August 3, 2020
Skolkovo was perhaps the Kremlin’s boldest maneuver yet. Envious of America’s technological success, the Russians sought to re-create the West Coast high-tech industrial hub in the suburbs of Moscow. But unlike the bottom-up innovation that defines Silicon Valley, where computer geniuses pinched their pennies and built the first personal computers in their garages, Skolkovo was a top-down state-run project that sought to replicate decades of trial and error seemingly overnight.
It was also a ploy to steal American intellectual property and transfer technological secrets to the Kremlin.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy described the Skolkovo scam best: “The project was like an espionage operation in broad daylight, openly enhancing Russia’s military and cyber capabilities.”
Indeed, multiple Defense Department (DOD) agencies and the FBI condemned Skolkovo as an espionage front that posed a clear and present danger to U.S. national security.
In 2012, the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth examined the security implications of Skolkovo and concluded that Skolkovo was an apparent “vehicle for worldwide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.”
The Kremlin and the Obama State Department praised the civilian endeavors of Skolkovo and its “clusters”—information, energy, biomedical, and even space technology (among other seemingly innocuous initiatives). The promoters of Skolkovo in Moscow and Washington conveniently neglected to mention the military applications.
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment