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r e l u c ta n t c h a m p i on s ★ ★ ★
Tr u m a n , E i s e n h owe r, B u s h , a n d C l i n t o n
r e l u c ta n t c h a m p i on s ★ ★ ★
U.S. Presidential Policy and Strategic Export Controls
Richard T. Cupitt
Routledge NewYork London 2000
Published in 2000 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Copyright © 2000 by Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cupitt, Richard T. Reluctant champions : U.S. presidential policy and strategic export controls.Truman, Eisenhower, Bush, and Clinton / by Richard T. Cupitt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-92439-1 (hb.). –– ISBN 0-415-92440-5 (pb.) 1. Export controls — United Sates. 2. Economic sanctions. American. 3. United States — Commercial policy. 4. National security — United States. 5. United States — Politics and government. I.Title HF 1414.55.U6C86 2000 382’ .64’0973—dc21 99-35015 CIP ISBN 0-203-90145-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-90149-5 (Glassbook Format)
To my loving family, Karen and Meghan
c on t e n t s ★ ★ ★
acknowledgments
ix
introduction The United States and Export Controls
1
One
domestic politics and export controls Presidents, Political Entrepreneurs, and Prohibition Norms
13
Two
dual-use export controls in historical perspective
31
the truman administration Politics Doesn’t Stop at the Water’s Edge
51
Four
the eisenhower administration “Damned Silly Practices”
84
Five
the bush administration A New World Order
118
the clinton administration It’s the Economy, Stupid
158
conclusion Reluctant Champions
210
notes index
231 273
Three
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Seven
ac k now l e d g m e n t s ★ ★ ★
everal years ago, the Center for International Trade and Security (CITS) at the University of Georgia began a research project on export control issues between Japan and the United States. This was new territory for the center. Until then, the CITS had focused almost exclusively on North America, Europe, and what was formerly the Soviet Union. Although I had worked on U.S. export controls in the past, the new direction of study gave me a better perspective on the U.S. policy process.This book evolved out of my participation in that project as the investigator whose responsibilities bore most directly on U.S. export control policy.This started out as a potentially coauthored work on U.S. and Japanese export control policy. As the historical similarities between issues in the Bush and Clinton administrations and those in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations became clearer to me, this seemed to deserve a book-length treatment of its own. The steady and generous support from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP) and the Japan–United States Friendship Commission for that project made this book possible. My special thanks go to Nori Etoh of CGP and Margaret Mihori of the Friendship Commission. Without their per-
S
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Acknowledgments
sonal interest and attention, the project would have never borne fruit. Their friendly manner also reduced my own anxieties during the grant process, for which they deserve special praise. Several participants in project workshops gave me comments on my work, inspired me to develop new ideas, and opened themselves to my questions. Zach Davis, Cathleen Fisher, Glennon Harrison, Bill Long, Lou Ortmayer, and others gave me helpful insights to the politics of the policy process. Beverly Crawford got me to think more about the technology transfer process as a whole, while the historical-theoretical perspective on export controls that Mike Mastanduno pioneered prompted me to look into the U.S. politics of Truman and Eisenhower administration policies, while Yoko Kato pointed out the value of explaining issues in post–World War II U.S. export controls and Japan in understanding the U.S. policy process. In addition, the two principal investigators from Japan, Takehiko Yamamoto of Waseda University and Yuzo Murayama of Osaka University of Foreign Studies, gave the project regular guidance as well as broadened my perspective.They also raised some interesting theoretical issues. Of course, my friends and colleagues at the CITS deserve considerable credit for their assistance and tolerance over the genesis of this book. Gary Bertsch, as both the CITS director and a principal investigator on the project, was unstinting in his support. With his knowledge, kindness, and willingness to contribute to the project, Martin Hillenbrand always guided me in the right direction. Although he joined us for only one year, Glenn Chafetz became a trusted confidant, who let me voice several ideas for this book, and still lets me tap his expertise. A few graduate students, some now academic colleagues in their own right, were especially helpful in the research process or the preparation of this manuscript, including Michael Beck, Jonathan Benjiman-Alvarado, Olga Fantova, Suzette Grillot, Ann Hicks, Shungo Kawanishi, Daisy Gao, and Ramona Yang. Linda Haygood made my life far easier through her patience, goodwill, and expertise at navigating the complexities of bureaucracies everywhere. The persistence and conviction shown by Amy Shipper convinced me that Routledge was the right publisher for this book. Working with her, Krister Swartz, and their colleagues at Routledge was a pleasure that I would happily repeat. Many more people have contributed to this book in ways I cannot express fully. In particular, the openness and the accessibility of government officials, industry representatives, policy advocates, and others I interviewed during my research constantly renewed my faith in the people that contribute to public policy in the United States, despite all the posturing and scandal that clouds our current perception of political life. Although the names remain in the background, I thank them all.
