Technology Sovereignty

Technology is adaptation. Technology is productivity. Technology is progress. Technology is security. And each of these things contributes to survival and prosperity and to rising living standards. Technology sovereignty thus is critical to any independent nation that wants to remain independent by being able to solve its own unique challenges and care for the prosperity of its people. Looking Eastward, Iraq boasted the highest number of PhD’s per capita in science and technology of any country in the world. Today, Iraq lies utterly destroyed for its pursuit of technology sovereignty. While Iraq lays destroyed, sex tourism in Syria is booming as Arab males seek to exploit the weakest and most vulnerable of Iraqi society, women, while the tremendous opportunity to employ Iraqi scientists is shamefully ignored.

Looking further East, as Iran now tries to pursue a nuclear energy program and become self-sufficient in the technologies that would grant it technology sovereignty over this domain, it has invited the ire of regional and world powers who fear that this same technological capacity could be used to produce weapons. This thorny issue aside, Iran currently leads the region in the highest percentage of Looking in the opposite direction, when the Soviet Union was brought to a collapse in the beginning of the 1990s, the first action of the Israeli government was to recruit Soviet Jews in massive numbers to populate occupied Palestine with more Jews since at that time it was calculated that Arabs had once again reemerged as numerically superior. A secondary benefit of this policy was that many of the Soviets who found their way to occupied Palestine also were highly educated in science and technology. Timed with the acute technology labor shortage of the late 1990s and the massive growth in the technology industry, this policy proved to have greater economic benefit than the original political agenda it served.

Looking at the large numbers of the highly talented Iraqi scientists who have led Iraq or are in need of safety, it is truly a shame that little has been done to utilize their talents or even protect them. More than 1000 Iraqi university professors alone have been assassinated since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies. Diminishing Iraq’s technological capacity and capabilities has been a goal for almost twenty years, as Dick Cheney stated just prior to the launch of Operation Desert Storm, “we are going to bomb Iraq back to the stone age.” It is a shame that world leaders continue to show us who they are, yet we choose not to believe them. For those that do take them seriously and pursue a policy of technology sovereignty as a means of security, they invite the wrath of those who do not want even deterrent power to emerge in any corner of the globe that will challenge their hegemony.

Those that do not wield any technological capacity will thus remain technologically occupied as mere colonies of more advanced technological societies. Those that pursue technology sovereignty in any capacity that provides for its security perhaps will be the target of a far more destructive relationship. Without, however, making a concerted effort to implement policies that support the creation of an innovation ecosystem, countries like Syria will neither have technology to support its own development nor to provide any measure of security. Meanwhile, countries like the United States, India and even entities like Israel will pursue what might be considered a dominant strategy, producing technically talented people, a strong economy and a strong military through the pursuit of technology sovereignty leading to global political clout.

To really pursue the development of a strong technology sector, countries like Syria need to carefully consider what it will take to succeed and thoughtfully prepare an integrated action plan that looks at creating an innovation ecosystem. The first key driver of success is producing top technical talent in areas of high demand to attract technology companies and investments, embargoes notwithstanding. Innovation is essentially a talent driven industry and the innovations that will form the basis of products, services and solutions will be developed by talent. Those innovations then have the ability to attract investment, assuming they are world class and there is a solid value proposition to the innovation. Finally, investments will accelerate the development of technology and terminate the value chain by rewarding investors, companies, and individual talent for their success. Profitability thus produces sustainability.

Furthermore, government can contribute greater funds to not only advanced degree programs in science and technology but also research and development, both basic and applied research, with a focus on problems that have great economic potential and that would allow the government to recoup its investments through taxation or some other means of terminating the value chain with a profitable outcome. Providing incentives around R&D and helping foster a venture capital and private equity industry will also go a long way in supporting innovation in the private sector. An innovation ecosystem is a systems dynamic problem that largely depends on sound public policy and if any piece is missing, the system will not function properly and is likely not to succeed in producing the desired results. It first starts with a choice that only the government can make.

What will countries like Syria choose to do and how will they fare in a world of power politics? Pursue sovereignty and build a strong economy or remain forever an occupied technology colony?