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2. INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
International geoscience programs have made significant
contributions to the formulation and implementation of foreign policy.
Issues such as international trade, foreign investment, raw material
inventories, mining of seabed resources, and international boundary
demarcation involve geologic assessment of natural resources--energy,
mineral, and water. Issues such as disposal of hazardous waste,
minimizing environmental degradation, land utilization, and hazard
identification and control require extensive knowledge of geologic and
hydrologic processes. Policies on these and other issues of
international concern must be based on adequate geologic information
and expert opinion.
The United States is justifiably concerned with the adequacy and
security of its supplies of energy and other mineral raw materials.
Several times during this century, we have faced crises involving
interruption of foreign supplies of raw materials, and our reactions
were hampered by a deficiency of geological information regarding the
source region or alternate source areas. Better foreign geoscience
programs could improve the potential for assuring mineral and energy
resources for future security of the United States. This is especially
true now, when the collapse of domestic mining operations has made U.S.
industry almost wholly dependent on foreign resources. An effective
approach would be to strengthen developing countries through geoscience
assistance programs designed to assess and stabilize their supply
capability.
Despite past recommendations in this regard, the recently implemen-
ted National Materials and Minerals Policy, Research, and Development
Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-479 96USC) has had no discernible effect on
strengthening U.S. geoscience programs overseas and on the assessment
of foreign resources. Congressional testimony on July 28, 1981, by the
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior (Appen-
dix I) indicates but a small effort to assess foreign mineral resources
or to stimulate their discovery and production under this act. More-
over, today's foreign assistance program virtually ignores this issue,
as evidenced in the testimony of Secretary of State Schultz before the
House Foreign Affairs Committee on February 9, 1984:
7
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Our economic aid in FY 1985 will focus on increasing food
production and reducing hunger; improving health, especially
reducing infant and child mortality; slowing populations
growth rates; spreading education and literacy; and improving
host country financial structures.
It is remarkable that U.S. geoscience activities abroad receive
relatively little support in times when the importance of science and
technology in general has been recognized in American foreign policy
issues. The importance of these disciplines in foreign relations was
spelled out in the National Science, Engineering, and Technology Policy
and Priorities Act of 1976 as follows:
Fostering leadership in the quest for international peace and
progress toward human freedom, dignity, and well-being by
enlarging the contributions of American scientists and
engineers to the knowledge of man and his universe, by making
discoveries of basic science widely available at home and
abroad, and by utilizing technology in support of United
States national and foreign policy goals.
The significance of international cooperation in science and
technology in relation to U.S. foreign policy was recognized in the
President's message to Congress on July 11, 1983.
The extent to which some disciplines are currently involved in
international relations is indicated by the more than 800 cooperative
agreements in science and technology now in effect. Of these, less
than 10 percent involve cooperation in the geosciences. On paper the
number of geoscience cooperative agreements is slowly increasing (as
shown in part by Appendix J) and includes agreements in such important
areas as strategic minerals, military operations, economic assistance,
seabed jurisdiction, and geologic hazards.
Unfortunately, lack of funding for U.S. participation renders most
of the agreements either ineffective or totally inoperative. But with
adequate funding many could yield significant benefits to us. For
example, the agreement involving the U.S. Geological Survey and the
Central Office of Geology of Hungary has had a wide range of benefits
(see Appendix J) of far greater value than its cost. Yet this program
is currently without funds. Such programs have great potential and
should be more widely utilized and consistently supported.
The utilization of geoscience information and expertise in the
conduct of foreign policy has been erratic and spasmodic. This is
partly because there has not been a unified constituency in support of
international geoscience programs within the policy-making levels of
government. Many important issues could utilize geoscience input, but
most of the people involved in foreign policy are unaware of this
potential.
