ABSTRACT
The US policy makers could not demonstrate the efficiency of the embargo but they had staked their pride on it and wanted it to continue. In the United States there were some with even higher hopes for the effects of the embargo. Various embargo actions were referred to as "sanctions", that is, as revenge and punishment for various Soviet brutalities, such as those in Afghanistan and Poland. The embargo sanctions after 1968 are to be judged, it is a political fact of life that they have increased tensions between the United States and Western Europe. Embargoes are no longer seen as efficient longterm instruments of economic policy. They are short-term emotional reactions to hostile behaviour. If the main elements of the analysis are correct, continuations of the American embargo efforts are positively harmful for the future of the US-West European side of the East-West ideological conflict.
