451 



Technocracy and Statecraft in the Space A^e 1033 



revolution required that a sute remain in the forefront or become hopelessly 

 dependent and underdeveloped in the near future.^^ Gaullist France reacted to 

 Sputnik by declaring the American nuclear deterrent unreliable and acceleratmg 

 the dnve for French nuclear and missile capacity. Soviet refusal to share missile 

 technology aggravated the Sino-Soviet split and sparked a similar drive into space in 

 China " But the universal impulse to involvement in space was economic: the 

 apparent technological gap that had opened by the mid-1960s precisely because it 

 seemed the United States had discovered the "keys to power" in state-funded 

 research and development in critical point sectors, which sustained technological 

 revolution throughout the economy. The Economist wrote, "Prosperity depends on 

 investment, investment on technology, and technology on science; ergo, prosperity 

 depends on science."'^ Charies de Gaulle exhorted France "to invest constantly, to 

 push relentlessly our scientific and technological research in order to avoid sinking 

 into a bitter mediocrity . . . ."'' French spending for research and development 

 quadrupled during the first five years of the Fifth Republic, and France continued 

 to lead Europe toward aerospace independence m order to overcome the technolo- 

 gy gap, "brain drain," and "industrial heloiry." 



How does a society l*e that in the United States, or a smaller and less flexible one 

 like that of France, absorb the efl^ects of massive government expenditure for the 

 ongoing creation of new technology? Most historians, whether they view new 

 technology as a first cause or as a random joker in an otherwise ordered deck of 

 historical cards, assume technology to be an independent stimulus of socioeconomic 

 change, which in turn conditions (and usually disrupts) patterns of politics and 

 diplomacy. This is arguable to some degree. But, if complex new technologies are 

 sponsored by the state itself, then the state, whatever its ideology, becomes 

 "revolutionary." We would thus expect regimes to attempt to "socialize new 

 systems in such a way as to reinforce-not weaken-themselves, at least in the short 

 run This is the dilemma of the state obliged by foreign competition to foment 

 technical change at home: not only to accommodate society to new technology but 

 also to reconcile the two. Not surprisingly, de Gaulle promised to restore French 



''On ,he European space agencies ELDO and ESRO m the 1960s, see Or.o G.arin^ LEurope eiVespace 

 (Uusanne, 1968), Jacques lasL, Vers VEurope spatu^le (Pans, 1970) and Georges L. Th^son _La P /.u,u. 

 \patude d. VEurope. 2 vols. (Dijon. 1976). A model for study of soc.al and economic effects of state st.mulat.on of 

 teThnological change .s Robert Gilpms France m the Age of the SaerU^fic StoMPnnceton 1968). 



" Even under s.m.lar m.ernafonal pressures cultures h.stor.cally responded to new technologtes m drfferent 

 ways. See Eugene Ferguson. "Toward a Discipline of the H.s.ory of Technology. Technotosyand Cu'-rj'J^ 

 (1974): 13-30. But in the 1980s, when Chma. Japan, and Ind.a are scrambhng to rephcate the nuclear and 

 pace capabilities of the Western powers, cultural differentiation in adoption and adaptauon of new 

 ^chnologies may be eroding. Post-Mao China calls for only "Four Modernuations." implying the -ntent U. A.U 

 c^U^nl oLr features of Chinese civilization. How successful is this likely to be ■ the m.ernational imperative in 

 the current technological age is becoming increasingly uniform in its impact. 



«n. Econam.,. dctober 5. 1963. Robert McNamara and others insisted that the real gap was n 

 managen^ent. not in technology-that the systems approach, cost accounting. ="d computers sufficed to 

 explain the advantage of the United States. See Roger Williams, European Technology: The PoUtus of CoUaboraUon 

 (London, 1973), 21-33. 



"-"^ ChM\e% Ae OiuWe. Addresses to the French Nation (\9M). u i • i w,. I , Dfh 



«- lean-Iacques Servan-Schreiber best articulated French reaction to the technological gap n his L Df^ 



arJtcain [Pans, 1968). Also see Pierre Vellas. LEurope face d la rH.olution Uchnologu^e arn^caine Pans, 1969)^ 



Britain's confused reaction to the revolution in research and development is treated in Norman J . V.g. Science 



and Technology m British Politics (Oxford, 1968). 



