科学技術と国際政治(<特集>科学技術の社会科学的研究)

抄録

From my experience in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the I describe the changing relations of politics to scientific technology, mainly nuclear power. My study covers the years between X and the present. The development of technology has changed world politics. We must recognize, at first, world politics and economies are formed on the basis of information infrastructure, eg. TV, satellites, and transportation power, such as big ships or jet airplanes, carrying people and products cheaply and in large quantities all over the world. In the past the development of nuclear power was the urgent problem for world politics, now the reduction of armaments is the major international political problem that remains to be settled. It must be noted that the reduction of missiles was made possible only be detailed information collected by advanced satellite and radar technology. The reduction of armaments influenced world trade and the manufacturing industries of the world, great parts of which were occupied by arms production. The reduction of nuclear weapons contains difficult technical and political problems. Since the commercial use of plutonium and the outflow of nuclear engineers to the third world is still problematic, these factors will complicate international relations cooperative. However, in the new area of R&D, biotechnology, nuclear fusion, etc., corporative projects between nations have become necessary, and these matters have taken on the characteristic of internationalization.