In the past, many contributions to foreign policy have been made by
American geoscience programs and initiatives. For example, the
long-range investigations of iron resources in Brazil, initiated in
1945 (Dorr, 1969) were part of a strategy for developing close
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political relations with countries regarded as especially important
suppliers of minerals to the United States. During the 1950s and
1960s, geological and mineral projects in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan
were part of a U.S. mutual security strategy in the Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO) countries, which included a CENTO Working Party on
Mineral Development initiated by the Department of State (Central
Treaty Organization, 1959~. In 1982 and 1984, marine surveys for
hydrocarbon resources in the Southwest Pacific by the U.S. Geological
Survey and the University of Hawaii were carried out as part of an
objective under the tripartite security agreement between Australia,
New Zealand, and the United States. Many other examples of geoscience
contributions to foreign policy objectives could be cited.
A modest increase in geoscience cooperation could help to
counteract the impression that the U.S. government is interested in
developing resources promoting economic stability only where we have
immediate strategic interests.
EVOLUTION OF THE GEOSCIENCE ROLE IN MINERAL POLICY,
FOREIGN POLICY, AND NATIONAL SECURITY
U.S. geoscientists have long been concerned with foreign policy
issues that are related to our nation's raw material supply and its
national security.
Mineral Policy
During and after World War I, the global struggle for minerals as
an important factor in world politics and in American foreign relations
was stressed by prominent geoscientist advisors to the U.S. government,
notably Charles K. Leith, George Otis Smith, and Josiah E. Spurr. In
reviewing the history of mineral policy during this period, Alfred
Eckes (1979, p. 5) wrote that:
Most important for foreign policy, the three understood that
heavy mineral usage would exhaust America's rich natural
endowments, and they anticipated the U.S. would become more
and more dependent on foreign suppliers for high quality
ores. This trend, they all emphasized, foreshadowed intense
competition among industrial nations for overseas raw
materials. And, based on Germany and Japan's aggressive quest
for raw materials during and after World War I, the experts
foresaw--accurately as it turned out--that the competition for
strategic materials could thwart efforts to stabilize Europe
and restore global prosperity.
Debate within the League of Nations regarding unequal distribution
of mineral resources kept the issue in the news and generated serious
concern within the United States during the years between World Wars I
and II. Leith and others were involved in efforts to establish a more
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definite mineral policy in the United States through such mechanisms as
the Mineral Advisory Commission established in 1928.
As World War II approached, it become clear that the German and
Japanese quest for sufficiency in mineral resources was a principal
factor in their growing militarism. The onset of World War II revealed
the increasing vulnerability of the United States to the disruption of
mineral supply. Countermeasures included the establishment of a
mineral stockpile in 1939 and, in 1942, a program funded through the
Board on Economic Warfare to procure mineral supplies and stimulate
mineral production in Latin America. U.S. geoscientists were involved
in these activities as advisors to the government, as members of
mineral purchasing missions in Latin America, and as American
representatives in the investigation of other sources of supply.
The U.S. concern regarding Latin American mineral production and
supply resulted in the first major entry of U.S. geoscientists into the
international arena through the Interdepartmental Committee on
Scientific and Cultural Cooperation (ICSCC). The ICSCC was established
and funded under Public Law 63, 76th Congress, May 25, 1938, and Public
Law 355, 76th Congress, August 6, 1939, to coordinate specific
international programs of federal agencies. Under this committee, U.S.
geologists began investigations in Latin American countries to locate
sources of strategic minerals. During World War II, this program was
supplemented by funds from the Board on Economic Warfare and its
successor, the Foreign Economic Administration. More than 60
geologists organized by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted
mineral investigations in 16 Latin American countries. In addition,
American geologists were assigned to undertake terrain analyses,
engineering studies, and hydrologic investigations to support actual or
potential military operations in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America,
and the Western Pacific. This led to the establishment of a Military
Geology Branch within the USGS and a continuing, but now diminishing,
program of classified geoscience studies to support strategic planning
by the U.S. military.
