Suchergebnisse

Following the launch of Sputnik, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became a prominent sponsor of scientific research in its member countries, a role it retained until the end of the Cold War. As NATO marks sixty years since the establishment of its Science Committee, the main organizational force promoting its science programs, Greening the Alliance is the first book to chart NATO's scientific patronage—and the motivations behind it—from the organization's early days to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on previously unseen documents from NATO's own archives, Simone Turchetti reveals how its investments were rooted in the alliance's defense and surveillance needs, needs that led it to establish a program prioritizing environmental studies. A long-overlooked and effective diplomacy exercise, NATO's "greening" at one point constituted the organization's chief conduit for negotiating problematic relations between allies. But while Greening the Alliance explores this surprising coevolution of environmental monitoring and surveillance, tales of science advisers issuing instructions to bomb oil spills with napalm or Dr. Strangelove–like experts eager to divert the path of hurricanes with atomic weapons make it clear: the coexistence of these forces has not always been harmonious. Reflecting on this rich, complicated legacy in light of contemporary global challenges like climate change, Turchetti offers both an eye-opening history of international politics and environmental studies and a thoughtful assessment of NATO's future.4201 Includes bibliographical references and index

Following the launch of Sputnik, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became a prominent sponsor of scientific research in its member countries, a role it retained until the end of the Cold War. As NATO marks sixty years since the establishment of its Science Committee, the main organizational force promoting its science programs, Greening the Alliance is the first book to chart NATO's scientific patronage—and the motivations behind it—from the organization's early days to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on previously unseen documents from NATO's own archives, Simone Turchetti reveals how its investments were rooted in the alliance's defense and surveillance needs, needs that led it to establish a program prioritizing environmental studies. A long-overlooked and effective diplomacy exercise, NATO's "greening" at one point constituted the organization's chief conduit for negotiating problematic relations between allies. But while Greening the Alliance explores this surprising coevolution of environmental monitoring and surveillance, tales of science advisers issuing instructions to bomb oil spills with napalm or Dr. Strangelove–like experts eager to divert the path of hurricanes with atomic weapons make it clear: the coexistence of these forces has not always been harmonious. Reflecting on this rich, complicated legacy in light of contemporary global challenges like climate change, Turchetti offers both an eye-opening history of international politics and environmental studies and a thoughtful assessment of NATO's future

This essay explores the reception of 'nuclear winter' at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This response is paradigmatic of how scientific predictions can work as stimuli for science diplomacy activities, and either inflate or deflate these forecasts' public resonance. Those who elaborated the theory in the early 1980s predicted that the environmental consequences of a future nuclear conflict would have been catastrophic; possibly rendering the earth uninhabitable and leading to the extinction of humankind. This prospect was particularly problematic for the Western defence alliance, since it was difficult to reconcile with the tenets of its nuclear posture, especially after the 1979 Dual Track decision, engendering concerns about the environmental catastrophe that the scientists predicted. Thus, NATO officials refrained from commenting on nuclear winter and its implications for the alliance's deterrence doctrine for some time in an effort to minimize public criticism. Meanwhile, they progressively removed research on nuclear winter from the set of studies and scientific debates sponsored by NATO in the context of its science initiatives. In essence, NATO officials 'traded' the promotion of these problematic studies with that of others more amenable to the alliance's diplomacy ambitions.

From SAGE Publishing via Jisc Publications Router ; History: epub 2021-04-23 ; Publication status: Published ; Funder: European Commission - H2020; Grant(s): 770523 ; This essay explores the reception of 'nuclear winter' at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This response is paradigmatic of how scientific predictions can work as stimuli for science diplomacy activities, and either inflate or deflate these forecasts' public resonance. Those who elaborated the theory in the early 1980s predicted that the environmental consequences of a future nuclear conflict would have been catastrophic; possibly rendering the earth uninhabitable and leading to the extinction of humankind. This prospect was particularly problematic for the Western defence alliance, since it was difficult to reconcile with the tenets of its nuclear posture, especially after the 1979 Dual Track decision, engendering concerns about the environmental catastrophe that the scientists predicted. Thus, NATO officials refrained from commenting on nuclear winter and its implications for the alliance's deterrence doctrine for some time in an effort to minimize public criticism. Meanwhile, they progressively removed research on nuclear winter from the set of studies and scientific debates sponsored by NATO in the context of its science initiatives. In essence, NATO officials 'traded' the promotion of these problematic studies with that of others more amenable to the alliance's diplomacy ambitions.

This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as "science diplomacy." Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post‐WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non‐proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries' posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong‐arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of "soft power" as critical to the re‐definition of international affairs.

This paper analyses the role that patents played in the establishment of the isotope industry. In the first part I survey the number of issued patents on the production of isotopes, also arguing that the isotope industry was typified by inadequate patenting activities. Then I examine the factors that hindered these activities by looking at the history of industrial patents in the establishment of the isotope industry. I especially focus on the consequences of the Manhattan Project on patent legislation. As the Atomic Energy Act (1946) made the isotope industry a monopoly of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), it contributed to transform the trading of its relevant patents in a «contentious» business. Since then, inventors and assignors already in possession of isotope production patents could only claim compensation to the AEC, which was authorised to seize them. And those who might have outlined new inventions were now deprived of the economic incentive to do so, being prohibited from free-trading them in the international market.

From Michel Foucault's early studies on penitentiaries to analyses of security policies after 9/11, surveillance has become a key notion for understanding power and control in the modern world. Curiously, though, the concept has thus far received limited application within the history of science and technology, with the existing scholarship focusing largely on cases of scientific espionage rather than the practices of scientists. Using the overarching concept of the "surveillance imperative," this collection of essays offers a new window on the evolution of the environmental sciences during and after the Cold War. Collectively, these contributions argue that the surveillance imperative - that is, a conceptual link between the drives to know the enemy and to know the earth - offers a fruitful approach to the recent history of the earth sciences.