ABSTRACT
The concept of economic containment held that economic warfare and the strategic embargo could be used as tools to constrain Eastern European regimes. The practice of export control reflected the essence of cold war security thinking: the priority given to the military aspects of security, the reality of bloc politics and the need to cope with the highly assertive pattern of Soviet external behavior. The emerging multipolar world is bound to be less simple and less stable, bringing with it important implications for Europe's security and the export control regime. The economic interests of individual Western producers and exporters should not be lost in all the grand designs of East-West politics and trade. The transition of Eastern Europe has already gone very far, but it will probably proceed in fits and starts for several years to come. Western Europe is reluctant to differentiate its export control policy between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European states.
