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Meeting of the minds
Nunn Forum participants tackle U.S. policy on international trade in technology
By Beth Roberts
beth@uga.edu

This year’s Sam Nunn Forum, held March 27 at the university, focused on U.S. policy concerning international trade in technology. The forum was organized by UGA’s Center for International Trade and Security, and Columns spoke with Gary Bertsch, the center’s director, about the results.

Columns: Can you begin with a quick summary of the major issues?
Bertsch: The main issue is: Is it time for the United States to move from the restrictive Cold War approach to controlling American technology to a policy that recognizes the realities of a global economy in the Internet age? During the Cold War, we could keep tight controls on American technology--keep it from adversaries and share some with allies--fairly successfully. Today, our old policy is having counterproductive consequences that no one is happy about.

Columns: What kind of technology are we concerned about?
Bertsch: We often refer to it as “dual-use technology,” because these are technologies that can go into computers for peaceful commerce, or into chemicals for medicine or agriculture, but can also be used for weapons of mass destruction. During lunch at the forum we broke into electronics, aerospace, chemicals and biotech, and manufacturing groups. The challenge is that most applications of technology are peaceful but some can be used in weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological weapons--and in the missiles to deliver them.
During the Cold War, the United States was deeply committed to keeping these technologies out of the hands of Communists. We had rigorous controls and strict export licensing, and most of these regulations are still on the books. Other countries have said there are better ways of doing this; some have said it’s not worth trying to do--we’re just going to sell this stuff. America is still using the old approach, which is upsetting business (because, they say, they can’t compete) and government (because they’ve got so much licensing to do that they’re overwhelmed).
Most of the experts at the conference agreed that the system is broken, but no one in Washington has done much about it. That’s what was useful about this conference: you get people out of Washington and they were a bit more honest with themselves and others, and said, “This isn’t working and we’ve got to do something.”

Columns: How did you pull together the broad assemblage of experts--business, government, academics?
Bertsch: We have been working fairly quietly at the University of Georgia for over a decade on these issues. We’ve gotten to know the people who are the experts, in government and business and universities, and we said it’s time to bring all these people together. It was really a “who’s who” in this policy area.
Also there’s a great deal of frustration in government and in business about what we’re doing, and we offered this forum as an opportunity to think anew, to try to cut through the inherent conservatism in government policy. So there was a lot of “new thinking” going on. John Hamre, the deputy secretary of defense, gave the keynote address extemporaneously--he wasn’t giving a prepared Pentagon speech. He said it’s counterproductive to go on doing what we’re doing, and that really got the conference off to a good start. Sam Nunn was also very frank. So there was an unusual amount of “out of the box” thinking.

Columns: What happens next, at the center here and in Washington?
Bertsch: It’s going to be exciting, because I believe there’s going to be policy change and the University of Georgia and our center are going to be right in the middle of it.
Sen. Nunn chairs a respected think tank in Washington, C.S.I.S.--the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Before the conference, he and the C.S.I.S. leadership asked if we would partner with them in following up on the forum, to bring together a high-level panel of experts to put out a report that would provide the new administration and the new Congress the best judgment of American experts.
Then, in addition, we have committed our UGA center to a longer-term initiative. The C.S.I.S. study will probably be for a year or so, but we know that these issues are going to be with us far into the future. Therefore we’re committing a portion of our UGA research effort to continuing this policy-oriented research.

Columns: Will this be an issue in the coming presidential campaign? Or is it too complicated?
Bertsch: It’s extraordinarily difficult to work this issue into sound bites. But Gore prides himself in being up on technology, and Bush actually gave a speech on technology issues just before Christmas. I think that this could become an issue, in two ways. It’s an issue of American competitiveness, and American business feels strongly about it. It’s also an issue of American foreign policy and security policy--some people feel that the Chinese and others are taking advantage of us by getting too much of our technology. It’s probably not going to get a lot of play in the campaign, but I think it’s an issue that the new administration and the Congress will devote a lot of attention to. All the experts in government, business and the academy feel that something has to be done. We are in the right place at the right time.
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