The concern over strategic mineral supplies during World War II
was, to a considerable extent, responsible for the establishment in the
Department of State of the resources attache (regional resources
officer) program after the war. Initially, this program consisted of a
few professionals from the U.S. Bureau of Mines assigned to U.S.
embassies. In 1975, the program was reorganized and enlarged, and
foreign service officers were assigned to the positions of resources
officers. Despite fluctuating support and frequent changes of staff,
the program has generally been an effective mechanism for obtaining
information regarding resources and related programs, although most
resource officers are not geoscience professionals. There are
currently regional resources officers in 10 U.S. embassies and
designated resources reporters in 9 others. A significant aspect of
this program is that it reflects a recognition within the Department of
State of the importance of earth resources in the political
relationship of the United States to other countries. However, the
program is not adequate in scope and expertise to meet our present-day
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needs for resources information in support of our mineral policy and
national security requirements.
After World War II, concern-over resources led to the appointment
of the President's Materials Policy (Paley) Commission under the Truman
administration. The commission concluded that "the basic problem of
materials policy in the field of foreign resources is to determine the
methods the United States should adopt to promote the production of
materials abroad and, at the same time, to help fulfill the aspirations
toward general economic development of the countries which possess rich
resources" (Paley Commission, 1952, p. 59~. The implication was that
the United States should help other countries develop their geoscience
and resources institutions and programs in order to increase production
of raw materials as a means of supplying their own needs as well as the
needs of the United States and other consuming countries. The foreign
assistance program, which was a major vehicle for providing effective
help in geologic work in the 1950s and 1960s, no longer offers
significant support in the geosciences.
The Korean War revived interest in the problems of raw material
supply and generated new demands for a realistic national mineral
policy. Steidle (1952, pp. 132-142) called for steps toward an
international mineral policy, beginning with a survey of the world's
mineral resources and utilizing the foreign assistance program as a
contributing mechanism. A decade later, Landsberg (1964) concluded
that, although the unprecedented U.S. demands for raw materials to the
end of the century could be met through a variety of means, raw
materials from abroad would clearly be an increasingly important factor
that required greater attention by the United States. Such concerns
resulted in the National and Minerals Policy Act of 1970, but this act
unfortunately did not produce any significant increased effort toward
international geoscience and resources programs. In fact, the
effective level of such activity probably declined during the 1970s.
The mineral supply issue came to the forefront once again in the
early 1980s, and resulted in the National Materials and Minerals
Policy, Research, Development Act of 1980. This act recognized that
"the United States is strongly interdependent with other nations
through international trade in materials and other products." It
called for the President to "assess the opportunities for the United
States to promote cooperative multilateral and bilateral agreements for
materials development in foreign nations for the purpose of increasing
the reliability of materials supplies to the Nation." Unfortunately,
this act, like its predecessor, has not had any appreciable impact
toward strengthening U.S. geoscience and resources programs abroad.
Although various agencies are involved in geoscience activities
that concern their own special interests, few of these involve
investigational programs and cooperation with other countries to
provide information regarding world resources needed for mineral policy
and security purposes. The U.S. currently has no coordinated or
overall program for the application of geoscience to our interests in
economic policy or national security.
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Foreign Policy
Immediately after World War II, geoscientists were used extensively
by postwar occupation forces in the reconstruction and stabilization of
occupied countries. Geoscience assistance programs were undertaken by
the USGS in the late 1940s and included a survey of iron ore deposits
of Minas Gerais, Brazil; studies of coal resources in Greece and South
Korea; and a long-range program to develop the Philippines Bureau of
Mines in order to survey the mineral resources of the Philippines.
In the 1950s and 1960s, geoscience activities were a major
component of the U.S. foreign assistance program, conducted
successively under the Economic Cooperation Administration, Foreign
Operations Administration, International Cooperation Administration,
and Agency for International Development. During these decades, U.S.
geoscientists aided in strengthening geoscience agencies and programs
in more than 70 countries. Broad institution-building efforts, such as
in Chile (Ericksen et al., 1963) and Pakistan (Khan and Reinemund,
1963), became models for assistance that led to close cooperation
between American geosciences agencies and their counterparts abroad.
