ABSTRACT
The opening of the Berlin Wall is conclusive evidence that the Soviet empire has collapsed. In the Soviet Union, glasnost undermined the communist party's role as the heroic vanguard of social progress. Contrary to the commonality of security interests, the economic interests of individual Western countries are competitive in their search for new markets and diversification of imports. Since 1970, a "continental divergence" on matters of East-West trade and technology transfer has strained the Western Alliance. The issue is one of political rather than of military risk assessment or of short term cost-benefit analysis. Streamlining Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) industrial list should be possible to reduce the bureaucratic red tape which has been choking trade and cooperation among COCOM member countries, and delaying trade in goods with no or only remote military relevance. COCOM has a chance to survive only in a precisely redefined task, sticking to the core problem of security concerns.
