Science & Diplomacy

n recent years, issues involving complex scientific and technological problems have risen to the forefront of the American foreign policy agenda. Here are just a few of the challenges that the State Department has faced:

• Preventing a dangerous "brain drain" of former Soviet biological warfare scientists.
• Monitoring exports of militarily sensitive technology to China and other countries.
• Negotiating an environmental biosafety protocol on international trade in genetically modified organisms.
• Helping in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases in developing countries.

As science and technology issues proliferate around the world, prominent members of the American scientific community argue that the State Department is ill prepared to address them. In response, the department has embarked on what Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright calls "a multiyear, multiadministration, bipartisan mission" to bolster its science and technology capabilities. S&T policy experts say they are cautiously optimistic about the new approach, but they point warily to the checkered history of previous attempts to institute reforms in this area and say it will be several years before the outcome of the new strategy can be assessed.

Last fall, the National Research Council (NRC), an operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, released the results of an 18-month study that found significant S&T problems and weaknesses throughout the State Department. The study concluded that the department lacks top-level policy guidance; that its Washington headquarters staff is stretched thin on important S&T issues; that it has cut back on science officers at key embassies and missions abroad; and that it has failed to adequately recruit, train and promote foreign and civil service officers knowledgeable about science and technology.

On Feb. 21 Albright went before a gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to announce a series of measures to address the situation. She said State wants to "forge a truly active partnership with the S&T community" and urged scientists to support increased funding to ease the department's budget squeeze.

"As we strive to shape the future together, America's diplomats must have scientists in our ranks and by our side," Albright said.

Albright said the State Department would establish a new position of senior S&T adviser to the Secretary within the department's undersecretariat for global affairs; draft a departmentwide policy statement on S&T issues; re-establish a previously closed Science Directorate in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES); reassess the needs of key embassies for science officers; and review State's recruitment, training and promotion policies.

Former White House science adviser Jack Gibbons, who is serving as a consultant to the department, says the current effort is "an attempt at a renaissance of the role of science and technology in State's operations."

"I think the challenge is going to be, over the long term, to do things that can slowly acculturate this business of science, engineering, and technology into the process that so long has been governed by people who have history, political science and language backgrounds," he says.

Dead Horse?

The history of State Department efforts to grapple with science and technology issues goes back to a 1949-50 study by a group headed by geophysicist Lloyd V. Berkner. The panel issued a report concluding that the "present organization is inadequate to assess with accuracy the nature of the broad policy issues involving science." In response, the State Department created a small science office and posted a few science attaches abroad.

In 1975, a foreign policy study commission chaired by Robert D. Murphy, a former senior State Department official, issued a report predicting that "technological and environmental issues will continue to grow in importance" in the international arena. It recommended several changes at the State Department, including the creation of an undersecretariat for economic and scientific affairs. The department, however, did not follow up on the recommendations.

In 1992, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government published a report asserting that "deep-seated reforms" were needed in the way the U.S. government was organized to handle international affairs because of changes being wrought in the world by science and technology. "The formulation and implementation of modern foreign policy requires a continuing reconnaissance of science and technology mapped onto the topography of politics, culture and economics among both friends and rivals," the report argued. "The government is not now fully equipped for this task."

The Carnegie panel's study offered a series of recommendations, which include appointing a senior S&T counselor at the State Department, adding 25 more officers working in S&T components in Washington, and posting 50 additional science officers at U.S. posts abroad. However, little was done by the Bush administration in response to the report.

Now, as the State Department starts to move ahead with its new strategy, S&T policy experts outside the government are divided about the most effective way to better integrate science and technology into American diplomacy.

Anne G.K. Solomon, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and former State Department official, favors the creation of a new Bureau of Science and Technology at the department. "I'm a little hesitant to recommend the establishment of yet another bureau," says Solomon, who left the State Department in spring 1997 when her position as deputy assistant secretary for science, technology and health was eliminated. "But this would allow for a number of functions and programs that are now spread across several bureaus to be aggregated in this one bureau."

Solomon also believes the new S&T adviser should be associated with State's Policy Planning Staff-with a direct link to the Secretary-rather than located within the undersecretariat for global affairs, as Albright has directed.

Rodney W. Nichols, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences and author of the 1992 Carnegie Commission report, says although various steps can be taken to help improve the State Department's management of S&T issues and programs, it may be time to consider having State turn over the main responsibility to other agencies. "For whatever combination of causes-especially the lack of funding-science and technology skills and professional outlooks don't seem to graft very well onto the diplomatic culture, the State Department bureaucracy, the day-to-day rhythms of operations," he says.

