Science Diplomacy in a Fractured World

In “Science Diplomacy and the Rise of Technopoles” (Issues, Fall 2024), Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman provide a superb assessment of current challenges facing science diplomacy. I agree with most everything they write, but there are a few key points that merit elaboration on areas of focus for nongovernmental organizations.

The authors state that “when science diplomacy becomes disconnected from national security and economic policy, it can no longer influence policy.” In the case of nongovernmental organizations, I would prefer substituting “unaware of” for “disconnected from.” The authors are certainly correct that “national priorities inevitably carry the day” if they are considering science diplomacy carried out by governments. National priorities of governments can, of course, have considerable overlap with what many consider to be global priorities. However, nongovernmental scientific organizations and individual scientists may have a different view from their governments on national and global priorities. Governments can change over time as can the geopolitical environment.

Nongovernmental science diplomacy initiatives, including informal track 2 dialogues not publicly encouraged by governments, can have a significant impact at a future time when a “window of opportunity” in diplomacy opens. While the most powerful science diplomacy initiatives have been partnerships between scientific communities and their governments, some of these started out as track 2 dialogues without governmental support. On the other hand, some successful science diplomacy initiatives adopted by governments were set back or reversed when geopolitics changed, as has been the case with nuclear arms control agreements, the Iran nuclear agreement, and US support for the Paris climate agreement.

I very much agree with the authors in their statement that “track 2 science diplomacy may become even more necessary.” Several such dialogues are going forward now without overt support of governments. In the case of the United States, they are carried out by nongovernmental scientific and engineering organizations as well as by individual scientists. An interesting example is cited in a recent Economist magazine article on “Inside the AI back channel between China and the West.” Writing in the journal Science & Diplomacy before the US election, I outlined my “Science Diplomacy Priorities for the United States 2025–2030.” Now I hope several of these priorities will be pursued actively by America’s scientific organizations.

E. William Colglazier

Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman have long helped shape the discourse on science diplomacy. In their Issues essay, they sow new seeds for deeper thinking amid the proliferation of emerging and disrupting technologies and the rise of tensions and conflicts in a fractured world. For us, their discussion inspires several thoughts:

There is clearly a close relationship between the objectives and forms of science diplomacy and the geopolitical state of the world. With the evolution of the latter, science diplomacy is called on to evolve. But bringing science diplomacy and geopolitics closer together is a new idea only in appearance. The dialectic of this relationship was already at work during the “three decades after the Cold War” that Turekian and Gluckman mention. The concept of science diplomacy, which appeared in the last of these three decades in the United States, was very much in line with the foreign policy interests of the Obama administration. Carried by the calm waters of world unipolarity, this “traditional science diplomacy,” as the authors call it, was promoted as a tool for peace building, which could both heal some of the wounds resulting from American foreign policy and allow a constructive approach to global issues and their governance. Today, with other poles of power (which the authors call “technopoles”) emerging, we become newly aware that science diplomacy is what it has always been: the product of the geopolitical order of the world and the agent of its transformation. Thus, in today’s global (dis)order, science diplomacy must reinvent itself.

Turekian and Gluckman have in the past recognized the place of interests (national, transboundary, global) in the conceptualization of science diplomacy. They are now returning to this point in a more daring way. Denouncing the “weaknesses in the previous conception of science diplomacy,” they maintain that national policies “can conflict with broader objectives related to the global commons.” But here again, this is not a new issue. The promotion of national interests has always figured as top priorities in national science diplomacy strategies. We should also point out that national interests very much depend on how countries themselves perceive the global issues and on their trust or relative distrust in science: this challenges the scientific community to develop its interaction with society.

Above all, it is clear that the changes taking place in the architecture of world power highlight the need to manage the tension between common interests and national interests. But should there be “two different views of science diplomacy’s future role,” as the authors suggest? We do not think so. There is a deep unity between a science diplomacy aimed at constructing common interests and a science diplomacy primarily concerned with promoting national interests. They are two sides of the same coin. Still, the authors’ point remains vital. By assigning to science diplomacy the new role of “building partnerships and shared rules to achieve global objectives while respecting national priorities,” they give national interests a more central place in the discourse than previously acknowledged. We had to wait for the upheavals currently underway in world geopolitics to understand that regarding science diplomacy, national interests are no less important or less worthy of consideration than common interests. We believe this is an important advance in thinking on science diplomacy.

Pierre-Bruno Ruffini

Jean-Claude Arditti

As the need to prioritize global science diplomacy intensifies, Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman confront some critical questions: How can science and technology, which are increasingly entangled with the geostrategic and economic ambitions of individual nations, be leveraged as instruments of diplomacy? And within this new geopolitical framework, how can we shift the scientific mindset to focus on broader matters beyond security concerns? This is especially important as all research is increasingly becoming dual-use, its applications are evolving rapidly, and new governance models are emerging. These models challenge traditional assumptions about how science operates, who holds responsibility for governing its development, and how nations can and should use science diplomacy to ensure effective and equitable outcomes.

In examining where science diplomacy is heading, the authors start with its traditional purpose, which was primarily to “build relations among political adversaries.” They go on to outline the future focus of US science diplomacy on like-minded nations and new regional alliances (such as AUKUS, the security partnership of Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and GDPR, the European Union’s new data protection law), which could help in addressing the current challenges that multipolarity brings. They argue that ongoing military conflicts are straining traditional scientific collaborations, such as the Arctic Council and CERN.

In this shifting landscape, science diplomacy is evolving into a sort of “twenty-first century work-in-progress.” A critical concern is that this trend now applies to all countries, not just the great powers as it did during the Cold War. Understanding how diverse non-Western nations—whether self-reliant, such as China; sanctioned, such as Russia; or of smaller size, such as Rwanda—harness science and technology policy to influence their geostrategic positions has become essential.

These multicentral tendencies should also prompt us to consider how science diplomacy can be approached with political adversaries or alliances involving them. For example, countries comprising the BRICS+ group, which has grown from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, have differing interests and relations with the West in general and the United States in particular. In addition, the 120 nations in the non-alignment movement have substantial scientific portfolios and often cooperate with Russia, China, and other US competitors. How, then, should the United States handle bilateral science diplomacy with, for example, the Russia-Uganda collaboration on biomedical research for addressing infectious diseases in East Africa? Can it still approach Uganda as a like-minded country for its science diplomacy?

Amid growing geopolitical uncertainty, we must also consider other channels through which science diplomacy spread, such as social media, science journals, popular science outlets, and informal platforms. In the digital age, it’s essential to establish standards while also recognizing the evolving formats through which science diplomacy messages are communicated. This includes addressing the risks of misinformation and disinformation, which threaten both scientific progress and the role of science itself. Social media, no less important than new technological developments, present challenges for implementing science diplomacy, but also offer creative opportunities for advancement.

To navigate today’s geopolitical complexity, especially with the evolving roles of countries and regions, the United States and its allies must understand how both adversaries and non-allied nations define, approach, and implement science diplomacy and global science strategy. Monitoring adversary and kindred nations’ actions is crucial, and maintaining unofficial track 2 contacts, as the authors highlight, is the key.

Nataliya Shok