The sciences played a critical role in American foreign policy after World War II. From atomic energy and satellites to the green revolution, scientific advances were central to American diplomacy in the early Cold War, as the United States leveraged its scientific and technical pre-eminence to secure alliances and markets. The growth of applied research in the 1970s, exemplified by the biotech industry, led the United States to promote global intellectual property rights. Priorities shifted with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as attention turned to information technology and environmental sciences. Today, international relations take place within a scientific and technical framework, whether in the headlines on global warming and the war on terror or in the fine print of intellectual property rights. Science and American Foreign Relations since World War II provides the historical background necessary to understand the contemporary geopolitics of science.

The U.S.-USSR Cultural Agreement signed at the Geneva summit in 1985 signalled the resumption of a broad range of cultural exchanges suspended in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Mr. Richmond describes the history of the various areas of exchange—in the performing arts, popular media, academia, public diplomacy, science and technology

The U.S.-USSR Agreement on Cooperation in the Fields of Science and Technology (the S&T Agreement), a major program of scientific and technical cooperation with the Soviet Union, brought about a broadening of the scope of cooperation and an increase in the number of scientists participating in such exchanges. This book takes a retrospective look at the U.S. experience under the agreement. The background, objectives, organizational arrangements, and evaluations of specific projects are examined within the context of the scientific community and the concerns of the two governments. The authors discuss the relative success of the agreement and propose ways in which the scientific and political benefits could be increased.