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| Invitee Comments: President Emeritus David A. Hamburg | ||
| (Return to Comment Selection) Institutions of Civil Society: Partners for Peace Pivotal Institutions In ordinary parlance, the word diplomacy evokes images of government representatives. A phrase like “management of international conflict” evokes images of the United Nations. This is not surprising since the development of strategies to cope with problems of conflict, war, and peace have mainly involved governments, coalitions among governments, and inter-governmental organizations. Governments, coalitions, and inter-governmental organizations remain very important in the contemporary world and they need to be strengthened for prevention. But the dismal record of slaughter on a vast scale in the twentieth century is a testimonial to the failure of the traditional system to prevent deadly conflict. So we must look to other potentially effective groups to augment the vital efforts of governmental institutions. In this context, the dramatic growth of internationally minded non-governmental organizations all over the world in the past few decades is a remarkable piece of modern history. How can non-governmental organizations, religious leaders and institutions, educational and scientific communities, business firms, and the mass media usefully contribute to the prevention of deadly conflict? How can their capacities be mobilized in societies where violence threatens? It is crucial to identify and support those elements of civil society that can reduce intergroup antagonisms, enhance attitudes of concern, social responsibility, and mutual aid within and between groups-and to provide the technical and financial resources they need to operate effectively. Scientific and Scholarly Community We face the problem of intergroup violence in the twenty-first century in a world increasingly saturated with highly destructive weapons. We see in all parts of the world abundant prejudice, hatred and threats of mass violence. The historical record is full of every sort of slaughter based on perceived differences pertaining to religion, ethnicity, nationality, and other group characteristics. We inherit this penchant for making invidious distinctions from our ancient past and struggle to find ways of overcoming them. In this kind of world, the scientific community has a great responsibility to work in a reasonably unified way so that the physical, biological, behavioral, and social sciences can address these profound and pervasive problems. The Carnegie Commission stimulated two special studies on these matters: one undertaken by an international research team; another by a panel of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology reporting to the President of the United States. The scientific community first and foremost provides understanding, insight, and stimulating ways of viewing important problems-and can do so with regard to deadly conflict. It can generate new knowledge and explore the application of such knowledge to urgent problems in contemporary society. In a world so full of hatred and violence, past and present, human conflict and its resolution is a subject that deserves major research efforts. High standards of inquiry must be applied to this field, involving many sciences functioning in collaborative ways. Crucial world problems do not come in neat packages that match traditional disciplines. Aggression and conflict resolution have not been major subjects for scientific inquiry; they are largely marginal subjects even in some of the world’s great academic institutions. Nevertheless, some interesting and potentially useful approaches have emerged. Among these is the neurobiology of aggressive behavior that gives insight into how cells, circuits, and chemistry mediate such activity. Related to this is research into the biomedical aspects of individual violence, including the role various drugs play in the precipitation, exacerbation, and therapy of this condition. Research into child abuse and its effect on subsequent development also has relevance in understanding aggression as do other factors influencing prosocial and anti-social child and adolescent development. Behavioral scientists do experimental research on simulated conflicts. This includes the study of negotiations both in real life circumstances and in simulated ones. There has been systematic inquiry into the origin and resolution of past conflicts and ongoing efforts in relation to contemporary ones, and the study of various intergroup and international institutions and processes pertinent to large-scale conflict. All of this is connected to research specifically focusing on war and peace, including ways to diminish the likelihood of nuclear war by arms control, crisis prevention, reducing the risk of accidental or inadvertent nuclear confrontation, and improvement of relations among the nuclear nations. This has been enriched by the study of conflict at various levels of organization, ranging from families and communities to nations-in the search for common factors and even principles so that discoveries at one level may illuminate issues at another level. Nurturing many of these questions is the study of evolution and history of human violence, which illuminates the complex topics of prejudice and ethnocentrism. Taken collectively this work provides powerful and usable insight into ways of modulating human aggression. The need for knowledge in this field is great and opportunities are substantial, but there are many obstacles to be overcome: the inherent complexity of the subject matter; old conceptual rigidities like the heredity-environment dichotomy; proper ethical limitations of experimental control in human research; ancient prejudices against objective inquiry into human behavior; dogmatic social ideologies; and institutional inertia regarding any kind of major change. In considering human conflict, avoidance and denial tend to substitute for careful scrutiny, authority often substitutes for evidence, and blaming readily substitutes for problem solving. The capacity for wishful thinking in these matters is enormous, as is the capacity for self-justification. But these are not insuperable challenges and the rationale for overcoming them will become increasingly clear in the decades ahead. The scientific community has contributed a good