The Global University is highly militarized and low on people skills, which means it's somewhat weak in the brains department, or "mentally deficient" as we say in the business. Long story.
In terms of funding, the talented scientists and engineers need to represent their research foci against a backdrop of Endless Wars, as that's the lifestyle most students see as realistic for themselves. How will my research help on the battlefield?
Metaphorically, we're always able to see War when we need it. President Johnson tried his War on Poverty, but then how was that going to profit Big Business?
What followed was a War on Big Government in order to stop it from FDR style experiments with so-called "socialism" (the irony being the military is highly socialized, in addition to being not democratic). The Business Plot, at first frustrated by Smedley Butler, won out.
One consequence of Endless Wars, with its belief in "regimes" and "regime change", is an endless stream of refugees from the bombing ranges the Global U selects for fairly indiscriminate flattening and rubblizing. As faculty knows: we're a bit weak in the head.
Student housing, being destroyed over there, needs to be reconstructed over here, in the form of refugee camps and the Global U is starting to train people in the many skills related to setting these up and providing management and materials. We're looking at large logistics challenges, especially around supplying the basics, such as WiFi.
GST has been helpful in linking all of the above to the Earth Energy Budget (EEB) at least conceptually. Exactly how currencies come to represent current, in terms of kilowatt-hours, is another discussion. Think of energy as gold bars and of the sun as their place of origin (we import more energy from the Sun, as a planet, than we do from all the oil fields combined).
Another branch of study the students are going into: weapons inspection and disposal. Those making bright shiny new weapons often have an investment in retiring the old ones the sooner the better. When conversion is a possibility, in rare cases, only a systems based approach will graph out the consequences and provide anticipatory programming.
My network of "spy camps" (derogatory) was envisioned with similar goals e.g. testing lifestyles with a degree of self-sufficiency even in a remote wilderness. Campus facilities employing XRL (extreme remote livingry) have an ephemeral quality. The entire campus is designed to vanish without a trace after the research data has been collected. Permanent infrastructure may be left behind in some cases, but minus the campus that put it there.
