> I fail to see why universities should align on their country's strategic interests.

In the UK, the industrial and military research labs have been closed, there is nothing being done except in universities. The university projects are really specific and don't join up in any way. There is no equivalent of DARPA guiding research proposals to be useful but Governments still think that the universites will define the next generation of industrial products.

Source: my own area of trying to use computers for Materials Science.