Introduction
t h e u n i t e d s tat e s a n d e x p ort c on t rol s ★ ★ ★
a different kettle of fish uring the last two weeks of December 1995, Iraqi scuba divers under direction of the United Nations Special Commission on Disarmament (UNSCOM) went fishing in a canal near Baghdad. As suspected, UNSCOM found more than 200 guidance systems parts taken from dismantled Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SSN-18s).1 UNSCOM obtained this information only after they confronted Iraqi authorities with evidence regarding a load of nearly 240 gyroscopes bound for Iraq and seized in Jordan in November 1995.2 These discoveries and others demonstrated the ongoing Iraqi interest in pursuing a variety of weapons programs in violation of commitments that country made at the end of the Gulf War. While this persistence eventually led to the collapse of the UNSCOM inspection system in 1998, as early as the summer of 1993, reports began to suggest that Iraq had repaired or rebuilt “nearly all” of its military production infrastructure destroyed by UN forces during the war.3 Before the Gulf War, many governments and private companies helped endow the Iraqi military with immense capabilities. The Wisconsin Project on
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Nuclear Arms Control estimated that enterprises in at least twenty-four countries made 240 deals that contributed to Iraqi missile or nuclear programs.4 The Simon Wiesenthal Center also alleged that eighty-six German, eighteen American, eighteen British, and seventeen French companies contributed to the development of Iraqi chemical weapons capabilities.5 While Swiss and West German companies appeared especially active in these transactions, companies from most Western powers participated. From the United States, for example, Tektronix, Scientific Atlanta, the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Litton Industries, and other companies had ties to the Iraqi buildup of weapons of mass destruction.6 In the United Kingdom, officials apparently approved transfers of British dual-use items to Iraqi missile and nuclear facilities, even relaxing restrictions on exports as late as July 1990.7 Western involvement in Iraqi military programs became clearer with the start of the Gulf War. Public revelations, discussions on Nightline and other news programs, and congressional hearings brought this issue into sharper focus for the U.S. public. As part of this process, President George Bush declared that the administration would take “a series of steps” to augment existing controls on the export of strategic dual-use items (goods and technologies with primarily commercial but also military applications) to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.8 President Bush then circulated Executive Order 12735, detailing the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI). This initiative invigorated the growth of a more complex international nonproliferation export control regime, with an emphasis on implementing tighter restrictions on dual-use exports. Consequently, by 1992 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) had taken radical steps to expand the scope of multilateral export controls.9
e x p ort c on t rol s a n d non p rol i f e r at i on : p ol i c y or pu z z l e ? Before promulgating the EPCI, the Bush administration only grudgingly embraced restrictions on dual-use exports for reasons of nonproliferation, especially regarding exports to Iraq. In a September 1990 congressional hearing, Stephen D. Bryen, a key export control official in both the Reagan and Bush administrations, testified about problems with the export control system when it came to proliferation concerns. Bryen told Congress that a policy of “official blindness” toward proliferation dangers permeated licensing decisions for dualuse items for Iraq well into 1990.10
Introduction
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3
A 1985 White House directive did give the Department of Defense authority to review the export of dual-use items to eight noncommunist countries, including Iraq. The Reagan administration, however, generally encouraged sales of dualuse items to Iraq. This policy continued early in the Bush administration. On October 2, 1989, for example, President Bush issued National Security Directive 26 (NSD-26) calling for closer ties with Iraq to increase U.S. influence over Hussein.11 One result of this export promotion strategy was that the United States approved 767 licenses for $1.5 billion in dual-use items for Iraq from 1985 until the start of the Gulf War.12 At the same time, it rejected only thirty-nine licenses for $26 million and returned without action 261 licenses worth $334 million.13 Of the approved licenses, several involved exports to missile, nuclear, and other weapons development complexes in Iraq.14 Bush administration officials did make all exports of dual-use items to Iraq subject to more stringent review as early as April 3, 1990. Still, the Departments of Commerce, State, Defense, and Energy continued to approve sales of such items to Iraq until August 2, when the administration suspended all export licenses to Iraq. In the months immediately following the invasion of Kuwait, moreover, the United States did little to strengthen its own nonproliferation export controls. Why did the administration exhibit such reluctance to tighten its export control system? Generally, export restrictions inflict concentrated costs, usually imposed on powerful domestic industries. At the same time, controls on dual-use exports provide diffuse and indivisible political and security benefits. Estimates of the costs of U.S. export controls on dual-use items, for example, ranged from $9.3 billion in 1985 to $30 billion in 1989.15 High-technology companies bore most of the costs. Indeed, J. David Richardson identified export controls as the single largest impediment to U.S. economic competitiveness.16 Typically, in policy issues with concentrated costs and diffuse benefits, international agreements “are usually, though not invariably, doomed.”17 In addition, policy makers remained wary of increasing cooperation among members of the supply-side export control arrangements, and of the mixed record of success of these groups.18 Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY) contended that to believe the key supplier countries would agree to restrict the export of dual-use items for nonproliferation purposes required “. . . a large measure of vagueness seasoned with a healthy dose of wishful thinking. . . . It’s very difficult for me to imagine how you would negotiate such a security arrangement.” 19
