ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide two contributions to understanding of the strategic embargo: how the embargo owes many of its features—indeed, probably its existence—to World War II, and how the embargo has responded over the long term to structural change in the international system. It provides American policymakers with by far their most extensive learning experience in international affairs. There were notable differences in approach to the blockade as the American and British strategic positions contrasted. The purposes of the strategic embargo, as conceived in this legislation and by administration policymakers, were several. Much of the operative meaning in the term "Cold War" can be derived from the strategic embargo and its roots in the Second World War. The strategic embargo—indeed East-West trade as a whole—underwent striking changes in the 1969-1978 period. Embargoes, like other policies, are based on imperfect knowledge about the international environment.
