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NICHOLS; FOREIGN POLICY 



193 



economic forecasts and deep doubts about the usefulness of any 

 government-stimulated interventions in the economy. In such a situa- 

 tion, it is not surprising that the more complex intereactions of 

 technology with foreign economic policy are wracked with uncertainty. 



Along with the global benefits from the introduction of new 

 technology— such as in the agricultural Green Revolution— come 

 undesirable side-effects that, even though exaggerated by some critics, 

 are nonetheless real. Even when there is a major achievement in one 

 country— e.g., Malaysia's successful R&D on natural rubber— other 

 countries have great uncertainty about their technological choices with 

 different natural resources and different social systems. In fact, the fad 

 about "appropriate technologies"— usually meaning comparatively small 

 scale and "less advanced" technologies that are adapted to a particular 

 environment—has been stimulated by the assumption that if technology 

 were more understandable, the consequences of its use would be better 

 anticipated. Yet that is rarely true. In short, the social and economic 

 components of S&T policies are important areas for further research in 

 most international choices about technology. 



One of the reasons that economic issues loom so large is the major 

 puzzles concerning priorities for resource allocation within any R&D 

 establishment . To begin with, there are trade-offs between what roughly 

 can be categorized as the domestic purposes vs. the international pur- 

 poses for programs of science and technology: e.g., in biomedical 

 research the U.S. must choose how much research to devote to cancer vs. 

 tropical diseases. Another trade-off affecting the "third world" concerns 

 (a) investments in general scientific and technical education us. (b) in- 

 vestments in the urgent, more problem-oriented activities such as popula- 

 tion control or water resources. None of these trade-offs is easy. Many of 

 them emerge in stark terms during decision-making within national 

 governments and international institutions. There is little analytical 

 guidance for confidently striking such judgements in allocating scarce 

 R&D resources. 



Another puzzle concerns the time-tables for action. Many developing 

 countries show a remarkable lack of realism about the long time-periods 

 required for building scientific and technical institutions. Similarly, 

 many industrialized countries show astonishing apathy about how 

 urgent are the South's problems requiring science and technology to 

 meet humane goals in development. Without a world-wide consensus 

 on what the time-tables actually are— or at least a less politically charged 

 climate for reconciling the different views about these time-tables— there 

 is slim hope for sustained action on broader, coordinated efforts. 



Finally, among such analytical problems, consider the difficulty in 



