Scientists, Engineers, and Track-Two Diplomacy
Scientists, Engineers, and Track-Two Diplomacy

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2004-03-02

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0309090938

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This report is intended to provide a brief historical perspective of the evolution of the interacademy program during the past half-century, recognizing that many legacies of the Soviet era continue to influence government approaches in Moscow and Washington and to shape the attitudes of researchers toward bilateral cooperation in both countries (of special interest is the changing character of the program during the age of perestroika (restructuring) in the late 1980s in the Soviet Union); to describe in some detail the significant interacademy activities from late 1991, when the Soviet Union fragmented, to mid-2003; and to set forth lessons learned about the benefits and limitations of interacademy cooperation and to highlight approaches that have been successful in overcoming difficulties of implementation.

From Pugwash to Putin
From Pugwash to Putin

Author: Gerson S Sher

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2019-05-17

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0253042658

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These firsthand accounts of US and Soviet scientists communicating across the Iron Curtain offer “a stunning portrait of Cold War scientific cooperation” (Physics Today). For sixty years, scientists from the United States and the Soviet Union participated in state-organized programs of collaboration. But what really happened in these programs? What did the participants and governments hope to achieve? And how did these programs weather the bumpiest years of political turbulence? From Pugwash to Putin provides accounts from sixty-three insiders who participated in these programs, including interviews with scientists, program managers, and current or former government officials. In their own words, these participants discuss how and why they engaged in cooperative science, what their initial expectations were, and what lessons they learned. They tell stories of gravitational waves, classified chalkboards, phantom scientists, AIDS propaganda, and gunfire at meteorological stations, illustrating the tensions and benefits of this collaborative work. From the first scientific exchanges of the Cold War through the years following the fall of the Soviet Union, Gerson S. Sher provides a sweeping and critical history of what happens when science is used as a foreign policy tool. Sher, a former manager of these cooperative programs, provides a detailed and critical assessment of what worked, what didn’t, and why it matters.