Technology Transfer and East-West Relations

Book excerpt: Originally published in 1985, in the deteriorating climate of East-West relations technology transfer became vitally important. The Eastern bloc desperately needed Western technology to assist in the development of the socialist economies, but a proposed US ban on the export of Western technology to the Siberian pipeline project led to increasing tension within the Western alliance abot the nature and scale of high technology that could be safely exported to the East. This book reviews the state of technology transfer to the East in the 1980s and considers the place of Western technology in the Eastern economies. It also discusses the strategic goals of Western technology embargoes. Many of the issues discussed remain pertinent today.