ABSTRACT
East-West trade has gone through very different phases during the postwar period, alternating between exuberance over exorbitant sales expectations on "hungry" Eastern markets and attempts to use economic warfare as a means of punishing the East for political misbehavior or exerting pressure on the East to achieve political goals. The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, which controls the export of strategic items to the East, has strongly influenced the make-up of East-West trade since the organization's establishment in 1949-50. The old system was able to absorb new technology for the moment, but when it went into operation the stagnation took over again. A concentration on selected fields of technology was possible for some time and Western deliveries of related technology could to some extent contribute to achieve certain levels of development. Furthermore, one should also be optimistic because of possible positive factors stemming from the various reforms of the foreign trade mechanisms.
