Harry Targ
An Associated Press story posted on October 8, 2018 announced
that Purdue Global, the new Purdue University online university which was
purchased from the discredited Kaplan University, was launching a new degree in
“cloud computing.” As with the general
Purdue Global project, there has been little transparency, including consulting
the faculty and providing information about it to the public. And the degree is
to be partnered with ManTech, “a global leader in technology solutions, to
offer the cloud computing program to its employees, supporting ManTech’s
portfolio of mission-focused solutions for national security, intelligence
community and federal civilian agencies.” The article emphasized that by 2020 fifty-nine
percent of the world’s internet consumers will be using cloud storage (“Purdue
University Global Introduces New Cloud Computing Degree Program,” AP News, October 8, 2018, https://www.apnews.com/6d2056fe8bbe49d084a1f30980af00d9).
Dr. Jeffrey
Buck, who is identified as the “Dean of Purdue Global School of Business and IT,”
pointed out that this new cloud computer curriculum will be “developed with
real-world requirements and input from experts at ManTech,” and “will help
students master the foundational goals of cloud computing.” ManTech CEO Kevin
M. Phillips applauded the “synergy” between this new program and other “cyber
certification training.” ManTech employees, he said, will be able to take
advantage of “online and self-directed” programs of instruction. The article
points out that the needs of non-traditional students, which are being provided
for by Purdue Global’s other courses, will fit this program as well. ManTech’s
Chief HR Officer pointed out that it “enhances our tradition of helping ManTech
people leverage their experience, build on it and advance their careers in new
ways that help safeguard America.”
This story, as with all the publicity surrounding
Purdue Global ever since it was unveiled in the spring of 2017, raises more
questions than it answers. Who are the students? Who are the faculty? What does
the curriculum look like? What role does Purdue University have in the program
aside from the use of the Purdue “brand?” How does Purdue University benefit
from this it? And, of course, what is ManTech?
Searching the internet (not the cloud), one can
discover that ManTech is the Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology
Program which is the DOD “investment mechanism for staying at the forefront of
defense-essential manufacturing capability.” ManTech was established by law in
1956 and its mandate has been revised periodically. Its current charge
includes: the pursuit of the economical acquisition of weapons systems and
components; connecting research, development and production; promoting capital
investment and industrial innovation; disseminating research and technology
throughout the industrial base; promoting worker training; and meeting “other
national defense needs with investments directed toward areas of greatest need
and potential benefit.” In short, under the ManTech label, the “cloud
computing” educational program, run through Purdue University, is really a
collaboration between Purdue Global and the Department of Defense.
The Purdue Global and ManTech cloud computing plan parallel’s
many of the research activities of Purdue’s Discovery Park. Discovery Park was
launched in 2001 with a grant from the state of Indiana and expanded by a $25
million Lilly Endowment as a nanotechnology center. Today it is a $1.15 billion
research and learning complex that combines Purdue’s expertise in science,
engineering, technology, and biology, with connections to the corporate world.
As its website suggests: “Leveraging Lilly Endowment’s investment, Discovery
Park has created an innovative environment where major global challenges are examined
objectively, generating new ideas and directions for future generations.”
One of Discovery Park’s core strengths is “Global
Security.” Key research on this subject is designed to respond to security
threats, global instability, defense needs, terrorism, nuclear deterrence and
proliferation, basically responding to “the most pressing security and defense challenges
facing the nation and the world.”
To describe one of Discovery Park’s core missions,
global security, Chief Discovery Park scientist, Professor Tomas Diaz de la
Rubia posted an essay entitled “The New Future of Warfare.” In it he addresses
the emerging salience of new military technologies based on artificial intelligence
(AI) and war. De la Rubia speculates that future wars will not be fought on
battlefields but rather in cities or in cyberspace. New AI weapons of war in
the hands of presumed enemies could constitute an existential threat to the
survival of the United States. Discovery Park, he indicated, is already engaged
in vital research on biomorphic robots, automatic target recognition for
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, automatic targeting for drones, and other
technologies. In short, a core Discovery Park mission includes the preparation
for and implementation of war. And this is necessary because as Professor de la
Rubia argues:
“It has become apparent that the U.S. is no longer
guaranteed top dog status on the dance card that is the future of war. In order
to maintain military superiority the focus must shift from traditional weapons
of war to advanced systems that rely on A.I.-based weaponry. The stakes are
just too high and the prize too great for the U.S. to be left behind. All the
more reason to call upon Purdue University and its inestimable capacity to
weave together academia, research, and industry for the greater good. We’re
stepping up to secure our place in the future of our country, and there’s much
more to come!”
These articles suggest that Purdue increasingly
commits its skills to research, development, training, and the production of
the instruments of war. Such commitments have been made with little discussion
in the broader university community. Important theoretical questions are not
being raised. For example, is war inevitable? Are other countries a threat to
the United States? Should the United States commit itself to remaining the
number one power in the world, however that is defined? Should research
prioritize human development and conflict resolution rather than “security? Is
there a relationship between poverty, hunger, environmental devastation, the
spread of weapons and war and violence? One wonders if more of government and corporate resources should be allocated to
these many issues, rather than to particular, and, perhaps, ill-conceived,
notions of national “security.” And, finally, does a Purdue Global training
program in cloud computing best serve the needs for non-traditional students
and the society at large or just students or employees of ManTech?
President Eisenhower in 1960 warned about an
unwarranted growth of the influence of the military/industrial complex in
American society. Today he would characterize the danger as the
military/industrial/academic complex. It includes the skewing of research,
largely in non-transparent decision-making ways about university priorities. In
addition, the military/industrial/academic complex tends to defend its existence by articulating problematic
assumptions about the inevitability of war.
For more on the concept of the military/industrial
complex see:
For a discussion about competing paradigms in the
study of international relations see:
