AIP FYI #72: Secretary of State Powell Highlights Role of Science in Foreign Policy

“Science and statecraft…can and must work together for a safer,
healthier, better world, in many more areas than the ones I just
mentioned — missile defense, climate change, energy, you name
it,” declared Secretary of State Colin Powell at the annual
meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. He urged the
gathering of scientists to help the State Department to
“keep…abreast of breakthroughs like genetically modified foods
that can help fulfill the promise of a prosperous, healthy,
stable world,” and “to comprehend, to anticipate, and to guard
against the dangers that can befall us should technologies fall
into the hands of those who would use them to do harm.” Selected excerpts
from Powell’s April 30 speech follow. The “//” indicates where
paragraphs have been combined in the interest of space:

“…[Y]ou don’t have to…be Secretary of State to survey the
21st-century terrain and see that science and technology must
inform and support our foreign policymaking in this challenging
world that we live in. Whether the mission is supporting the
President’s campaign against terrorism, implementing arms
agreements, creating conditions for sustainable development, or
stemming the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, the formulation of our
foreign policy must proceed from a solid scientific foundation.”

“The Academy Symposium on Countering Terrorism later today is
only the latest valuable contribution you have made to the
President’s anti-terrorist campaign…. As focused as we all are
on terrorism and other clear and present dangers, we must not let
the perils of our age blind us to the great promise that exists
in this 21st century. Despite worrying about the Middle East,
despite all of our concerns in places like Kosovo and Bosnia, and
worrying about other issues that fill our front pages, we can
step back at the same time and see that there are opportunities
out here to be seized. There is no major war taking place today
between the great powers. Communism is dead, fascism is dead, the
Cold War is over. Yes, there are tensions in the world, and we
watch places like India and Pakistan, but the reality is that no
great powers are in conflict today. In fact, the major powers who
used to be in such tension with each other are cooperating in
ways now that were unimaginable just a few years ago.”

“We have moved forward aggressively, not only with Russia and
China and engaging in the Middle East, but in other parts of the
world too: our own hemisphere, with the Community of Democracies,
with a commitment to a Free Trade Area that will extend to the
Arctic Circle, down to Tierra del Fuego; and in Africa, where the
challenges are so great we will be engaged; and throughout
Asia.// We have seen great progress as a result of our
engagement, and in all of these areas of engagement, science and
technology has played an important role. Since September 11th, we
have cooperated with Russia on the technical aspects of
counterterrorism. We continue our swords into ploughshares
programs that encourage Russian researchers to channel their
know-how in a positive direction and keep that know-how out of
dangerous hands.// We are reinvigorating our civil science and
technology cooperation with Russia in the areas of basic
research, health, environmental protection, and resource
conservation. Just last week, a senior delegation led by the
President’s Science Advisor, John Marburger, went to China to
chart a course for collaboration on global science and technology
issues. Two weeks ago, my Under Secretary of State for Global
Affairs, who is here this morning, Paula Dobriansky, traveled to
China also to lay the foundation for a new environmental agenda.”

“President Bush’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee
last November launched a new era in our bilateral relationship,
and a new pillar of that partnership is a global issues forum, of
which science and technology cooperation will be a major
component. Nothing is of greater interest to Delhi than expanding
science and technology cooperation. And in President Bush’s
recent meeting with President Musharraf of Pakistan, S&T figured
prominently on the agenda. Earlier this month, my Science and
Technology Adviser Norm Neureiter and Pakistan’s Minister of
Science and Technology Dr. Attaur Rehman sat together in this
very building and outlined a program of cooperation on
agriculture, earth sciences, education and health.”

“At the United Nations Conference on Financing for Development
that was held a few weeks ago in Monterrey, Mexico, President
Bush and other world leaders shaped a new approach to global
development, designed to unleash the entrepreneurial potential of
the poor, instead of locking the poor into a cycle of
dependence.”