deal to coping with the nuclear danger. During the decades of the Cold War, this community sought ways to reduce the number of weapons greatly and especially their capacity for a first strike; to decrease the chance of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war; to find safeguards against unauthorized launch and against serious miscalculation; and to improve the relations between the superpowers, partly through international cooperative efforts in key fields bearing on the health and safety of humanity. The foreseeable consequences of nuclear war elicited a new level of commitment by the scientific community to reduce the risk. These science-based efforts sought to maximize the analytical capability, objectivity, and respect for evidence that is characteristic of the scientific community worldwide, and indeed the worldwide perspective that is itself integral to the outlook of the scientific community. In addressing such crucial problems there was a major resource in the scientific and scholarly community of the United States and its links to worldwide counterparts. One way of utilizing these resources was for this community to have ongoing involvement in these issues through broad-based organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences. Research-intensive universities played similar roles. These efforts brought together scientists, scholars, and expert practitioners to clarify the many facets of avoiding nuclear war. To generate options for decreasing the risk, we needed analytical work by people who knew certain fields: e.g. advanced weaponry and its military uses; in-depth knowledge of the superpowers and other nuclear powers; geopolitical flash points; the broad context of international relations, policy formation, and implementation (especially regarding the superpowers); human behavior under stress (especially leadership decision making); and negotiation and conflict resolution. Collectively these efforts provided needed depth and new options for dealing with very dangerous issues. These relevant skills cut right across the sciences: physical, biological, behavioral, and social. Analytical studies were most useful when informed by the perspective of policymakers, and policymakers derived benefit from having access to studies yielding fresh ideas, a wider range of options and deeper insights. A continuing dynamic interplay between the scientific community and the world of policy evolved. A prominent example of international scientific cooperation during the Cold War was the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, recognized in 1995 by the Nobel Peace Prize. Stemming from the initial meeting in 1957 were a continuing series of informal discussions among the world’s scientists and the availability of resulting recommendations to world governments. Since Pugwash’s meeting are private and informal, it is sometimes hard to trace their influence, but they played a useful role in facilitating the negotiation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxic Weapons and for their Destruction, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Agreement. I had the privilege of giving a keynote address at Pugwash's fiftieth anniversary meeting in 2000. In 1978, Pugwash convened a workshop on crisis management and crisis prevention under my chairmanship, involving scientists and scholars from a variety of countries, but principally the United States and the Soviet Union. By 1978, there was cumulative record of analytical studies sufficient to derive some tentative but useful principles of crisis management. The central question was whether it is possible to emerge from a crisis in the twentieth Century without a disastrous war, let alone a nuclear war. Scholars sought a consensus on principles of crisis management and then to convey this consensus as clearly and meaningfully as possible to policymakers and policy advisors in a variety of nations, but especially in the superpowers. If crises were to arise again, it would be valuable for leaders to grasp these principles and follow them as well as they could in order to avoid catastrophe. As the evidence of various crises was considered, scholars were deeply impressed with the difficulty of adhering to such guidelines in the event. The immense strains of international crisis and, above all, nuclear crisis test the limits of human capacity to adapt. Therefore, the focus was widened to consider crisis prevention. Whatever the level of armaments, and whatever the animosity of the superpowers, it was simply a matter of prudent self-interest to remain a step or two from the brink of nuclear crisis because the tasks of crisis management are so exceedingly difficult. These concerns in both countries led to a joint US-Soviet study group on crisis prevention. The pattern for several years was to meet about twice a year with substantial preparation between meetings, including visits of younger scholars back and forth to pave the way. These meetings were characterized by civil discourse, mutual respect, and serious analysis of ways to reduce the nuclear danger. When Gorbachev came to power, the group began to explore the ”new thinking,” going beyond crisis prevention to the possibility of basic improvement of US-Soviet relations, and publishing a joint book-a breakthrough at that time. The Soviet and American participants both became more significant advisors to government leadership as the years went by. So, the work exemplified the increasingly useful dynamic interplay between scholars and policymakers in leading countries throughout the world. For example, the American group had links to the Nunn-Warner study group that proposed nuclear risk reduction centers and these were in due course modestly implemented in both countries. The issues of crisis management, crisis prevention, and improvement of relations between adversaries are still fundamental to the problems of major conflict. In the world of the twenty-first century, it will be crucial to understand incentives for cooperation, obstacles to cooperation, factors that favor cooperation, and strategies that tend to make cooperation useful and effective. Such cooperative agreements in security matters are a means to an end, or rather a variety of ends, but centrally involve reducing the risk of catastrophic war. Lessons of the Cold War-the most dangerous conflict in all of history-can be useful