Abstract
Despite its success as a bridge during periods of international tension, scientific cooperation is often an afterthought in diplomatic tool kits. To emphasize the important role it can play, our experts explore how science makes diplomacy work.
CONFIDENCE BUILDING
Governments can Mobilize armies and sign treaties. Nongovernmental diplomacy, on the other hand, can create common ground where governments cannot. In the case of North Korea, the Nautilus Institute has found that technical and scientific cooperation are indispensable to this type of diplomacy.
At a time when the 1994 Agreed Framework to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear program favored cooperative engagement–but both the United States and North Korea were reluctant to implement their commitments–the Nautilus Institute focused on demonstrating that it was possible to work with the North Koreans. We built seven wind-power turbines in a famine-afflicted North Korean village. These turbines powered the village, introduced modern wind power to the country, and also symbolized the potential for confidence building, conflict resolution, and sustainable development in the North.
As the Agreed Framework unraveled, Nautilus shifted from direct technology-driven engagement to building a stock of common knowledge about North Korean energy insecurity. Over seven years, we held a series of research and training workshops on regional energy security involving teams from all countries in the region, including the two Koreas. In 2004, we facilitated the Bush administration's first provision of unconditional aid to the North after the Ryongchon city train disaster, when flammable cargo exploded in a railway station, resulting in the deaths of 160 people and some 1,300 injuries.
To resolve intractable global problems, one must be able to shift between different channels of communication and cooperation at critical moments. Scientific and technical cooperation is one important way to avoid wars in crises and to realize positive outcomes in an otherwise downward-spiraling policy environment.
THE ABILITYTO ADAPT
I was taught as an ecologist to pursue one career path–know your scientific field and work to advance it through academic research and training students. Any deviation would be a sad waste of skill. Part way through a fellowship at the U.S. State Department, I realize that my scientific training has unexpectedly expanded my professional horizons.
My interest in diplomacy began when doing research in Amazonian Brazil. I learned first-hand how international relations, through legal and political issues, could filter down to affect my research as a foreigner negotiating permits. To navigate my way through these and other challenges, I picked up valuable language and informal diplomacy skills. But I still did not appreciate how my scientific skills could benefit foreign relations. I've since learned that there is an increasing need for scientific literacy in international policy–on areas such as security and the environment–and that many scientists have the necessary skills to succeed in diplomacy. Even without formal policy training, scientists are well suited to learn on the job.
Scientists have valuable transferable skills that are unique in their rigor and applicability. We are trained to logically break down complex issues into manageable components and pursue those smaller pieces toward an overarching goal. Adaptability, an interest in global issues, and a desire to challenge ourselves are precisely the tools needed to contribute to international policy.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Science and technology cooperation can serve as an effective, soft-power instrument of a constructive foreign policy. Even countries that dislike U.S. policies or behavior often express great admiration for U.S. innovation. Thus, despite the constant threat of serious conflict with Iran as a consequence of its nuclear program and involvement in Iraq, the U.S. government funds science and technology exchanges with Iran in non-sensitive areas. This cooperation represents a special kind of engagement diplomacy that has often proven effective.
For instance, as the United States and Soviet Union were on the precipice of mutual annihilation during the Cold War, an extended dialog between U.S. and Soviet physicists eventually moved into diplomatic circles and led to the first ban on nuclear testing. With a White House dinner toast in 1961, President John F. Kennedy and Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato began the first U.S.-Japan cooperative science program to fix the “broken dialog between the intellectual communities” of the two countries. At the 1972 Nixon-Brezhnev summit in Moscow, officials signed seven agreements, all involving some element of scientific collaboration–on environment, space, energy, and basic and applied sciences. In Nixon's words, the agreements symbolized a change in the relationship “from confrontation to cooperation.”
Supporting this cooperation requires diplomats and politicians to have effective science and technology advice as well as have some degree of technical literacy. Without this support, U.S. diplomacy is at a disadvantage, whether the subject matter is nuclear power, nonproliferation, emerging pandemics (especially avian flu), or climate change. Moreover, science and technology must play a key role in verifying compliance with nonproliferation and other agreements, with or without on-site inspections. This issue can become urgent if there are future accords with Iran or North Korea.
Sadly, science and technology cooperation remains under-utilized and under-funded as an instrument of U.S. diplomacy at a time when the United States urgently needs more effective, soft-power outreach to the world.
SEISMIC SHIFTS
In the last 50 years, central Asia and the Caucasus have suffered several devastating earthquakes. While countries in these regions have worked with their neighbors on small, ad-hoc projects to improve quake preparedness, deeply ingrained political and ethnic rivalries hinder regional cooperation.
Since 2002 in the Caucasus and 2005 in Central Asia, scientists from the United States and the European Union have worked with their colleagues in the regions to promote scientific cooperation to mitigate the destabilizing effects of earthquakes. This effort expanded the skill base in the regions and fostered a new generation of technical experts who can advise their governments. By building a common set of databases and risk estimates, these projects will enable the countries to make independent decisions about their infrastructures and to pool their resources in the event of another earthquake.
Out of the earthquakes' devastation came a positive outcome: a scientific project to address the seismic hazards along one of the world's most tectonically active regions. This is contributing to a rapprochement of the scientists, decision makers, and politicians in the region.