research. In some fields, it means bench science and lab work. In others, it means language study, cultural immersion, and historical expertise. It means teaching students to equip them with the factual knowledge and critical thinking required to confront unprecedented challenges. Research and teaching is always done—always and everywhere—with an eye towards the public returns to public investment.

    At present, and for the past 50 years, the United States has had no peer competitor in this space. U.S. higher education supports the largest and most productive scientific communities in the world, the most comprehensive international studies programs in the world, and robust intellectual environments characterized by free speech, open criticism, and minimal political oversight.

    No one should ignore the outstanding scientific research conducted in other countries, nor the deep area expertise found in other national educational systems. And no one should downplay the many cases of U.S. administrations of using science and area studies knowledge to pursue disastrous foreign policy choices, and to support blatantly immoral and illegal military and political strategies. The point, rather, is that U.S. national power flows from its unparalleled intellectual and scientific environment.

    By this, I don’t mean just soft power (although that is also essential to U.S. preeminence). I mean specifically that the ability to design novel technical and military solutions to emerging security risks, to flexibly anticipate the consequences of changing international conditions, and to plan around a long-term perspective of U.S. national interest requires a scientific and intellectual community that is free to create, to innovate, to theorize, and to learn. No country in the modern world has developed these capacities without robust public-private partnerships and dedicated public funding.

    The U.S. education and scientific community has no equal in this regard. We know this by revealed preference: every country in the world that aspires to improve its international standing recognizes that the United States is their aspirational comparison. We also know that the global market for U.S.-trained scientists and teachers is robust; that market, fairly or unfairly, is not symmetric. What holds back world powers like the People’s Republic of China back is their inability to cultivate an environment of intellectual openness. From the PRC to Nazi Germany, when politicians politicize higher education, science suffers, and with it, national security.

    Knowledge is Hard Power

    The best evidence of the value of science, of international and area studies, and of higher education more generally for supporting U.S. national interests comes from the symbiotic relationship between the U.S. defense and higher education sectors. Again, there is nothing usual about this arrangement: the same is true for defense and higher education in every global or regional power in the world (PRC, Germany, France, the UK, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, Singapore, Australia… there is no exception).

    The close relations between defense and higher education/science are not just about producing scientific and technological innovation, things like stealth technology, drones, cyberwarfare capabilities, and so on. It also extends to basic science, social science and history, and the humanities and arts. Every U.S. service academy offers majors in fields like English, Foreign Area Studies, and Sociology. That is because the academies that train future defense leaders recognize the value of comprehensive, holistic education. Leaders are not just engineers: they are thinkers, creators, and builders.

    The same is true for the cooperative relationship between defense and higher education in the thousands of public and private institutions of higher education around the country. To take one obvious example, every senior military officer in the United States will attest that robust area knowledge is essential for assuring military superiority over our peer competitors. Those who have led missions overseas will readily attest that they both desire and value expertise in social science and regional studies.

    Of course, reckoning with the history of U.S. funding for science and international studies can be uncomfortable for some corners of U.S. higher education. This is especially so when it comes to the role of the Department of Defense (and the defense industry more generally), whose interests are often not aligned with those of individual researchers. There is a history of resistance to ROTC programs on certain campuses. But even those college and university professors who are vocal critics of the U.S. foreign policy and military adventurism invariably welcome ROTC students into their courses with open arms. Almost without exception, they prefer to teach future officers, because they recognize the university’s solemn responsibility to educate future military leaders on how to act with wisdom, reason, and ethics. For their part, ROTC students, Foreign Area Officers, and other career military who pass through U.S. college and universities are some of the most motivated, committed, and serious students—and their careers are transformed by the experience.

    Crippling science, area studies, and higher education more generally by subordinating it to the narrow political calculations of unaccountable actors is a recipe for defeat. Rather than looking to Vichy Twitter for uninformed commentary and vapid anti-intellectualism, our elected officials should look to defense and university leaders to understand how higher education supports U.S. national interests.

    Robust Oversight Exists, But Anti-Science Activists Are Ignorant

    One argument commonly invoked anti-science and anti-education activists is that public investments in higher education, science, and international studies are wasteful. This implies that public oversight and scrutiny over scientific research and public funding is needed. Such arguments betray the basic ignorance of those who make them, about the organization of public funding for science and higher education in the U.S. Federal agencies are governed by strong regulatory frameworks that manage how funds are allocated, how decisions are made, and how public benefit is measured. It is a very good idea to review these frameworks, to open them to public discussion, and to invite critical commentary from stakeholders and taxpayers. But to pretend that such oversight does not exist is ignorant and stupid.

    As a consequence, expending bureaucratic energy to cancel National Science Foundation grants that say the word “diverse” in them is not just foolhardy and wasteful. It is defeatist. It is declinist. It is exactly what the U.S.’s lagging competitors currently do—the true U.S. advantage over aspiring world powers is specifically that our government does not make scientific research conditional on political correctness as determined by unelected political appointees. As the case of German universities during and after Nazi rule demonstrates, the effects of public funding cuts and ideological screening will be felt for decades to come. Canceling scientific research in the name of political correctness is what people who wish to surrender strategic dominance to foreign powers choose to do.