for this purpose. We need to understand how it was possible that five decades passed without a global war; indeed, over the years there emerged some solidarity of interest between the superpowers, which was rooted in the most basic motivations of self-preservation and survival. The Cold War experience maps out a useful role for the scientific and scholarly community in international conflict resolution-often acting through non-governmental organizations yet maintaining open lines of communication with governments. There are a few singular advantages. Policymakers can draw on the scientific community for accurate information in search of principles and objective analysis. Scientists and scholars maintain flexibility for novel or neglected paths toward conflict resolution. They also have common ground suited for building relationships among themselves who, as well informed and respected people, can make a difference in attitudes and in problem-solving at home and abroad. Two recent penetrating studies of Cold War history show clearly that the momentous reformulation of Soviet policy growing out of Gorbachev’s new thinking was strongly influenced by his contacts with the scientific and scholarly community. This occurred primarily through his interactions with leading Soviet scientists and scholars. The contribution of the international scientific community is also clear, primarily through its impact on these Soviet scientists but also through direct encounters with Gorbachev himself. A remarkable fact of the Cold War is that considerable learning and adaptation took place in order to keep the peace, despite deep hostility and profound strains. Scientists in and out of the governments played a significant role in this achievement. Some useful cooperative agreements were reached, even in the worst of times. Although they fell far short of a comprehensive US -Soviet security regime, they did include partial regimes that embraced norms, agreed-upon rules, evolving patterns of behaviors, shared procedures, and even some specially created institutions. Centrally, these were tacit rules of prudence. In the late eighties, there were remarkable technical accomplishments in arms control, both structural and operational. The INF treaty was the breakthrough in the structural field. The Stockholm agreements on Confidence-Building Measures in Europe were the principal achievement in the operational field, although the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers were also significant. Towards the end of the Cold War, the START treaties and the CFE were noteworthy. With good reason, much attention was given to the step-by-step development of ways to implement the two nations’ shared interests in avoiding accidental war. One landmark in this effort was the upgrading of the hot line in 1984. Another was the establishment of Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in 1987. Perhaps the most remarkable and enduring landmark is the Incidents-at-Sea Agreement of the early 1970s. Dangerous encounters between the two navies, which occurred frequently prior to this agreement, were moderated and constructively regulated by explicit rules covering most, though not all encounters between the two navies. This agreement was pursued in a highly professional way by the two navies even during periods when the overall political relationship between the countries deteriorated badly. Overall, it is one of the great challenges for science policy and practice to organize a much broader and deeper effort to understand the nature and sources of human conflict, and above all to develop effective ways of resolving conflict short of disaster. The scientific and scholarly community is the closest approximation we now have to a truly international community, sharing certain fundamental interests, values, standards, and curiosities about the nature of matter, life, behavior and the universe. The shared quest for understanding is one that knows no national boundaries, has no inherent prejudices, no necessary ethnocentrism, and no barriers to the free play of information and ideas. Recent advances in telecommunications draw this quest together internationally more than ever. To some extent, the scientific community can provide a model for human relations that might transcend some of the biases and dogmas that have torn the species apart throughout history, and have recently become so much more dangerous than ever before. Science can contribute to a better future by its ideals and its processes, as well as by the specific content of its research, and all these must to be brought to bear on the problem of human conflict. Science and Technology for Development I have earlier emphasized the fact that to participate in the global economy with reasonable prospects for prosperity, virtually ever country in the world-and certainly every region-will need a modicum of technical competence. The opportunities provided by science and technology in the coming century will be vast, reaching far beyond all prior experience. It will at last be feasible largely to eliminate poverty. But how does this enormous potential become fulfilled? In a recent editorial in Science, Mohamed Hassan, President of the African Academy of Sciences, makes this powerful statement. “Many of the continent’s most serious problems, including malnutrition, disease, and environmental degradation, cannot be met without the presence of a critical mass of African scientists working on issues of direct concern to the continent itself. Science alone cannot save Africa, but Africa without science cannot be saved… “And that is why it is important for the governments of Africa to nurture environments that not only provide sufficient financial resources but also allow scientists from Africa and elsewhere to interact freely and without constraints.” But how is a poor developing country to proceed in moving to diminish the gap? The scientific community is overwhelmingly located in and focused on affluent countries. Indeed, to say affluent is almost tantamount to saying technically advanced. Now there is a serious movement in the scientific community to focus much more intellectual and technical firepower (rather than explosive firepower) on the problem of developing countries. It has been my privilege to stimulate such interests and commitments in the scientific community over three decades and I have