National Academies Press: OpenBook

International Role of U.S. Geoscience (1987)

Chapter: INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

« Previous: INTRODUCTION
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 7
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 8
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 9
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 10
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 11
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 12
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 13
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY." National Research Council. 1987. International Role of U.S. Geoscience. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10213.
×
Page 15

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

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

8 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

9 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

lo 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

11 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.

12 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

13 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

14 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.

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.

Next: INTERNATIONAL GEOSCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN U.S. ECONOMIC INTERESTS »
International Role of U.S. Geoscience Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF
  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!