SecDef and MOD and thirty minutes of “clear water”

Ash Carter and Michael Fallon come to Imperial to celebrate the US and UK’s research ties and the 75th Anniversary of the Tizard mission

As we sat around my office conference table preparing for yet another Chinese delegation checking us out before the State Visit of Xi Jinping we pondered the proposed recce group of 60 Chinese weaving their way through the labs and corridors we had planned for the President’s visit. Our team had worked tirelessly to show President Xi some of our most exciting and innovative research and to give meaningful gifts to President Xi and his wife. This was the final recce (at least we thought it was the final run through).

The College Secretary piped up that he had a request from MOD that Ash Carter, the US Secretary of Defense visit along with Michael Fallon, UK Secretary of State for Defence as part of Carter’s UK visit. He told them it was unlikely because we were already occupied with another foreign delegation that same day. The rest of the leadership team looked on in shocked disbelief. The Provost and I said swiftly and clearly, we were not turning away the US and UK defence secretaries. Think about it for a minute. We are closest allies. We have huge collaborations at all levels from research and teaching to defence strategy and intelligence sharing. Call them back now!

Working on it for another hour or so, with the same team arranging the Chinese recce, we established that we could coordinate both visits at the same time, taking Carter and Fallon to some of the same and some different laboratories where, in fact, we had US Defense Department funding for our work. There was one major crossing point in the itineraries but, in the words of our Provost, James Stirling, if all went well, we had about thirty minutes of clear water.

Thinking about it a bit further, we all realised that, most probably, all parties, the Chinese Embassy, the US Embassy, the MOD, all knew about each other’s visits.

I shared my experience with Ash when we both served on the Lincoln Laboratories Board. This was after Ash had made a name for himself as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration. His work on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons was admirable including the

Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. As new members, Ash and I had a good time helping Lincoln Laboratories manage their transition to a post cold-war world. Several times after a long Board meeting, I would come home and put on Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove just to remind myself of the culture we were dealing with.

As we contemplated what to show Carter, James shared his excitement in seeing Ash again after many years. We were all surprised; what did James Stirling and Ash Carter have in common? Of course, it was theoretical physics! As contemporary PhD students, James at Cambridge and Ash at Oxford, they were rivals, yet friendly rivals as many accomplished academics are.

Ash had gone to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar studying for his Doctor of Philosophy in theoretical physics. His thesis on Hard processes in perturbative QCD (Quantum ChromoDynamics) was completed in 1979 the very same year that James received his PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics with a thesis on Deep Inelastic Processes in Asymptotically Free Theories. After a few years continuing to pursue physics, Ash moved into international affairs and defence related work. James excelled in physics with many accolades and leadership positions.

The visit went well. James and I greeted Ash as old friends and shared some memories while walking around. We were able to highlight the Blast Injury Centre work on reducing injuries in conflict zones and dealing more effectively with injuries in the field.

We also took him to the Bio-inspired Systems Laboratory, where Professor Holger Krapp explained how their research into the flight behaviour of insects is helping to inspire a new generation of autonomous flying robots.

Sec Fallon had foreshadowed the visit in his press conference welcoming Sec Carter earlier that day saying:

“75 years ago, the scientific mission led in the darkest days of the war by Henry Tizard led onto the pioneering technology that helped win that world war, and founded between London and Washington a scientific partnership that continues to flourish today”

“Our nations currently cooperate on a range of innovative research projects from insect-inspired micro-UAVs to quantum clocks. Some of that effort is concentrated in Imperial College London, Tizard’s alma mater, which we will both be visiting later today.”

He also used the occasion to announce £70 million of funding for a new Government drive on innovation and technology in Defence.