Sqaska

Last week when North Korea "spectacularly" launched their satellite Kwangmyongson-2 the response was, as usual, predictable. Political leaders and military strategists in the U.S. immediately condemned the launch but were divided over what actions to pursue. Japan urged the UN Security Council to deliver a strong rebuke to Pyongyang. South Korea accused North Korea of violating Security Council resolutions and with the backing of the U.S., threatened more punitive sanctions. In thinking back to Sputnik, it seems the adage that the more things change the more they remain the same unfortunately still rings true.
The NDEA, passed and signed by Congress and the President, supplied much needed scholarship funds, loans, grants, and laboratory equipment for educational institutions. The goal was to improve mathematics and scientific research so as to produce better engineers and scientists. In return, they would develop state of the art satellites and superior nuclear missiles. While greatly increasing government and Pentagon control over public education and universities, it allowed corporate agencies to turn some schools into full-time scientific research institutions. The NDEA also required teachers and scholars to disclaim any socialist sympathies and to take an exceptional oath of allegiance to the United States.

As NDEA funding diverted taxpayers money from federal works projects, Social Security, and much needed minority and women's scholarship programs, students and science/math curriculum became highly specialized and bureaucratic. The larger and homogenized math and scientific communities became more important than self-reliance, critical thinking and questioning skills, and independent study. Since many supporters and propagators of the NDEA were virulent anti-communists and considered the Soviet Union as an atheistic enemy, many researchers and students tried to win their approval by sharing similar beliefs.
Hopefully, South Korea and Japan will not make the same mistake as the U.S. did for decades after the launching of Sputnik. It is much better to have ethical scientists, civic-minded chemists, humanitarian engineers, and theological biologists to guide a nation and maintain the integrity of its schools and universities, than those who spread terror and smother creative ideas and new ways of imagining the world. It is also more valuable to have moral corporatists, peaceful nuclear physicists, philosophical commanders, and logical political leaders in making foreign policy, than those who try to amass absolute power through conventional armies, nuclear arsenals, and the threat of war.