Along with such institutional assistance, U.S. geoscientists stimulated
economic growth through studies of important resources such as
industrial minerals in Thailand (Jacobsen et al., 1969) and water
resources in Asia, Africa, and South America (Taylor, 1976~. The
training of foreign geologists was an additional accomplishment.
In some countries, U.S.-funded programs contributed directly toward
the implementation of foreign policy issues. For example, a major
cooperative research effort on salinity and water logging in the Indus
Valley of Pakistan in the 1960s was partly an outgrowth of a
Presidential mission headed by Roger Revelle. Geological cooperation
with Indonesia strengthened U.S. relationships with Indonesian
scientists during the period of the Sukarno administration and aided in
reestablishing official American programs in that country. USGS
assistance in geological mapping and resources studies in Saudi Arabia,
initiated in the 1950s, is one of the few surviving programs and is a
significant element in U.S. relations with the Saudi Ministry of
Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
The role of geology in the American foreign assistance program
declined substantially in the 1970s when the Agency for International
Development (AID) decided to focus on other sectors, especially
agriculture. This policy has placed the United States behind other
scientifically advanced countries in the size and scope of geological
activities in most developing countries; it has made it difficult for
those countries to gain access to U.S. geological expertise and
technology; it has resulted in a loss of our contacts and influence
among the geological and resource community in most developing
countries; and it has decreased the opportunities for American
contractors and suppliers to participate in the aid program. This low
level of U.S. geoscience participation abroad still persists in most
countries and has been cited in the report on Opportunities for
Research in the Geological Sciences by an ad hoc committee of the
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National Research Council's Board on Earth Sciences (1983, p. 78), as
follows:
Both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China allocate
very sizeable financial and personnel resources to huge earth
sciences research programs, with the express intent of
strengthening their economies and solving internal problems related
to geological hazards. Countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia
direct a large proportion of their geological budgets to studies in
third-world countries. In contrast, the United States in recent
years essentially has abdicated its former preeminent position in
supplying technical assistance in the earth sciences to developing
countries.
military bases in that
India. Morocco
On paper, geoscience cooperation with other countries as an
instrument of foreign policy has increased during the 1980s. A number
of intergovernmental science and technology agreements negotiated to
strengthen political relationships with other countries (such as
Brazil, China, Mexico, and Venezuela) have included components of
geoscience cooperation. The formal agreements were supplemented by
memoranda of understanding between appropriate U.S. agencies and their
counterparts. For example, the USGS has nearly 50 current agreements
for scientific, cooperative, or technical assistance covering a wide
range of subjects. However, no funding accompanies most of these
agreements, and the level of activity has therefore been minimal. A
welcome exception is the cooperative science and technology agreement
with Spain, which provides funds under an agreement covering the use of
~ country. Cooperative agreements with Egypt,
_ , Pakistan, and Yugoslavia have utilized U.S.-owned
foreign currencies to meet operating costs in the respective countries,
but most of these funds have been depleted.
The U.S. policies of the 1970s toward use of geological programs
have continued with little change under the present administration,
with two significant exceptions, one positive in part, one negative.
On the positive side is support, under the foreign assistance
program, for participation in geologic and hydrologic hazard
assessment, mitigation, and training. A number of regional and
bilateral projects in earthquake monitoring and risk analysis have been
developed, and a new program of geologic and hydrologic hazard training
has been developed jointly by the USGS and the AID Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance. The elements of this program are described in
Appendix L. But although this program was supported adequately for one
year, when the initial training course was successfully conducted, the
remaining funds were withdrawn (by AID) and the activity has been
suspended, at least temporarily.
On the negative side is the decline of U.S. leadership in
international applications of remote sensing. This results principally
from lack of sufficient U.S. government interest and support for remote
sensing applications research. The uncertain future of U.S.-owned
earth resources satellites and consistent efforts by other countries to
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move into areas of research and training in remote sensing technology
previously dominated by the United States also contribute to our
declining influence. Also, the earth resources satellites have become
the exclusive property of private industry and access to the data
becomes unduly expensive or restricted.
