1868 



change and national power is to operate in a random way, or whether it is pos- 

 sible, and desirable, to devise a national strategy to guide and direct it, to stim- 

 ulate innovation in some directions, and possibly to slow and inhibit inncvation 

 in others.*^ 



The study then quotes a suggestion by Prof. Robert Gilpin to 

 the effect that thought might be given ". . , to the formulation 

 of a more explicit technological strategy designed to increase the 

 social return of its [i.e., the United States'] immense investment in 

 science and technology and to minimize its negative environmental 

 effects." Moreover, "In a world where nuclear weaponry has inhibited 

 the use of military power and where social and economic demands play 

 an inordinate role in political life, the choice, success, or failure of a 

 nation's technological strategy will influence in large measure its 

 place in the international pecking order. , . ." ^^^ 



The study suggests that there is a paradox in the fact that: 



The United States, best equipped to apply science and technology to the 

 solution of man's global problems, and credited with the highest development of 

 managerial skills, has been reluctant to devise and implement a positive tech- 

 nological strategy of its own. There would seem to be no lack of opportunities: 

 earth resources satellites, ocean and ocean floor development, urban improvement, 

 recovery of resources from all forms of waste, the Oak Ridge proposal for large 

 agricultural-industrial-nuclear complexes, and many more.^^^ 



The possibility exists that in the absence of a positive effort at 

 long-range planning the United States will fail to innovate: 



U.S. efforts have been concentrated in fields of high technology in a reaction 

 against external threats; the result has been to assemble large organizations in 

 the fields of military, space, and atomic technologies. That these fields continue 

 to be important is not questioned. But in the design of a total national strategy 

 of technology, the effect of their being already on the scene in great numbers 

 is to provide pressures for the United States to keep on doing what it has been 

 doing. Where can objective analysis and innovative policy be found that can 

 examine alternatives or additions to the national program?*^' 



The study concludes with the suggestion that multilateral coopera- 

 tion in grand technological efforts may be a constructive alternative 

 for the achievement of peace and progress, and an antidote to the 

 invidious spread of nationalism. 



ISSUE two: the politics of global health 



The main point of this study was an asserted underemphasis in a 

 field of low visibihty but considerable diplomatic opportunity. How- 

 ever, the need for attention to global health, as a consequence of the 

 changes wrought by technology, is growing more serious: "Today the 

 world ... is rapidly becoming a unit, epidemiologically speaking, and 

 urban sprawl threatens to renew the dangers which were inherent in the 

 unsanitary conditions of the i:)ast." ^°'* 



One of the difficulties facing the United States in embarking upon 

 any vigorous initiatives in the field of public health outside of U.S. 

 boundaries is that primary emphasis of U.S. programs abroad has been 

 bilateral while the character of global health problems is inherently 

 multilateral. The growing health-related problems of preventing the 

 spread of epidemics in the face of increased individual intercontinental 



«< Huddle, The Evolution of International Technology, Vol. II, p. 675. 



555 Ibid. 



558 Ibid., p. 677. 

 "57 Ibid., p. 678. 

 568 Quimby, The Politics of Global Health, \'ol. II, p. 707. 



