1609 



are only a few of the American undertakings combining technology 

 and diplomacy in which Congress has been involved, and in some of 

 which it has at times played the leading U.S. role. It is not the purpose 

 here to catalog such congressional involvements; a number of them 

 are explored in some detail in the other studies of the Science, Tech- 

 nology, and American Diplomacy series. 



Status of the Issue; Prospects and Options 



Some of the main points made in the study, as of December 1970, 

 under the heading of "The Emerging Policy Issues of International 

 Technology," deal with effects of technology as the dominant factor 

 of change that has shaped the modern world; these are shown to be 

 both beneficial and injurious. The point has been made that tech- 

 nology is the most obvious avenue to national strength and inter- 

 national influence. "Technology has also been shown to be a potent 

 force, linking the world together by many threads. Technolog}^ itself 

 has an evident propensity to 'go global'." ^^^ 



The United States, by virtue of tremendous vigor and public 

 expenditure in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, enjoys a com- 

 manding technological lead among the nations of the world. As 

 Herman Pollack has said: "The attraction generated by this pre- 

 eminence among the nations of the world, especially those in the 

 process of development, is perhaps one of the lesser understood but 

 more pervasively powerful forces at work in international relation- 

 ships today." ^^^ 



But will the United States adopt wise and imaginative policies 

 to turn its technological tour de force into permanent gains for 

 humanity?— "The emerging question posed by the onrush of tech- 

 nology, and its effect on the relations among the countries of the world, 

 is whether this potent factor of change and national power is to operate 

 in a random way, or whether it is possible, and desirable, to devise 

 a national strategy to guide and direct it, to stimulate innovation in 

 some directions, and possibly to slow and inhibit innovation in 

 others." '^' 



In the July 1970 issue of Science, Prof. Robert Gilpin of Princeton 

 identified three major interrelated economic consequences of modern 

 technology: increased interdependence among national economies, 

 the growing role of technological innovation in economic growth and 

 competition, and the rapid spread of multinational corporations, 

 primarily dominated by American capital. He suggested that a "new 

 international economy" was developing under the stimulus of tech- 

 nology, and that there were three alternative national strategies in 

 response to the development: (1) "to support scientific and tech- 

 nological development across the broadest front possible"; (2) scien- 

 tific and technological specialization; and (3) the importation of 

 foreign technology. 



The United States and the Soviet Union [wrote Gilyiin] have followed the 

 first strategy; Sweden, Great Britain, and a number of other countries have 

 followed the second; while Japan and West Germany have, in general, followed 

 the third. Although the U.S. strategy has been relatively successful, particularly 



133 Ibid., p. 675. 

 1" Ihid. 

 i3< Ihid. 



