As someone who worked on a DoD funded project, that's how you get the grants. A very large proportion of physics, chemistry and engineering is funded by defens

As someone who worked on a DoD funded project, that's how you get the grants. A very large proportion of physics, chemistry and engineering is funded by defense interests. Academic scientists span a large range of politics, from peace-loving hippies to pro military hawks. Many scientists just run on a heavy justification treadmill ("if it's not our group, it would be another one" and "this tech is not yet ready for deployment anyway" and "we'd be doing this work anyway, so it doesn't matter if we spin it as defense related"). Frankly, ethics is not really a strong point for physical scientists and is kinda selected against by the hiring system. Being able to take DoD money and sleep at night helps a lot to get tenure.