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One aspect of the role of science and technology in weapons development is 

 peculiarly troubling. It is the simple fact that much of the initial 

 development and generation of ideas for new technology occurs in the 

 laboratory at a very early stage of the R&D process. In fact, discoveries or 

 ideas that are later revolutionary in military terms are just as likely to 

 occur in the research process without military applications in mind, and 

 without military funding. The dynamic of the research process is one of the 

 forces leading to instability, both in weapons development and in the 

 long-term viability of arms control agreements. 



There is little that can be done about this now, though it does point to 

 the need ultimately to consider ways of bringing R&D within the scope of some 

 form of arms control agreement. One aspect, somewhat farther along the R&D 

 chain, does deserve institutional attention, however. 



Proposals for new weapons developments are, in their early stages, often 

 made at low levels in the bureaucracy, with relatively little R&D funding 

 required. At these levels, choices tend to be made on strictly technical 

 grounds, with little input of broader considerations, such as the ultimate 

 effect on arms control objectives that might appropriately influence those 

 choices. The situation is repeated at higher levels as well, so that it is 

 not unconmon for the government to be faced with mature weapons designs 

 creating major new foreign policy problems that might have been avoided or 

 eased if some alternative technical options had been chosen instead. 



It is very difficult to deal with this issue in the bureaucracy, since 

 the organization of government serves to create bureaucracies with 

 compartmentalized objectives and few or negative incentives to introduce 



