Project Socrates
| Classified intelligence program overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1983 |
| Dissolved | April 1990 |
| Jurisdiction |  United States |
| Headquarters | |
Classified intelligence program executive |
|
Parent Classified intelligence program | Defense Intelligence Agency |
Project Socrates was a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program established in 1983 within the Reagan administration. It was founded and directed by physicist Michael C. Sekora to determine why the United States was unable to maintain economic competitiveness—and to rectify the situation. The program was described as a joint White House and U.S. intelligence community initiative.
According to Project Socrates:
[B]ird's eye view of competition went far beyond, in terms of scope and completeness, the extremely narrow slices of data that were available to the professors, professional economists, and consultants that addressed the issue of competitiveness. The conclusions that the Socrates team derived about competitiveness in general and about the U.S. in particular were in almost all cases in direct opposition to what the professors, economists and consultants had been saying for years, and to what had been accepted as irrefutable underlying truths by decision-makers throughout the U.S.
The program's findings were credited with contributing to U.S. advances in missile defense technology during the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly known as "Star Wars".
When Reagan's presidential term ended and the Bush administration came to the White House, Project Socrates was labeled as "industrial policy", and began to fall from favor. As a result, in April 1990, the program was defunded.