War is coming. America is unprepared. Yale must act.

Whether or not Yale students admit it, the U.S. stands at the precipice of what could be a major war in the near term. Our allies in the Middle East and East Asia are threatened by authoritarian regimes who increasingly violate sovereignty and promise direct conflict. Wars rages in Israel and Ukraine as they attempt to fend off the aggression of dictators. At home, the U.S. military is alarmingly unprepared for conflict while Yale students call for divestment from defense contractors, disregarding their growing national security importance as threats escalate.

A recent bipartisan Congressional Commission found that the American military is unprepared for major conflict abroad and likely has been since the end of the Cold War. The report raised a scary truth — China is “outpacing” the U.S. military in research development and has been for years. As the U.S. has mistakenly remained complacent for the past decades with stale research, aging equipment and an bureaucratic defense infrastructure, the Chinese have caught up to challenge our dominance. Recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal found that the Chinese navy outnumbers the U.S. Navy by vessel count while their shipbuilding capacity far out produces ours. The U.S. can barely manufacture ships domestically, let alone at a rate to compete with China. The Congressional report concluded that “the US lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.”

With U.S. interests increasingly challenged, this is not the moment to rely on old strategies, technologies and infrastructure.
As Yale students display “divest from war” pins, the University should instead ask itself how it can do the opposite — invest resources to strengthen American preparedness for the next war and national security more broadly.

In the past Yale has been at the forefront of defending freedom from barbarism and authoritarianism, both of which threaten liberty in the same vein today. 9,500 Yalies fought in World War I and 227 paid the ultimate price. In World War II, 18,678 Yalies joined the military and 514 tragically died fighting against facism. Beyond the contributions of individuals, the school has dedicated time and money to supporting the U.S. military. During WWII, Yale professor Carl Hovland became renowned for studying the effectiveness of propaganda on enemy morale. Simultaneously, seven of the ten residential colleges served as military housing whilst the University opened up multiple military programs that collectively trained 20,000 servicemen. During WWI, Yale operated a program studying the impacts of chemical warfare where professors developed early treatments against mustard gas that produced the earliest chemotherapy treatments for cancer. The university also staffed and operated an early field hospital near the french front line which became the U.S. Army’s model for organizing mobile trauma care.

America’s strength is innovation. Today, the biggest impact Yale can make is by dedicating its best asset to the purposes of national security — research and development. World class professors who operate research facilities and publish inventive scholarship can and should be dedicated to research that pushes forward military readiness. For example, the U.S. is over-reliant on Chinese rare earth elements for everything from cellphones to F-35s. Can material science professors develop alternative materials so that the US supply chain is not reliant on Xi’s kindness? For another example, payload equipped kamikaze drones increasingly detonate on Ukrainian tanks and cargo ships in the Red Sea. Can Yale’s artificial intelligence researchers create systems to track these drones and can engineering faculty apply new laser technology to shoot them out of the sky? Can Tsai City support and fund new defense projects and can the Office of Fellowships support new grants for those dedicated to security research? Yale is among the best research institutions in the world. Though these goals may be lofty, Yale’s strong research infrastructure uniquely positions it to develop the technologies and tools vital for defending American security interests.

As the U.S. risks slipping behind, the world spirals into disorder. A strong military is imperative to fight war. Yet more importantly, a leading military creates deterrence to prevent war outright. In the spirit of President Eisenhower, a strong military fosters the peace many so desperately fight for.

Sometimes reality hits hard in the face. American students feel safe in our universities thousands of miles from conflict because disorder hasn’t hit us like it hit the Ukrainians in 2022 and the Israelis on Oct. 7. Yale and its peer institutions must wake up and ask themselves now how they can contribute to national security and preparedness. Now is the time for students and faculty to depart from idealistic anti-military dreams, and begin out-researching and out-innovating our competitors abroad. This is not fear mongering. It is a matter of national security and Yale can help — lest America squander it’s time to catch up.

JOSHUA DANZIGER is a first year in Trumbull College. He can be reached at joshua.danziger@yale.edu.