1811 



of substantial independence to one of substantial dependence on 

 other nations.**^ 



Technology and Interdependence 



Technology, more fundamentally than trade, created interdepend- 

 ence. The Age of Technology which began with the Industrial Revolu- 

 tion has now, in a new and explosive phase which began with World 

 War II, become the Age of Interdependence as well. It was an achieve- 

 ment of high technology, the atom bomb, which ushered in the Age 

 of Interdependence and has since served as one of its more ominous 

 reminders. Writing in 1948 to Herbert Hoover, then heading the 

 Hoover Commission study of reorganization of the executive branch, 

 Henry L. Stimson (who had served as President Hoover's Secretary 

 of State) observed that "The progress of science and invention brought 

 with it a vastly increased interdependence among the nations of the 

 world." «« 



In 1964 a book by Vincent P. Rock entitled A Strategy of Inter- 

 dependence outlined an approach for applying technology to the control 

 of conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R. instead of to 

 the escalation of armaments. Rock quoted from an address in June 

 1963 by President John F. Kennedy at Frankfurt, Germany: "We 

 live in an age of interdependence." *" 



Interdependznce as a Growing Concern of Political and Other Leaders 



In 1975 — the year in which, ironically, celebration of the Bicen- 

 tennial of American Independence began — public references to 

 the theme of interdependence assumed epidemic proportions, 

 prompting one well-informed observer, Richard N, Gardner, to call 

 it "surely the political catchword of our time." Writing in a special 

 magazine issue marking the 30th anniversary of the United Nations, 

 Gardner went on to say: "The crises of energ}^ and food, of infla- 

 tion and depression, all testify to the increasing interdependence 

 of our world." "^ In the same special issue. Secretary of State Henry A. 

 Kissinger registered regret "that outmoded expressions of rivalry 

 should be increasingly asserted at the very time when a more elevated 

 and unified sense of global obligation is required," *^^ and Harlan 

 Cleveland asserted that "Our problem ... is ... to cope with 

 interdependence." *^° Particularly noteworthy not only for its per- 



**'= One measure of this dependence is the special effort which the administrations of Presidents Nixon 

 and Ford felt it necessary to give to establishing and publicizing "Project Independence," an expensive 

 and protracted campaign to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign energy sources. 



"* Huddle, Science and Technology in the Department of State, vol. II, p. 1342. 



<" X'incent P. Rock. A Strategy of Interdependence: A Program for the Control of Conflict Bettreen the United 

 States and the Sorict Union. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904, 3W) p. (President Kennedy's statement 

 is quoted more fully on p. 364: "We live in an age of interdependence as well as independence— an ape of 

 internationalism as well as nationalism. . . . Today there are no exclusively German problems, Anieric-an 

 problems, or even European problems. There are world problems.") 



"8 UN SO: A Special Issue of The Inter Dependent (Journal of the United Nations Association of the United 

 States of America, New York), vol. 2, no. 7, August 1975. p. 16. (Cun-ently Professor of Law and Interna- 

 tional Organization at Columbia University, Gardner served from 1961 to 1965 as Deputy Assistant Secre- 

 tary of State for International Organization Affairs.) 



■"iiWrf., p. 20. 



«o Ibid., p. 9. A one-year "National Commission on Coping with Interdependence" was created in Decem- 

 ber 1974 under the auspices of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. Originating in a suggestion by 

 Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs John Richardson, the Commission sought 

 answers to four questions: (1) What adjustments in American lifestyles and workways seem indicated in 

 view of growing U.S. interdependence with other nations? (2) How ready are the American people for the 

 projected kinds of clianges? (3) To what extent are U.S. institutions capable of perceiving and analyzing 

 these changes and of reacting to them accordingly? and (4) What new altitudes and arrangements may 

 be required to enhance the capacity of Americans to cope with interdependence? A major conclusion reached 

 by the Commission, as set forth in "Coping With Interdependence: A Commission Report," was that the 

 main obstacles seemed "to arise from the pervasive assuminion that the line between 'domestic' and 'in- 

 ternational' is still a useful and relevant tool in making institutional policy." (Undated report, Aspen 

 Institute for Humanistic Studies, Princeton, N.J.) 



