I want to highlight one area of diplomacy which I think is particularly relevant to EA is Science Diplomacy—briefly touched upon at the start of the post. Would be curious to hear the OPs’ views.
“Science diplomacy refers to the role science can play in international relations, or how diplomatic efforts support international science.” (source)
I see a number of key areas here that EA aligned Diplomats could be influence:
Good and bad scientific co-operation: these outcomes can be both good and bad e.g. Democratic Country R and Country S co-operate to provide knowledge on pandemic prevention vs Authoritarian Country X and Country Y co-operate to exchange nuclear power expertise which could be misused for proliferation reasons.
Developmental assistance in engineering: diplomats facilitate engineering experts from their country help to provide new power, utilities, transport, infrastructure for a developing economy to help it ‘level up’.
Using science and engineering to inform foreign policy-making: e.g. understanding the risks of A.I. integrated into weapons systems informs foreign policy objectives.
A note for UK people: seems that the main route into a diplomacy career is only the UK Governments Civil Service Graduate Scheme—there does not appear to be a direct inroad into diplomacy where you are able to go through a robust training program. I think this is dissapointing.
This is a great note. Science and tech diplomacy is finally getting a lot more funding and strategic priority. State just created a bureau entirely devoted to Cyber. The opportunities for science diplomacy are probably the highest they’ve been in a long time.
I want to highlight one area of diplomacy which I think is particularly relevant to EA is Science Diplomacy—briefly touched upon at the start of the post. Would be curious to hear the OPs’ views.
I see a number of key areas here that EA aligned Diplomats could be influence:
Good and bad scientific co-operation: these outcomes can be both good and bad e.g. Democratic Country R and Country S co-operate to provide knowledge on pandemic prevention vs Authoritarian Country X and Country Y co-operate to exchange nuclear power expertise which could be misused for proliferation reasons.
Developmental assistance in engineering: diplomats facilitate engineering experts from their country help to provide new power, utilities, transport, infrastructure for a developing economy to help it ‘level up’.
Using science and engineering to inform foreign policy-making: e.g. understanding the risks of A.I. integrated into weapons systems informs foreign policy objectives.
A note for UK people: seems that the main route into a diplomacy career is only the UK Governments Civil Service Graduate Scheme—there does not appear to be a direct inroad into diplomacy where you are able to go through a robust training program. I think this is dissapointing.
This is a great note. Science and tech diplomacy is finally getting a lot more funding and strategic priority. State just created a bureau entirely devoted to Cyber. The opportunities for science diplomacy are probably the highest they’ve been in a long time.