Assessing The Effect Of Technology Transfer On U S Western Security

This is a study of export controls, high technology and information and US controls. It looks at the impact of export controls on the United States, on the Allies and on the Soviet bloc.

Western efforts to control trade and technological relations with communist countries affect many interests and political groups in both Eastern and Western blocs. Although there is general agreement within the Western alliance that government-imposed controls are necessary to prevent material having military importance from falling in the hands of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, there is considerable controversy over the specifics: the exact definition of "militarily significant" material, how the Western nations should administer controls, the implications of glasnost, and other matters.

The U.S. national security export controls systemâ€"which was instituted to impede Soviet acquisition of high technology from the Westâ€"is both necessary and appropriate. Balancing the National Interest provides a thorough analysis of this controls system, examining the current system of laws, regulations, international agreements, and organizations that control the international transfer of technology through industrial channels. Foreign Affairs calls it "the best on the subject to have been published in the 40 years that the United States has exercised controls on exports that might add to Soviet power."

Information is not taken seriously. Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about information itself. If these are important, then so is information. But information is not as other goods: it has some peculiar characteristics. It cannot be displayed for sale without giving it away in the process. Sold, it goes to the buyer but still remains with the seller. Buying entails expressing demand in ignorance for buyers who do not know just what it is that they do not know. Such characteristics have long been recognised by economists, but it is not generally economists who have most to say about the importance of information. This privilege is exercised by senior managers, who speak passionately about knowledge-based, learning organizations; by politicians and public servants, anxious to compensate with policy and programme for the information failure of organization and market; and by specialists in telecommunications and information technology, bent on adding value to what they treat as just a commodity. All are particularly enthusiastic about the innovation which springs from information. Information usually requires new information. Finding, acquiring, and mixing this new information with that already in use presents problems, not least because complex information transactions are required rather than simple information transfer. Solutions can be devised, but only by accommodating the characteristics of information. This book contrasts the way innovation is normally regarded in a variety of areas from eighteenth-century agriculture to high technology, from technology transfer to industrial espionage, from corporate strategy to patents and independent inventors with how it appears from what is termed an 'information perspective', that is one that puts information first. The results are intriguing, suggesting that radically different approaches to innovation (and organization) should be considered.

This is a broad-ranging study of U.S. strategic export control policy. In particular, this book analyzes and evaluates the effectiveness of export controls in delaying the acquisition of militarily sensitive high technology by the Soviet Union and its allied states. Furthermore, the question of whether or not U.S. economic competitiveness in various high-technology sectors has been unduly undermined by export controls is also evaluated. Numerous official government studies and reports, supplemented by a host of interviews with government officials, businesspeople, and analysts in the United States and Europe are utilized in drawing conclusions and posting policy recommendations. The consequences for export control policy of the revolutionary political upheavals in Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R. are also addressed. The study concludes that the strategic/security goal of utilizing controls to hinder and delay the acquisition of militarily significant high technology by the former Soviet Union and its allied states was generally effective. More controversially McDaniel argues that export controls per se have not been a significant determinant of lagging U.S. competitiveness in high technology. However, this conclusion is qualified by the observation that while overall trends in U.S. high-technology exports to important trading partners do not suggest that controls by themselves have unduly hurt U.S. exporters, individual sectors and small firms may be disadvantaged. Finally, the study cautions that U.S. policy must adapt or risk becoming outmoded and increasingly ineffective. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, international political economy, and international business.