ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the nature of past and present US export control policy in the strategic area and guidelines for possible change. It also considers the multilateral policy of the US and its allies in the Coordinating Committee (COCOM) whose purpose it is to coordinate Western export controls. The legislative basis for the present policy and the interagency decision making system to which it gave rise is the Export Administration Act (EAA) of 1979. The EAA is the most recent embodiment of a long line of statutory pronouncements since the passage of the first Export Control Act in 1949 whose initial thrust was the establishment of stringent controls on all exports to Communist nations in response to the Cold War. Western Europeans and Japanese tend to separate economic interests from conflicting political considerations and base their own East-West technology transfer policies primarily on economic/commercial considerations.
