Controlling dual-use technologies in the new world order
- National Research Council, Washington, DC (USA)
Efforts to reform U.S. export control policy regarding dual-use technology must encompass two major elements. First, the traditional East-West control regime must be fundamentally reformed to reflect the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. It is time to move away from the long-standing presumption of denial of sensitive technology exports and toward a policy based instead on a presumption of approval, predicated on the ability to verify that items are used in civilian applications rather than by the Soviet military. Second, substantial additional effort is urgently needed to better coordinate, expand, or-in the case of advanced conventional weapons-establish regimes to deal with growing threats posed by the proliferation of arms. In all likelihood, the latter task will be even more daunting than 40-year struggle to deny Western technology to the Soviet bloc. At the same time, more and more technology is likely to be dual-use in nature in the years ahead. Indeed, technology will continue to be spun on from the commercial sector to military applications with much greater frequency than it is spun off from the military into commercial use. although this suggests a continuing need for controls on dual-use technology exports, the plain and simple fact is that the United States will find it increasingly difficult to maintain an effective denial strategy, especially regarding technologies that are, or are becoming, widely diffused. A more positive and productive approach, therefore, would be to engage,together with other potential supplier countries, in the aggressive development or expansion of political, economic, and security relationships that employ export controls as only one element of an integrated suite of activities involving incentives as well as sanctions, in the East-West arena and in the global effort to restrain the proliferation of arms.
- OSTI ID:
- 5648299
- Journal Information:
- Issues in Science and Technology; (United States), Vol. 7:4; ISSN 0748-5492
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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POLICY AND ECONOMY
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
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EXPORTS
FOREIGN POLICY
INFORMATION DISSEMINATION
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
MILITARY STRATEGY
POLITICAL ASPECTS
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
COOPERATION
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
SECURITY
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