When Missiles Fly, Minds Fall Silent

The Israel-Iran conflict underscores yet again the fragility of peaceful scientific inquiry in a militarised age.

Days after Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear arsenals, the United States followed suit by launching precision airstrikes using B-2 stealth bombers on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. While global attention remains fixated on geopolitical shifts and regional power plays, a quieter casualty is being overlooked: the disruption of science.

Scientific activity in both Iran and Israel is grinding to a halt. As labs fall silent, decades of scientific progress risk being undone. Israel and Iran are key players in global research - Israel in AI, cybersecurity and MedTech; Iran in nuclear science, nanotech and biomedicine. War now threatens to undo their hard-won gains.

The impact is both personal and systemic. Imagine a doctoral student in Iran, just days away from submitting a thesis on low-cost cancer diagnostics. An airstrike near her university destroys access to the lab, wipes out research samples, and severs contact with her supervisor. Her academic journey ends not with a defence but with silence. In Israel, a start-up field-testing AI-powered agricultural drones is forced to shut down a critical trial after missile alerts halt operations and key team members are called into military service. These are not isolated stories. They reflect a larger pattern, the breakdown of scientific continuity.

This disruption deepened with the June 22 strikes. While aimed at Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, some of the targeted sites, particularly in Isfahan, were almost certainly dual-use, supporting both strategic and civilian research in fields like advanced materials and radiopharmaceuticals. These precision strikes, though militarily effective, come at a deeper cost. They destroy not just buildings, but the fragile ecosystems that keep science alive. When a scientific hub is cut off from its networks, the damage is not only logistical. It halts collaboration, disperses teams and sets back progress by years. What is lost is the continuity of knowledge, the transfer of expertise and the trust that binds institutions across generations. The fallout is intellectual, long-term, and global.

History reminds us that science and war share a paradoxical relationship. Major conflicts have occasionally accelerated scientific developments. World War II brought radar and penicillin. The Cold War launched satellites and climate modelling. But these advances often came at the cost of diverting research into military channels and deprioritising science that benefits humanity in the long run. U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan improved trauma care but left local universities in disarray. The lesson is clear. War may push some kinds of science forward, but it often halts or distorts the kind that sustains civil society.

In the current conflict, similar patterns are unfolding. Israel’s innovation sector, globally admired for its agility and reach, is likely under pressure. Missile alerts interrupt laboratory work, timelines grow uncertain, and global partnerships stall. In such conditions, innovation cannot be expected to thrive. It requires more than skill. It needs stability, trust, and time.

For Iran, the challenges are even more severe. Sanctions had already made it difficult to access equipment and collaborate internationally. Now, with facilities damaged and uncertainty deepening, researchers face isolation. There are signs of growing unease among scientists. Some may rethink their future in the country. If this continues, the loss of trained talent could be lasting.

The effects of this war go beyond borders. Science is inherently global. Ideas, datasets, and experiments often span countries and continents. But conflict shuts down collaborations, delays publications, cancels conferences, and tightens visa regimes. Even science diplomacy, often the last working bridge between hostile nations, begins to collapse. Just as damaging is the shift in research priorities. Budgets turn toward defence and surveillance. Fields like climate resilience, food systems and public health move down the list. Scientists lose not only their tools but the freedom to ask important questions. The cultural consequences run deep. Scientific neutrality becomes harder to maintain. Researchers may feel compelled to align with national narratives or stay silent. Young scientists quickly learn that their work is more likely to be used for war than for welfare.

It is this shift in purpose that makes the loss so profound. The same algorithm used to guide a missile could have been used to power a diagnostic device. The fuel now used for drones could have been used to launch satellites to monitor drought. The minds now shaping military strategy might have been solving challenges in energy, health, or education.

And yet, science has shown remarkable resilience. Some of the world’s most inspiring scientific efforts emerged from the ruins of conflict. Japan rebuilt its universities after World War II. Europe created CERN as a symbol of peaceful cooperation. Rwanda, after the genocide, invested boldly in agricultural science. These were not automatic rebounds but deliberate choices based on the belief that knowledge, not destruction, defines the future.

The global scientific community may not be able to stop wars, but it cannot afford to ignore their consequences. Even without sweeping interventions, it is possible to keep displaced researchers connected through communication, visibility and modest institutional support. Governments too should recognise that protecting research infrastructure and talent, even in small ways, is a strategic choice. Science takes decades to build, but can be lost in days. Preserving core institutions today means rebuilding with purpose tomorrow.

When the conflict ends, as it eventually will, the focus will turn to restoring physical infrastructure. But unless we also restore the institutions and values behind science, the recovery will remain incomplete.

Even in history’s darkest chapters, science has endured. Ideas have crossed borders, survived exile, and transformed the world. What keeps science alive is not infrastructure or funding alone, but the freedom to ask bold questions and the courage to pursue them.

A nation’s true strength is not in the missiles it launches but in the minds it allows to wonder, to question, and to create. If war silences that freedom, peace must restore it. Because when the missiles stop flying, the minds must fly.

(The author is the former Director, Agharkar Research Institute, Pune and Visiting Professor, IIT Bombay. Views personal.)