pa r a l l e l s pa s t a n d p r e s e n t In many ways, the export control initiatives of the Bush administration bear striking resemblance to the creation of controls on East–West trade more than
4
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Introduction
forty years earlier. At that time, the Truman administration urged Western countries to adopt several new policies to contain the influence of the Soviet Union. Among other initiatives, the Truman administration called on Britain, France, and other states to control exports of a wide range of dual-use goods and military items to the Soviet Union and its allies. As with the Bush administration, the Truman administration adopted this position with reluctance. Many members of the Truman administration saw export controls as inappropriate instruments in their anti-Soviet strategy. In a congressional hearing on the Marshall Plan, for example, Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman displayed little support for imposing economic sanctions on Russia, calling strict controls on exports a policy of last resort.20 Britain, France, and Norway had expressed some interest in restricting trade in military and other key items with the Soviet Union, but the prospects for Western cooperation seemed poor. In the first place, most West European economies depended more on trade with the Soviet Union, and had more historic trade ties with it, than did the United States.21 In addition, powerful communist and socialist parties in many West European states would oppose anti-Soviet export controls as excessively provocative.22 Yet by 1952, export control policy had evolved into a cornerstone of U.S. containment efforts, and COCOM had become the “economic arm” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.23 Given the prevailing views, why did the Truman and Bush administrations adopt these export control policies? Why did both presidents then advocate complementary policies for other states? Certainly, Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had an influence on these choices. Nevertheless, these conditions hardly explain why the two administrations decided to adopt export controls as a specific policy response. As important, why did Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton accept this inheritance? Both administrations did so, albeit reluctantly. Through the Randall Commission Report on Foreign Economic Policy and press appearances by officials, for example, the Eisenhower administration indicated its intention to develop “stricter controls on the highly strategic goods and the relaxation of controls on goods of lesser importance.” 24 Instead, after some relaxation of export controls with the end of the Korean War, the United States maintained stricter controls than its allies and opposed nearly all relaxation in multilateral controls on trade with the Soviets, the Chinese, and their communist allies. Similarly, the Trade Policy Coordinating Committee, representing nineteen federal agencies, issued a report in September 1993 that signaled the intention of the Clinton administration to streamline and relax export controls dramatically. The administration argued that this would improve the capacity for U.S. industry to compete in the global market, as well as mark an end to a long Cold War
Introduction
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5
episode.25 The administration adopted many of the suggested reforms, but by 1996 the Clinton administration found itself supporting a much more restrictive draft of a new Export Administration Act than either it (or U.S. industry) originally sought.26 Both Eisenhower and Clinton feared that some stringent export control policies would prove inimical to U.S. economic interests. Why did their reform efforts become circumscribed? Why did they have success in some instances but not in others? How and why did this record relate to their international export control initiatives? In addition, the Truman and Bush administrations did not just reform U.S. export controls; they altered the policy environment abroad. The Truman administration created, with its allies, a multilateral system of export controls that targeted the Soviet Union and other countries under communist guidance. Similarly, the Bush administration fostered radical changes in multilateral efforts to control the export of dual-use items to projects and countries of proliferation concern. In essence, both presidents successfully championed a new international norm or rationale for export controls. Several scholars argue that government leaders generally play central roles in the development of international norms.27 At a minimum, by expounding on the dangers of communism and proliferation, respectively, Presidents Truman and Bush identified a new focus for multilateral cooperation. Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton sustained these initiatives both at home and abroad. Exactly why presidents adopt and sustain strategies and policies that advance particular international norms, however, has not attracted intensive scrutiny.28 By implication, this suggests that several major questions like these, questions at the very core of international politics, remain largely unexplored, much less answered. In particular, why and how do presidents come to adopt particular cooperative norms? How and why do presidents then promote these norms multilaterally? How and why do these new presidential policies and international arrangements affect the policy process in subsequent administrations?