    The best indicator of a declining national power is the belief among leading classes that education serves no point, that basic research has no public use, and that politicians should worm their way into the scientific process, prioritizing their own interests over logic, reason, and evidence. The U.S. is therefore at a decision point. Does it wish to cede strategic advantage to its competitors? Or does it wish to support the scientific environment that has made the United States the most powerful country in the world for 75 years?

    How to Act

    If you are a scientist or an educator who is reading this, and wondering how you can support our scholarly and scientific community, here are some ideas.

    1. Call your elected representatives on the telephone. Many Americans believe that their voice does not matter. This is incorrect: your Senators and Representatives may not agree with you, but they will hear you. This is especially true if you believe that your Senator or Representative is unsympathetic. These are the people who need to hear from you the most.
    2. Write the senior leadership team at your college or university, or the owners of the business where you work, and ask them to speak on your behalf. Almost certainly you can send an email to president@ABCD.edu, provost@ABCD.edu, or ceo@ABCD.com. It might not get a response, but it will be read.
    3. Write to your professional association’s leadership and invite them to speak up in defense of U.S. national interests. This is an area where the National Academies ought to collaborate; you can certainly ask them to do so.

    In all of these communications, your goal should be to communicate that cuts to education and science are threats to U.S. national security. You might also inform them that public education in the United States places world-class research institutions in every single one of the 50 states, and that these are significant local employers with clear spillovers for the local private sector. You might invite them to consult with officers in the U.S. military about their own educational experiences, to learn about what skills our colleges and universities impart. Finally, you may observe that no rigorous study of the return on investment for higher education finds that those returns are negative. The ROI on education for everyone, even humanities majors, is positive, and sizeable.

    The current political situation in the United States is a moment of clarity for industry leaders in science, education, and international studies. The decisions that this government makes in the coming weeks will have implications for decades to come. They should hear from you about it.

  • We Kneel to No Pope, and We Kneel to No King

    Yesterday, during a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde delivered a solemn message to President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. As she concluded her sermon, she addressed the president directly:

    Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.

    This is a pointed and meaningful statement. And it comes at a moment in which a Christian nationalist political movement is on the rise in the United States. It comes a day after the wealthiest men in the world paid the American president millions of dollars to watch him take the oath of office, a day after the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world gave a Nazi salute and invoked the fourteen words. On inauguration day, President Trump and Vice President Vance celebrated their victory. The following day, they sat in silence as part of a decades-old tradition, as the presiding bishop of Episcopalian diocese of Washington led the post-inauguration service.

    The coverage of Bishop Budde’s sermon has focused on her—who is she? and implictly or explicitly, how dare she?–and on its symbolism—as statement of principles, of resistance, or as a plea for mercy. Such perspectives gravely misunderstand the full political meaning of that moment. Bishop Budde was not asking for mercy, she was fulfilling her solemn responsibility as the embodiment of America’s political and religious establishment, to inform the administration of that the values upon which the United States was founded and its responsibility to uphold them. This was not an act of resistance. It was an act of leadership, on behalf of the closest thing that the United States has to a national church.

    Separation of Church and State

    Like all American seculars, I consider the separation of church and state to be the bedrock of our nation. It is foundational: a principle articulated by the Founders, embodied through American history, and one that is still with us today. Most religious Americans agree. It is only through the separation of church and state that the United States can fulfill its promise to its own people, to legal and institutional neutrality with respect to religious identity, expression, and membership. It is what allows Americans to live their lives in complete ignorance of the religious views and practices of their fellow citizens. It is, quite simply, no one’s business what you believe, and only in exceptional circumstances does it matter how you practice.

    Many Christian nationalists find the separation of church and state to be a burden, or an obstacle. They correctly note that the separation of church and state does not imply an affirmative policy of secularism, and that it must not preclude people of faith from entering politics and advocating for their values. They note, again correctly, that the Founders were nearly all men of faith. Christian nationalists bristle against the damning conclusions of The Godless Constitution, which establishes that the U.S. Constitution excludes religion intentionally, explicitly, and deliberately. But they appeal to a different model of Christianity at the founding. According to the Christian nationalists of today, the Founders’ faith and the religious traditions guided them so fundamentally that they could not even articulate it. Christianity (or, as they say today, “Judeo-Christianity”*) was so thoroughly part of their lives that we cannot understand the Constitution without understanding what the Founders didn’t think to write down. This is a mystical, esoteric reading of the Constitution, but it is also the belief structure that guides today’s Christian nationalists to ignore the words in front of them, and conjure meanings behind those words.

