1513 



— ^Virtually all the great problems facing the United States 

 today have a large technological content. Yet those most knowl- 

 edgeable about the generation, management, and utilization of 

 new technology are not being inducted into the U.S. diplomatic 

 machinery; conversely, too few of those who are part of the 

 machinery of diplomacy are equipped by education, training, and 

 experience to communicate effectively with the technologists or 

 even to recognize when a technological/diplomatic problem exists. 

 • — Multinational corporations are recognized as the primary 

 mechanism for international transfer of technology, yet the United 

 States has no policy for enlistment and coordination of this 

 great organizational resource to advance the purposes of U.S. 

 diplomacy. 



— In its development of large technological systems, American 

 engineering has led the world in its ability to deal with an in- 

 finity of variables, design options, and interfaces. Apart from 

 mainly military initiatives of the Department of Defense, systems 

 approaches congenial to technologists have not been exploited 

 to develop technological initiatives beneficial to U.S. diplomacy. 

 — In the murky field of national security the emphasis has 

 been on the design of nuclear weaponry and high-precision sub- 

 nuclear weapons, to the neglect of the broader aspects of national 

 security such as: vulnerability of external sources of materials 

 essential to the U.S. economy, vulnerability of U.S. transport 

 indispensable to heavy industry, and the economic health and 

 innovativeness of basic materials industries. 



— In the conduct of U.S. diplomacy, preference is given to 

 bilateral agreements and programs. Science and technology are 

 major ingredients in these activities but the resources of people 

 with both diplomatic and technical expertise to serve these 

 agreements — numbering 28 as of early 1976 — are seriously 

 deficient. Moreover, resort to multilateral programs — which, 

 though difficult, might be a more efficient and diplomatically 

 more acceptable way to use these resources — is largely neglected 

 or downgraded. Engineering support for the United Nations and 

 its family of associated agencies is feeble. 



— The style of American diplomacy contrasts sharply with 

 that of American industry, in that engineering moves from the 

 establishment of goals to the design of programs to achieve them 

 while diplomacy waits for crises to appear and then attempts to 

 cope with them. 

 Thus, the study reveals the need for a greater emphasis on long- 

 range planning of diplomacy, with particular emphasis on its tech- 

 nological aspects. There needs to be a sustained and systematic search 

 for future trends in the world outlook, a sustained effort to formulate 

 U.S. goals, and a broad-gauge effort to discover organizing principles 

 to bring a greater coherence to U.S. foreign policy. 



Better and more accessible information is needed about all aspects 

 of the global diplomatic scene and about the forces that technology 

 brings to bear on it. 



All signs seem to ])oint to the need for a mobilization and coordina- 

 tion of the enormous intellectual resources of the United States in 

 academic institutions and other nongovernmental centers of intel- 