never seen so much promising activity. One of the most encouraging enterprises is the new Inter Academy Council (IAC), a cooperative effort of eighteen major scientific academies, North and South, intended to provide the most penetrating, objective analysis of developing country problems-and global problems as well. Here as elsewhere, leadership is vital-and Bruce Alberts, President of the US National Academy of Sciences has provided it on the basis of intellectual acuity, social responsibility and respect for the people of developing countries. In one of its earliest statements, the IAC points out that all nations and societies will face local, regional and global problems in the coming century: providing adequate nutrition and producing sufficient housing, material and energy resources for a larger world population; mitigating environmental damage; protecting the health of an increasingly urban and mobile population-and much more. Addressing these problems requires generating new knowledge and applying current knowledge for problem solving on a global scale. All nations must develop sufficient capacity in science and technology to increase, utilize and adapt the world’s scientific and technical knowledge to their own problems and to help with global dilemmas. While much knowledge, skill, and capacity for improved problem solving are now available in the world’s scientific and engineering communities, there is a great need for new resources and greatly strengthened institutions. Many nations lack the scientific institutions and infrastructure to benefit from what is already known-much less to adapt new discoveries to their local needs. Insufficient cooperation exists among the world’s scientific research institutions, including those in the developing nations. Moreover, linkages between social needs and long-term research agendas requires much more scientific attention than they have so far received. Inadequate use is made of new communications networks that provide an opportunity for the world’s scientific community to share its socially valuable knowledge and skill on an unprecedented scale. The IAC is organizing and will implement an advisory project designed to produce a global strategy for improved access by all nations and peoples to the benefits of science and technology. Four major topics will be addressed. Human Resources What are the specific needs for scientific and engineering talent in nations with different trajectories of development? How do we attract young talent, that exists everywhere, to science and maintain continuing interest of such people in the understanding of science and the uses of science for humanity? How do we best develop continuing education and collaboration opportunities for scientists in developing nations? How do we reduce their professional isolation? What national programs and policies have been successful in slowing the scientific brain drain occurring today from many developing countries to the industrialized nations? Research Institutions What models of successful institution building can be replicated all over the world? How can the international community of scientists contribute most effectively to such institution building? What can we learn from searching examination of past successes and failures? How can investments be increased for scientific institutions in developing nations-and what are the roles of national governments, international organizations, and the private sector in this regard? Scientific Cooperation What are successful models for increasing scientific cooperation among developing nations as well as between developing and industrialized nations? What kind of international cooperation can link social needs with scientific, engineering and biomedical research agendas? Global Communications How can we greatly increase the availability of information technology services and information resources for developing nations? How can we increase synergies for scientific information sharing on a global level? What approaches would make it possible for developing nations to leapfrog the development gap with judicious use of information technology. Mode of Operation For each of the specific topics addressed, the IAC will strive to create an improved understanding, shared by national governments, the private sector and civil society-especially of the scientific and engineering human talent required for addressing these challenges. Emphases will be placed on institution strengthening of the scientific and engineering communities in developing countries, thereby facilitating their ability to formulate and implement wise and effective policies. This work will also strive to be helpful to international organizations. From the outset, there has been a good working relationship with the UN Secretary-General. Located at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam, the IAC will bring groups of scientists, engineers, and health experts together to provide analysis to international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, on matters of science, technology, and public health. This new non-governmental organization will work on a project-by-project basis funded by international agencies and interested foundations. When it receives a project request, the IAC assembles an expert panel to study the problem. Panel members serve on a voluntary basis. Each study panel prepares a report of its findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Following a peer-review of the draft report, it is released to the sponsoring organizations and the public. Although primarily designed to respond to external requests, the IAC will also undertake self-initiated studies. Altogether, this remarkable social invention provides the opportunity to illuminate vital paths to development. While analysis of this sort can be helpful to socio-economic development in many ways, it is particularly vivid and poignant in the case of the global AIDS pandemic. Tragedies of this sort can provide a powerful stimulus to the scientific community and to policymakers all over the world. If the singular power of science and technology can be devoted not to destructive capacity but to a worldwide commitment to peace and prosperity, the human prospect could well become better than it has ever been in recorded history. (Return to Top) Posted 10.07.02 |
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