CHAPTER 2— THE GLOBAL CONTEXT OF SCIENCE, TECH- 

 NOLOGY, AND AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 



U.S. foreign policy today as never before is confronted by a world 

 of restless strivings and uncertain directions. The modern world 

 presents a complex mixture of dynamic new forces and drift, of active 

 or potential conflict and detente, of wayward nationalism and a grow- 

 ing curriculum of multinational cooperative activities. The 200th 

 anniversary of the beginnings of history's most successful experiment 

 in political democracy finds the Nation pondering the question of how 

 to define and advance those aspects of its heritage of independence 

 that are valuable in a world of growing interdependence. The mid- 

 1970s are thus a pivotal time: a time of reassessment of U.S. foreign 

 policy, a time to search for a new and more stable, more durable world 

 structure that could be realized by creative diplomatic initiatives, 

 built deliberately according to a purposeful and coherent design. The 

 resources that the United States can mobilize to meet this challenge 

 are mainly the technology and managerial skills in which the Nation 

 enjoys an unchallenged superiority. These two strengths, by a con- 

 venient fact of history, are precisely those needed by most of the 

 other nations of the world in order to achieve progress toward their 

 own internal national aspirations. 



However, elements of this changing world do not automatically 

 simplify or facilitate the exercise of U.S. leadership in applying these 

 needed skills toward the achievement of a more stable, more durable 

 world structure of cooperative and peaceful nations. The enormous 

 complexity of the world of the 1970s derives from the great variety 

 of nations and groupings of nations, each with its own rate and direc- 

 tion of political, economic, and technological change, leading in turn 

 to changing goals and national attitudes. Change can generate conflict 

 or it can promote harmony and cooperation. All of diplomacy resolves 

 ultimately into the balancing of these opposites. Whether by bold 

 creative moves or by slow and cautious increments, the largely un- 

 recognized challenge facing the United States is to use its skills of 

 technology and management to assemble the elements of the present 

 changing world into the more constructive and reliable order on which 

 the future of civilization so manifestly depends. 



As the first consideration, what are the salient elements of the 

 modern world? Some of them are the following: 



Detente Vis-a-Vis the U.S.S.R. 



The rigidities of the cold war are being replaced by a new flexibility 

 in which the still-potent, still-dangerous adversary relationship 

 between the United States and the Soviet Union is moderated by an 

 uneasy and partial truce. This truce is marked by trade agreements, 

 grain transactions, agreements on scientific and technological co- 

 operation, technology transfers, and other unwarlike dealings epit- 

 omized by the term "detente." 



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