“To support the efforts of developing countries committed to the
domestic reforms that are necessary for sustained growth,
President Bush has announced an increase in the United States
economic development assistance… // In our assistance
activities, we will continue to bring computer instruction to
young professionals in developing nations; we will continue to
provide textbooks and training to students in Islamic and African
countries, to apply the power of science and technology to
increase harvests where hunger is greatest. And we plan to expand
our fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

“You will also see our new approach to development at the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa
this August and early September. At the summit, we will stress
that good governance, including solid science and technology
policies, are fundamental to sustainable development….// One
of the public-private initiatives we plan to showcase at the
world summit is the Geographic Information for Sustainable
Development Project, which makes satellite imagery available to
people around the world via laptops, to policy-makers, to users,
to scientists so that they can get instant access to satellite
photography, and these pictures will help them map watersheds,
plan agricultural crop strategies, and trace urbanization trends.
Linking that kind of technology to GPS technology gives us all
kinds of new avenues to increase productivity and to bring the
power of technology to the most distant corner of the world, the
darkest corner of the world. Poor regions in Africa are the
project’s initial areas of study for this satellite imagery
availability.”

“Science and statecraft, as I have just illustrated with HIV/AIDS
and infectious diseases, can and must work together for a safer,
healthier, better world, in many more areas than the ones I just
mentioned — missile defense, climate change, energy, you name
it. At the same time, even as science and technology help us
tackle these complicated problems, developments in science and
technology surely will open up new challenges and opportunities
that today we can only dimly imagine.// Indeed, new avenues of
scientific research may produce technologies as revolutionary in
their security, economic and social implications as information
technology has been since the mid-1980s. One area of research
alone, nanotechnology, could have enormous implications — some
thrilling, others chilling — on terrorism, defense, health,
development and the world economy.

“As Dr. Alberts [Bruce Alberts, President of NAS] urged you with
such passion yesterday, do all that you can to inspire young
scientists to devote themselves to tackling the great challenges
of feeding, housing, and educating, and meeting the energy, water
and health needs of the 9 billion people expected to be on Earth
by the year 2050.// Help us to share know-how and promote
science education all around the world. I urge your members once
again in particular to volunteer as mentors, set up mentoring
programs with math, science and technology. Get young people
turned on to the challenges and opportunities that math, science
and technology provide to them. It is often said that science
shapes the future, but it is the rising generation of young
people who will shape the future of science.

“Last but not least, help us build scientific and technological
capacity right here in the State Department and across our
foreign affairs community. The National Academies 1999 study
remains an excellent guide for integrating science into our
foreign policy endeavors. I very much look forward to its sequel,
which will broaden the scope of the 1999 study to include the
Agency for International Development and other foreign affairs
institutions.

“I especially want to thank you, Bruce, for the support that you
have given to Norm Neureiter in his efforts to bring S&T
expertise and tools into the State Department. We still have far
too few officers with strong science backgrounds, but thanks to
the National Academies and others in the scientific community
such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science
and the American Institute of Physics and the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a small group of scientific
fellows have joined our ranks, and their number will grow.//
Scientists, volunteers have graciously put their own research on
hold, stopped their own work, their own life, to perform tours of
duty in many of the State Department’s bureaus, and they are
making a real difference. And we look forward to welcoming more
scientists on to our State Department team, either as fellows or
as career Foreign Service Officers or Civil Service Officers.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the American people can be proud that the
United States is the world’s leader in science and technology.
That does not mean we have a monopoly on brains or wisdom, or
that we don’t have much to learn from others. Far from it. But I
think that we have been enormously successful because our
scientists, engineers and medical experts live and work, as Dr.
Einstein hoped, within an open democratic society that values the
freest possible flow of ideas, information and people.// As the
American scientific community and the United States Government
work in partnership to safeguard against those who would turn
tools of science into instruments of terror, to guard us against
those, we in government also want to work with you to preserve
the freedoms that make America and American science so great.”

The full text of Powell’s speech, which runs about seven pages,
can be read online at
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2002/9874.htm. For information
on the American Institute of Physics’ State Department Science
Fellowship program, which Powell acknowledges in the second to
last paragraph above, please see our web site at
http://www.aip.org/mgr/sdf.html. Complete details on applying
for the program are available on the web site; application
materials for the 2003-2004 Fellowship term must be postmarked by
November 1, 2002.

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Audrey T. Leath

Media and Government Relations Division

The American Institute of Physics

fyi@aip.org

(301) 209-3094

http://www.aip.org/gov

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