Generic Policy Issues 2 1 



dissident scientists by the Soviet government and the 

 overall climate of suspicion and secrecy also affect scien- 

 tific advances. However, the problem of using R&D re- 

 sults appears to be most closely related to the nature of the 

 Soviet economy. That the economy is centrally planned 

 has created rigid institutional barriers between the R&D 

 sector and the industrial sector, and the absence of strong 

 economic driving forces is inhibiting innovation and eco- 

 nomic growth." 



Integrating R&D planning with general economic and, 

 particularly, industrial planning and devising means for 

 better selection and evaluation of science and technology 

 goals have preoccupied top Soviet leadership since the 

 early 1970s.' While figures on Soviet productivity directly 

 comparable to U.S. and Western European data are un- 

 available, little progress seems to have been made in the 

 U.S.S.R. However, there are indications that the Soviet 

 Union is becoming far more adept in implementing ad- 

 vanced R&D for military purposes (NS). 



The Soviet government has recognized the need for a 

 high degree of science and technology literacy among the 

 general labor force and has instituted a general curriculum 

 reform at primary and secondary levels that focuses heav- 

 ily on science and mathematics. While the extent to which 

 those reforms have been implemented is not clear, and 

 while it is too early to evaluate their effects on the quality 

 of the labor force, U.S. specialists agree that, at least on 

 paper, Soviet precollege science and mathematics educa- 

 tion is the best in the world.** 



The Soviet Union also shares with the rest of the world 

 concerns about energy development. The country has 

 considerable reserves of oil and natural gas and, at pres- 

 ent, exports both, particularly to the Warsaw Pact nations. 

 The Soviet Union also has vast coal resources, a small 

 fraction of which it is exporting. However, it has a long 

 way to go to realize the full potential of those reserves for 

 direct use or as the basis of a synthetic fuels industry. 



The implications of Soviet trends in science and tech- 

 nology for the United States and its science and technol- 

 ogy enterprise are neither simple nor, as of yet, clear. 

 American policymakers and individual American scien- 

 tists are frequently faced with difficult decisions about the 

 appropriate degree and form of science and technology 

 cooperation with the Soviet Union. For example, there is 

 the question of high-technology exports to the Soviet 

 Union. While the U.S.S.R. should clearly be denied 

 access to specific advanced military technologies, the 

 question of whether or not to export technology to the 

 U.S.S.R. in other cases is less clear. 



Similarly, in the case of bilateral scientific exchanges 

 with the Soviet Union, the question of reciprocity is 

 central. While the Soviets do excellent work in many 

 fields, American scientists have often been frustrated by 

 the far greater controls and secrecy of Soviet society. 

 Access to the best scientists and facilities in the Soviet 



Union has often been blocked even when the overall 

 political climate was favorable. Soviet scientists are not 

 allowed to travel freely, nor are most national scientific 

 conferences held in the U.S.S.R. open to Western scien- 

 tists. Many U.S. scientists have also faced difficult per- 

 sonal choices on whether to participate in exchanges with 

 the Soviet Union, when fellow Soviet scientists, like 

 Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov, have been exiled or 

 imprisoned. 



There is a clear linkage between the scientific ex- 

 changes and the overall political relationship with the 

 Soviet Union. This was most clearly demonstrated after 

 the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the exile of 

 Sakharov, but there had been earlier linkage in 1976 at the 

 peak of Soviet proxy intervention in Angola and in 1978 

 with the trials of Soviet scientists Orlov and Scharansky. 



The Soviet Union's role in abetting the suppression of 

 the Solidarity Movement by the Polish government in 

 December 1981 provides the most recent evidence of the 

 need for caution in predicting the future course of all 

 interactions, including science and technology interac- 

 tions, with the U.S.S.R. The prospects for the next 5 

 years will depend on the overall political climate and on 

 the degree of reciprocity in the ongoing exchanges. 



TRANSNATIONAL PROBLEMS AND 

 OPPORTUNITIES 



A number of transnational issues associated with advances 

 in and applications of science and technology are likely to 

 intrude themselves on the U.S. domestic agenda during 

 the next 5 years. They include resource development and 

 management, the global environment, and transborder 

 information flow. 



RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT 



Relative depletion of oil and natural resources in the 

 United States and the uneven geographic distribution of 

 certain essential materials have resulted in the Nation's 

 vulnerability to limitations or interruptions in the supplies 

 of rubber and some primary metals, as well as oil. Other 

 industrialized countries and some middle-tier countries of 

 the third world share those problems. 



As discussed in Sections II-E and F, short-term re- 

 source vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies do 

 not lend themselves readily to science and technology 

 solutions; they generally are due to political and economic 

 factors. However, science and technology can play major 

 roles in the longer term. Applications of R&D to resource 

 exploration, recovery, processing, and use could offer a 