Another factor, and perhaps the most important one of all, is the
increased international geoscience activity of countries such as
France, Japan, and West Germany. They have become active competitors
for geoscience information, resource evaluation and development, sale
of technical equipment, cooperative research programs, and training of
geoscientists. Such competition has been particularly effective where
American involvement has decreased because of U.S. policy decisions.
Brazil is an example. Here training by U.S. geoscientists,
particularly those from the USGS, helped to establish most of the
Brazilian geoscience cadre during the 1950s and 1960s. This U.S.
support was terminated in 1976. Since then, other countries have
stepped in to take our place, and the flow of important geoscience
cooperation and information between our two countries has waned.
Geoscience training and education in foreign countries should be a
major goal of our international effort. Well-trained geoscientists
should be encouraged to fill the important positions within their own
countries. Continued cooperative programs should be maintained;
otherwise our foreign competitors will have the market to themselves.
Maintaining contact with leaders of agencies concerned with the
geosciences and resources abroad is of primary importance in promoting
mutual understanding of policy issues, encouraging collaboration in
programs of mutual interest, and stimulating exchange of information.
This seems to be recognized by other industrialized countries, who have
developed various mechanisms for maintaining such contacts. For
example, the Bundesanstalt fur Geowissenschaften und Rohstofte of the
Federal Republic of Germany has established a program of annual
symposiums on resource issues. The fourth of these was held in October
1985 in Hannover (Appendix M). The only comparable activity that has
ever been initiated in the United States is the nongovernmental
Circum-Pacific Council with its Circum-Pacific Map project and its
conferences.
France set a noteworthy example of government support for
international geoscience support at the 1980 International Geological
Congress. At the closing ceremony of the Congress, the then president
of France (Giscard d'Estaing) announced the establishment of the Center
for Training and Exchanges in Geosciences (Appendix N). France
committed more than $2 million toward the operation of the center in
1983. In addition, French geoscientists have just completed an
extensive 3-year cooperative program with the People's Republic of
China on the geology and geophysics of southern Tibet. This was the
first major modern geoscience investigation into this region, and it
has already made significant contributions to our understanding of the
processes and evolution of collisional mountain belts. Many other such
scientifically important and poorly studied areas could be the focus of
intensive and well-designed cooperative programs.
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SUMMARY
Areas in which the American geosciences have in the past made
significant contributions to major foreign policy issues include the
following:
Strategic mineral supplies--Foreign sources of supplies to meet
U.S. needs were identified.
Energy resources--Activities of the major petroleum companies were
and still are major factors in our being able to assess global reserves
and potential sources of fossil fuels.
Economic assistance--Mineral resources were appraised and resource
institutions and programs to aid the economic growth of developing
countries have been established.
Mineral operations--Geologic and hydrologic conditions that affect
military operations were determined and bases for postwar
reconstruction established.
Hazard assistance--Geologic and hydrologic hazards were evaluated,
risks analyzed, and measures to minimize future damage defined.
Use of outer space--Peaceful applications of satellites for earth
resources studies and geodynamics studies have been undertaken and
contributions have been made to lunar and planetary exploration.
Scientific cooperation--Joint geoscience research and exchange
activities to support U.S. policy initiatives with foreign countries
were developed.
Seabed resources--Seabed resources were identified and assessed and
contributions were made to the drafting of national and international
jurisdiction regulations.
Through these and other contributions, U.S. geoscience demonstrated
its capacity to be responsive to the needs of foreign policy in many
issues. Today only the activities in petroleum approach adequacy.
Although these contributions are recognized by many involved in
past foreign policy formulation, the importance of making geoscience
most effective in the conduct of future foreign policy has been less
well recognized in the past 10 to 15 years. World history for the
first half of this century shows that the United States needs
information about--and access to--mineral resources if we are to
survive economically and politically as an industrialized nation.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
raw materials