    Although you by no means have to hand it to the Christian nationalists, there is a part of that argument in which they get something right. The Founders were men of faith, mostly. But their faith was not Christian nationalism. Their faith was intimately related to the conditions of the American founding. The Christian nationalism of today is entirely inconsistent with the religion of the Founders. Our founding fathers kneeled to no pope, and they kneeled to no king. That is because they were mostly Episcopalians.

    The Episcopal Church of the United States of America

    The Episcopal Church of the United States of America is the closest thing that the United States has to a national church. This is a historical fact, and a living contemporary practice. Observe the following:

    • There is an institution in Washington, DC called the National Cathedral. Read all about it: it is truly a national cathedral, established by an Act of Congress, aligned with the vision of the Founders for our national capital.
    • The denomination of the National Cathedral is Episcopalian. It is not some other denomination.
    • Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump have each held a post-inaugural service at the National Cathedral. Of these, only Bush was an Episcopalian.
    • The Founders were mostly Episcopalians, and Episcopalians have long been associated with the oldest families in the United States.**

    These are basic facts about the United States of America and its political and religious history. If you doubt the power and the significance of the National Cathedral for contemporary politics, just observe that yesterday, President Trump sat in silence as a powerful woman dressed him down in public.

    The role of the Episcopal Church in American religious and political life is more profound than just the history of the Founders’ religious beliefs and the sociology of American establishment elites. The establishment of the United States of America coincides with the establishment of the Episcopal Church, because the Episcopal Church is the Church of England in the United States.

    Anglicanism is the belief system and liturgical practices based on the Church of England. As everyone who has learned European history knows, the modern Church of England emerged through a schism between King Henry VIII of England and the Pope Clement VII which produced the English Reformation. Driven by various spiritual and worldly matters, Henry refused to recognize papal authority over religious affairs in England. Anglicanism recognizes apostolic succession, but it does not recognize papal supremacy. The King of England is the supreme governor of the Church of England. As head of the church, the Archbishop of Canterbury kneels to no pope.

    This much is known to many Americans. Less known is what this implied for a newly independent United States of America which had rejected the King’s authority over the thirteen colonies and won a war of independence. What would happen to the Church of England in the United States now that the United States was no longer a province of the United Kingdom? This was an urgent question: most of the Founders, remember, were Anglicans.

    The answer is that the Anglican community in the United States needed to separate itself from the Church of England, and specifically from the monarch. The Wikipedia page on this part of Episcopalian history is wonderful: the Anglican community in late colonial/early republican era was divided over independence, and these were bitter divisions.*** It was impossible for an early republican Anglican clergyman to take the Oath of Supremacy, because that was an oath to the monarchy. The politics of this time is complicated but the outcome is known. The Church of England was disestablished in the United States, and the Episcopal Church was founded through a complicated mechanism that preserved apostolic succession without the Oath of Supremacy (fascinating how Scotland was involved). Henceforth, the Episcopal Church in the United States would be independent of the Church of England. It subsequently joined the Anglican Communion.

    This part of the story of the American founding is not so well known among most Americans. But it establishes very clearly the second essential feature of Episcopalianism in the early republic. The English Reformation established that the Church of England would kneel to no pope. The American Revolution meant that the Episcopal Church in the United States would kneel to no king.

    The National Church of the United States

    With this history in mind, fast forward to a few centuries later. I have no doubt whatsoever that Bishop Budde knew exactly what she was doing yesterday when she presided over the inaugural service for President Trump. She was articulating the values of the closest thing that the United States has to a national church. It is not the vacuous Christian nationalism of the current moment. It is not Vice President Vance’s convert-Catholicism. It is the faith of our Founders, quite literally. That is what Christian nationalists do not understand, or choose to ignore. The Founders were mostly men of faith, but they were men of faith who would kneel to nobody. Not a pope, not a king.

    It is that understanding of the responsibility of the faithful towards the American people—a nation just borne then, and being remade still now—that Bishop Budde instructed President Trump and Vice President Vance to uphold. This is the faith tradition that welcomes Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and all others into the nation. It gives special meaning to the General Intercession, what Episcopalians call the Prayers of the People, which is widely known far beyond just the Anglican communion. My favorite version is Form VI from the Book of Common Prayer; a selection:

    – For all people in their daily life and work;
    For our families, friends, and neighbors, and for those who are alone.

    – For this community, the nation, and the world;
    For all who work for justice, freedom, and peace.

    – For the just and proper use of your creation;
    For the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.

    – For all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble;
    For those who minister to the sick, the friendless, and the needy.

    – For the peace and unity of the Church of God;
    For all who proclaim the Gospel, and all who seek the Truth.

    Read that today, and consider the values, traditions, and politics that comprise the faith of our Founders. Bishop Budde was leading, and she knows that hundreds of millions of Americans, of all faiths, will follow.

    NOTES

    * Said no Founder ever.

    ** “This much I know: God is an Episcopalian. From Boston.”

    *** These are not unlike the divisions in late colonial America over independence itself. For a very interesting overview, see Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773–1776.