Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Michael C. Sekora
In the closing days of his administration, President Reagan had an executive order drafted
to create a new government agency - the first new federal agency since the creation of
NASA in the 1950s. Why would a president who built his reputation on reducing the size
of the government want to create more government?
During Reagan's two terms in office, a program within the US intelligence community
uncovered data and drew conclusions about the cause of America's declining
competitiveness. The program, called the Socrates Project, also developed the means to
reverse our decline and sustain our leadership in the world for decades to come.
The Socrates team used all-source intelligence to generate a holistic, bird's eye view of
competition worldwide. Their view and understanding went way beyond, in terms of
scope and completeness, that which was and is available to the university professors,
think tank analysts and consultants. A key finding was that at the end of WWII decision-
makers throughout the US began shifting away from technology-based planning and
began adopting economic-based planning.
President Reagan, and the Socrates team, saw that to rebuild America's competitiveness
we had to re-introduce technology-based planning as the foundation for decision-making
in the US. But he also saw that the US could not just adopt the level of technology-based
planning that US decision-makers had used before WWII. To regain and maintain our
economic health, US decision-makers needed to execute a level of technology-based
planning that far surpassed that which was executed by China, India and others.
To determine how to leap-frog the tech-based planning of all countries worldwide, the
Socrates team mapped out the evolution of tech-based planning, and two things became
obvious: first that tech-based planning makes an evolutionary leap forward every few
hundred years - the scientific revolution, the automated industrial revolution, and so
forth; and second that mankind was poised to make the next big evolutionary leap
forward in tech-based planning - the automated innovation revolution.
President Reagan saw that if the US could generate and lead the automated innovation
revolution, America's competitiveness and economic health for many generations would
be ensured. The Socrates team did design, build and demonstrate a proof-of-principle
version of the automated innovation system.
The Socrates automated innovation system was also designed to generate one other major
benefit for the US. It would enable the public and private organizations throughout the
US to work together in a self-determined, highly symbiotic fashion. As a result,
technology and the full range of other resources throughout the US would be utilized in a
highly coherent but flexible and independent fashion, further increasing the competitive
advantage of the US and all its private and public organizations - all fully compatible
with America's democratic principles and belief in free markets.
President Reagan saw that the Socrates automated innovation system needed to be built,
so he created a new government agency that would support all US industry and the
government agencies. But before the executive order could be signed, President Reagan's
term came to an end, and he left it to the incoming President Bush to continue the
mission. When Bush came into office he abolished the Socrates Project.
With the US now losing industry after industry and Americans' standard of living on a
rapid decline, now is the time to complete the task that President Reagan saw as the key
to America's future. We need to generate and lead the automated innovation revolution,
and we need to do it before it is too late.