Science and Diplomacy

The AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy has begun to publish an open access, online quarterly magazine titled Science and Diplomacy. It occurs to me to post some thoughts on the topic.

Let me first distinguish "science for diplomacy" from "diplomacy for science". Many of the science for diplomacy initiatives of the U.S. Department of State were bilateral agreements between governments to promote collaboration between scientists from the two countries. Typically these are negotiated on the assumption that scientists can collaborate on politically neutral topics (such as public health or astronomy) even if their governments are not getting along all that well, and that having some people talking together can not but help.

Sometimes diplomacy is needed to allow science to be conducted. For example, oceanographers pushed for the development of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to facilitate the processes of getting approval from governments to conduct international oceanographic research such as research voyages that passed through the ocean territory of several different countries. Similarly, there is a border health agreement between the United States and Mexico that was negotiated diplomatically to allow, among other things, health research across the long border between the two countries.

Of course, advances in science and technology underlie much of the agenda of diplomacy. Since the creation of the atom bomb, a major focus of diplomacy has been the prevention of nuclear war and the reduction of the proliferation of atomic weapons. As Rio + 20 is bringing us back to think about sustainable development it is worth noting that without the development of space technology and the information on the global environmental problems gained from remote sensing, the "global systems problems" would not be on the agenda of our diplomats to nearly the extent that they currently are.

Apollo 8: Earthrise

I recall doing an evaluation of the U.S. Telecommunication Training Institute some years ago. USTTI core funding came from U.S. telecommunications companies and, more importantly, it was able to connect people in developing nations with training opportunities offered by corporations in the United States without charge. They did so because the marginal cost of offering a place in an existing course or a new session of a course offered regularly was nominal, and the corporation gained benefits from the international connections that it so gained. Importantly, the idea for USTTI as an initiative came from the U.S. delegation to the International Telecommunications Union -- an organization that makes decisions that are economically important to U.S. companies. The delegation wanted something to offer at an upcoming ITU meeting for short term impact. I discovered however, that the long term result of the program was that increasing numbers of delegates from other nations to ITU meetings had been trained in the United States and as a result an increasing portion of the participants in such meetings better understood and accepted the technical rationale behind U.S. positions.

The United States provides educational opportunities to hundreds of thousands of foreign students each year, many in science, technology and engineering. I recently heard that U.S. diplomats negotiating with their Chinese counterparts on international economic issues are having a relatively easy time since so many of those Chinese negotiators have graduate degrees in economics from the best American universities. The negotiators on both sides share a common language from Economics and a common grounding in economic theory.

I would predict that technology acquisition will play a more important role in U.S. diplomatic efforts to promote our economic efficiency. In the aftermath of World War II the United States produced half the world's goods and services and was not only the world's foremost producer of new technologies but had acquired a great deal of technology capability from Europe, much in the form of refugees from the war. I feel that five percent of the world's population producing half of its goods and services and having even greater technological domination is inherently unstable. Clearly the European Union and Asian nations are achieving some parity with the United States. Thus I predict that our diplomacy should now be working hard to help U.S. producers obtain technology from abroad and that that function should be increasing in the future.

U.S. foreign policy tends to focus on security, economics and somewhat on global systems problems. However, it also focuses on humanitarian efforts, especially those to reduce the worst aspects of poverty. Science and technology have been significant elements of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Indeed, one of the most successful elements of the Point Four program created by the Truman administration in the 1940s involved bringing Europeans to see American factories to learn about U.S. technology and technological practice.

I would point out that scientific programs with humanitarian purposes can also yield political benefits. I was privileged to manage the U.S.-Israel Cooperative Development Research Program which financed Israeli scientists to cooperate with counterparts from developing countries on research with humanitarian purposes, but which also helped build linkages between Israel and those developing nations. So too, I helped manage the Middle East Regional Cooperation Program which helped finance scientific linkages between Israel and its Arab neighbors on problems of mutual interest. Often these projects were managed through a U.S. scientific organization that reduced the political sensitivity for Arab scientists cooperating with Israelis. While the program had scientific achievements (such as the first demonstration of the importance of Hepatitis C in Egypt), it also broke new ground in understanding among the participants.

I recall that the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institutes in developing countries not only did medical research of benefit to the American military, but also were so valuable to the countries in which they worked that they were sometimes left as the most visible U.S. presence in countries with which we were at odds.

I have been especially interested in multilateral S&T diplomacy as well as bilateral. UNESCO has a significant program in the sciences and has been especially valuable in the support of international scientific professional organizations, but it has also help create international centers such as CERN and SESAME. However, WHO, FAO, and other mission agencies of the United Nations system have significant scientific and technological programs -- programs which are important to U.S. foreign policy interests. So too do the international financial institutes such as those of the World Bank.

I welcome the creation of the new AAAS journal on the important topic of science and diplomacy.