bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, p. 29
Or so we are often told. And those who so tell us have a point, but not the one they believe they are making.
I was a small boy in Calgary in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when the first space flights took place, and like many I developed a strong enthusiasm for space travel. Being something of a geek even in those days, I went to the library to see what there was to read on the subject. I found that the definitive work on space travel had been written decades before. It was Hermann Oberth who wrote the book on rocket science. In the absence of Vostok and Mercury flights, he formed his enthusiasm for the subject after reading Jules Verne’s From Earth to the Moon at the age of 11. Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space), all 92 pages of it, was published in 1923. I found an English translation in the Calgary Public Library, but was unable to make much headway with it.
My grasp of arithmetic in those days was nowhere near equal to Oberth’s use of algebra, trigonometry and calculus to translate Newtonian physics into the algorithms needed to engage in rocket-powered interplanetary travel. But for those who have the math, Oberth’s book remains the seminal classic on rocket science. Compare Oberth’s slim volume with Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice which, in its 1979 edition, weighs in at 576 pages. It has its competitors, but is generally recognized as a standard reference on the subject. And, unless I missed one, it contains no algorithms. But it does contain an exhaustive description of the various modalities of diplomatic practice.
Rocket science is rooted in the laws of nature. That is why Oberth’s books could be so short and so complete. Physics and mathematics are the same for everyone, everywhere. Diplomacy has its roots in human nature, which is infinitely variable. Diplomacy provides sovereign states, each of them unique and having its own political, cultural, social and linguistic identity, with tools to promote their interests, transact business and resolve differences. Always a work in progress, diplomatic practice develops through the accretion of experience rather than scientific research. Diplomatic practice is to diplomacy what TCP/IP is to the Internet: an agreed set of rules that make it possible for the system to function.
It takes nothing away from rocket science to make the claim that diplomacy is more complex and less definitive. But look at it from a risk-management perspective — if you get rocket science wrong, you could lose your spacecraft and your crew. It has happened a number of times and it is always terrible when it does. But at least such disasters are limited in scope and quickly over. However, if you get diplomacy wrong, the consequences are open ended — as has already happened a generation ago, you can get locked into a land war in Asia with no way forward, no way out and no end in sight. It is no more than prudent to take diplomacy as seriously as rocket science. Those who do not will have their heads handed to them by those who do.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2011) — Summer/Fall 2011 // Été/Automne 2011, p. 29. Read the rest of this issue →
