TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: The New Frontier in Global Power.

• Jurisdiction: New Zealand
• Date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Sanmarti, Marcal
• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Sanmarti, Marcal

TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: The New Frontier in Global Power

Editors: Giampero Giacomello, Francesco N. Moro and Marco Valigi

Published by: Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 224pp, 85 [pounds sterling].

As technology changes, international relations reshape too --as has been the case throughout history. The invention of agriculture more than 12,000 years ago completely changed human societies. As did woodblock printing around 200 AD or the internet in the 1960s. Technology can give immense military leverage. We like to remember the European Enlightenment for its scientific achievements. Often we overlook the fact that those achievements were born out of the savage military competition of the 17th and 18 th centuries. Discoveries in physics were pushed by the need to predict cannonball trajectories. Discoveries in optics were financed by European courts to be able to see both rival and home armies from afar.

Another example occurred at the end of the Second World War, when the Soviets and Americans competed to get the most brilliant German scientists, either by buying them out or by forceful means (including kidnap).

That took us to the achievements in space exploration during the first space race, since rockets are just bigger versions of wartime...