Nichols says that if State continues to try to manage S&T issues, it should get an infusion of about 30 S&T specialists from such agencies as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Standards and Technology and NASA for two- to three-year stints. The department should also consider reinstituting "a very active advisory apparatus" of outside S&T experts to provide policy guidance, adding S&T questions to the foreign service examination, and increasing the number of science officers at U.S. posts abroad, Nichols says.

But Nichols argues that in view of the current situation, "I really think we ought to go in the direction of getting the State Department out of the science and technology business. Stop beating this horse, which is so close to dead. Let's just have it die a peaceful death and let the State Department basically outsource these tasks to the other agencies."

Under this approach, he says, State and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy would turn over main operational responsibility to the technical agencies, while retaining "a very careful watch on those key countries and key issues where the political, economic and diplomatic factors are really all-important."

Question of Resources

For now, however, the State Department is focusing on its new initiative to beef up its own science and technology expertise. Frank E. Loy, undersecretary of State for global affairs, is leading the effort. "Frank is a seasoned guy but he's not calcified," says Gibbons. "He's ready to move in new directions when he sees a new need."

In April 1999 Loy told a group of scientists and Washington policy-watchers at an AAAS science and technology policy colloquium that the State Department was determined to address S&T issues. "We have heard the criticism from the science community. . . . We're very sensitive to your concerns and take them seriously," he told the group.

Since last October, Loy has been overseeing the work of two department task forces-involving more than 40 officials-formed to review the NRC's report and develop plans for implementing some of its recommendations.

The State Department has about 200 S&T-related positions at its headquarters in Washington. Of those, 125 are officers-39 in the Foreign Service and the rest in the civil service-based in OES. Overseas, 57 positions are formally classified as environment, science and technology officers, while approximately 30 additional officers have more than a half-time commitment to S&T issues.

For fiscal 2001, the department has requested a 22 percent budget increase for OES, from $3.6 million to $4.4 million.

The re-established Science Directorate within OES will be headed by Kenneth C. Brill, a career foreign service officer who is the bureau's principal deputy assistant secretary. He most recently served as ambassador to Cyprus and earlier at posts in Ghana, Jordan and India.

Brill says "the department's leadership recognizes how important science-based
issues are to the foreign policy agenda of the future."

"So it's not a question of will," he says. "It is a question of resources, though. And if you're going to do the optimum job, you need to have more resources than we have -instead of just shuffling the deck chairs around on the Titanic. We're under a significant amount of budget pressure."

Brill notes that State is "not a science institution, and the NRC report did not ask us to become a science institution. Our role is to help bring people together . . . making sure that scientists in their laboratories have their work reflected in our policy development, our negotiating positions, our interactions between countries."

In State's officer corps, Brill says, "we need to have people who are familiar with how important science is on the key emerging issues of the future and who know how to get help when they get into specifics that are beyond a generalist's knowledge base. So it's important to have some people who have scientific training involved in these activities."

As an example, Brill points to the environmental biosafety protocol, adopted by more than 130 countries on Jan. 29 in Montreal after intensive negotiations, to regulate international commerce in genetically modified organisms, such as biotech agricultural products. The U.S. delegation to the talks, led by Loy and OES Assistant Secretary David B. Sandalow, was an interagency group including scientists from State and other departments along with policy experts and veteran multilateral negotiators.

"All of these issues are pursued essentially on a teamwork basis," Brill says. "We need to know how to draw on the science agencies of the U.S. government, which are one of the great underappreciated national treasures."

Over the past decade, he notes, "the international environmental agenda . . . has mushroomed quite significantly. And I think it's important for people to realize that these negotiations are environmental but also economic. Each one of these negotiations affects vital American economic interests."

No 'Cone'

Within OES, the previous Directorate of Science, Technology and Health was eliminated in 1997 in order to focus more staff resources on environmental initiatives and negotiations. "We were into a zero-sum game," Brill says. "If you had to do something new, you had to give up something old."

State Department officials soon became concerned about the department's lack of commitment to S&T issues. Wendy R. Sherman, State's counselor, asked the National Academy of Sciences to study the department, saying "we may not be doing as much in the science, technology and health areas as we can." The NRC launched its study in April 1998, forming a 14-member study committee chaired by Robert A. Frosch, an S&T policy expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. This panel issued a preliminary report in September 1998 and its final report Oct. 7, 1999, based on consultations with dozens of current and former officials at State and other departments and agencies.

