Tools for Tech Policy

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course explores two essential questions: what are the tools for technology policy, and how can policymakers best wield them to meet important security, economic, and social goals? Science and technology are increasingly critical to national security, and national security concerns will increasingly shape the scientific enterprise. Policymakers must develop the knowledge, best practices, and tools to help advance scientific research, promote technologies that help solve urgent global challenges, and safeguard the fundamental values at the heart of the social contract. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and advanced computing, biotechnologies and biomanufacturing, communication and networking technologies, and renewable energy generation and storage are poised to transform decision making from the boardroom to the battlefield. Policymakers must not only adapt to this new strategic environment, but also anticipate the most salient trends and shape them accordingly. In many ways, technology statecraft today is more complex and cross-cutting than in the past. It is not just governments that matter but also private companies, academic researchers, philanthropies, and state and local governments who are funding, inventing, and deploying cutting-edge technology. Intensifying geopolitical competition and rapid advances in science and technology require policymakers to employ an array of tools to influence the design, development, and deployment of critical and emerging technologies. Leaders must operate at the seams of foreign and domestic policy, balance national security and economic priorities, and integrate diverse perspectives across foundational sectors of our societies. They must devise policy under conditions of limited resources and mounting transnational challenges, while also navigating growing strategic competition among the major powers. Tradeoffs and tensions are inevitable, but the demand for wise policy and strategy leadership is indispensable. This course is organized in three parts. First, we will explore the tools that protect sensitive technologies and slow down competitors: export controls, investment screening, and economic sanctions. Next, we will grapple with the tools that promote technological innovation and help nations run faster: investments in research and development, support for public-private partnerships, and greater government action around a modern industrial and innovation strategy. Finally, we will consider the tools that project influence, foster greater technology situational awareness, and enable the rapid adoption of new capabilities: diplomacy and arms control, international technical standards, and horizon scanning of the global science and technology landscape. Each of these tools are part of the modern toolkit of technology statecraft and all are critical to the responsible development of critical and emerging technologies in the 21st century.