In addition to steps already adopted by the State Department, the NRC study made various recommendations,
including:

• Establishing an S&T advisory committee.
• Expecting that all foreign service officers achieve a minimum level of S&T literacy and awareness.
• Increasing the number of senior science counselors assigned to posts abroad from the current level of 10 to at least 25.
• Increasing the use of specialists from other departments and agencies as rotating employees.
• Transferring responsibilities for some S&T activities to other agencies.

Frosch, who has served as NASA administrator and head of research laboratories at General Motors, says he's pleased the department has begun to implement the NRC report's recommendations. "I guess I'd say that I'm cautiously optimistic," he says. "We're getting some action."

However, Frosch says that beyond the initial steps, the department needs to move toward reshaping the culture of the Foreign Service so that it can incorporate more S&T expertise into its ranks.

In talks with department officials, Frosch says, "we kept being told about the Foreign Service officer as generalist." He says he is concerned that such emphasis frequently works to the disadvantage of people who seek to go into the Foreign Service after receiving advanced degrees in science and technology fields.

"My personal view is that the State Department has sort of been vaccinated against any particular form of specialized knowledge-except perhaps for languages, maybe economics, possibly law," Frosch says. "But the idea that they need specialized knowledge to deal with some issues seems not to be in the culture."

Several years ago the State Department decided to abolish the personnel "cone" it had for science officers-the career grouping in which they received embassy assignments and competed for promotion. The NRC study committee did not propose that it be reinstituted. "We didn't recommend the cone because what had happened with the cone, frankly, was that it had become a ghetto," Frosch says. "So-and-so is a science type-put him over in that cone. The comments we got from people around the department were that it was seen as a dead end."

The NRC report does not advocate packing the Foreign Service with top scientists. "What we're suggesting is not that the place be populated with [Foreign Service officers] with Ph.D.s," Frosch says, but people who follow major science news, read mainstream science publications such as Scientific American, are aware of the mechanics of the science community and know where to get professional help on particular subjects. Such general awareness of S&T issues, Frosch says, should be complemented by a continuing interchange of professionals with advanced degrees between the department and other agencies, as well as universities and other outside organizations.

First Step

Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., a member of the House Science Committee and author of a 1998 science policy study that criticized the State Department, says it suffers from a "deplorable" lack of S&T expertise. "I suspect the nuclear weapons testing in India and Pakistan wouldn't have been such a surprise if we had competent scientific attaches in our embassies there," he says.

The new S&T strategy at State is "certainly a good first step," Ehlers says. "It doesn't go as far as I would like or as far as the NRC report recommends. But at least it's a start."

According to Richard W. Getzinger, who is director of international programs at AAAS, Albright's personal interest in S&T issues and her willingness to address the organization's annual meeting earlier this year "shows a real commitment to do something."

Getzinger, who served during the 1980s as a science officer in Ottawa, Vienna and Tokyo, says he is particularly concerned about cutbacks in S&T positions abroad. "There are embassies where you really need a science person-a qualified, degreed science person-to do the job right," he says. "And the number of embassies that have such a person is much reduced now from what it was before, where if anything, the need is far greater than it used to be."

In addition to OES, State has officers with science and technology responsibilities distributed throughout several other bureaus and offices. An innovative State-coordinated effort that appears to be moving forward involves providing civilian employment for scientists and engineers who had been working on weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. (See "Avoiding Armageddon," June 1999, at www.govexec.com/features/0699/0699s3.htm.)

Despite such successes, many observers say the State Department has a long way to go to become an effective player in the science and technology arena. Eugene B. Skolnikoff, a professor of political science at MIT who served on the NRC panel, says the department's problems were illustrated by the 1997 Kyoto agreement. In that pact-still unratified by the United States-countries agreed to deal with global warming by cutting back on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"We ended up going down a path with the Kyoto agreement which we're not going to fulfill," says Skolnikoff, who has been professionally involved with U.S. S&T policy since he joined the newly established White House Office of Science and Technology in 1958. "It all became a political negotiating issue in which the science and what was possible to achieve just got lost, even though they had decent science in the process, within the department."

Skolnikoff says he finds Albright's recent endorsement of efforts to address the issues in the NRC report "very positive." But, he adds, "I don't think you'll be able to tell the real results of this for five years or more."