t h e d om e s t i c s ou rc e s o f p r e s i d e n t i a l e x p ort c on t rol p ol i c y Clearly, these questions indicate that this study should focus on the constraints facing a president in making policy. Indeed, I start from trying to understand why one intuitively powerful independent variable, the policy preferences of each president, does not provide a satisfactory explanation for presidential policy on export controls. That several of these decisions appear to contradict the
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Introduction
policy preferences of each president creates the very evidentiary puzzles that form the genesis of this study. Most research on international relations emphasizes the influence of the international environment on national policy, especially changes in the balance of power. From a conventional realist perspective, U.S. national interests, not its domestic politics, should determine U.S. foreign policy. Most important, changes in U.S. policies, including export controls, should respond to changes in the relative power of states in the international system. From this vantage point, when the United States developed new export control systems, it simply reflected the U.S. rejoinders to the challenges of Soviet military might in the late 1940s and Iraqi military power (and the power of several other “rogue” states) in the late 1980s. Certainly, the expansionist policies of Soviet communism and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had an impact on U.S. export control policy. Why that impact manifested itself in some export control policies rather than others seems far less clear. More important, a cursory review of the evidence casts doubt on the timing of the policy choices made by Presidents Truman and Bush in particular. In both cases, the initial presidential response to key international events did not involve a serious reformulation of export control policy. Similarly, both Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton entered office with an interest in liberalizing export controls and had to retreat from that position, although changes in the international environment, such as the death of Stalin or the democratization of Russia, did not seem to point in that direction. Ignoring the issue of timing risks obscuring antecedent conditions and conflating causal sequences. Knowledge of “when” also creates what Stephen Van Evera calls “prescriptive richness.” 29 Without sufficient prescriptive richness, useful policy recommendations are difficult, if not impossible, to infer. Although I will examine the influence of international factors in greater detail in each case, the inconsistencies between changes in the international environment and the formulation of U.S. export control initiatives and policies point toward domestic politic as a source of influence. To some scholars, the exposition of a partisan, domestic politics-based explanation of regime dynamics creates many problems. Robert Keohane, for example, asserts that explanations of regime change based on domestic politics would lead to “descriptive anarchy,” ad hoc addition of variables, and loss of parsimony.30 While a substantial charge, parsimony cannot substitute for validity. Unfortunately, most theories of international cooperation ignore or underestimate the influence of domestic variables, and the serious limits on their explanatory power may reflect this exclusivity. As Susan Strange noted, moreover, ignoring domestic political and economic variables has the side effect of producing state-centric theories, one of the very critiques leveled at realists by Keohane and like-minded scholars.31
Introduction
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7
Nonetheless, the assumption that descriptive anarchy will result from the inclusion of domestic political variables in theories of international relations has undergone profound revision in recent years. As Peter Cowhey and others have suggested, the question is not whether domestic and international political variables interact to affect international cooperation, but how.32 From this perspective, discovering which domestic forces affect international politics through what mechanisms is a postrealist research priority.33 Anecdotal studies of export-control policies echo this theme of the significance of domestic political processes. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, for example, found that U.S. trade sanctions in the aftermath of the capture of the U.S. Embassy in Iran and in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were more closely intertwined with election politics than with foreign policy objectives.34 Similarly, Makio Miyagawa notes that the British government imposed limited sanctions on Italy in 1936 four days after a decisive election victory, retreating from imposing an oil embargo, because the government no longer needed to court votes from the Left.35 Moreover, the economic aspects of export controls imply that politically powerful leaders may also have direct economic interests in these policies, making their role risky to ignore.
t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e o f u n d e r s ta n d i n g u. s. e x p ort c on t rol p ol i c i e s Relatively few academics have made U.S. export control policies a subject of study. The technical, legal, and bureaucratic intricacies of U.S. export controls challenge the most dedicated researchers. Hundreds of pages of arcane regulations unite diverse scientific fields, weapons systems, and commercial activities. Nonetheless, the diffusion of military or sensitive dual-use items to rogue states, terrorists, or international crime cartels poses one of the most dangerous threats to U.S. security today, much as transfers of similar items to the Soviet Union did in the Cold War. Effective export control policies serve an important role in denying or delaying access to those items. As noted in the 1998 description of U.S. national security strategy, We must identify the technical information, technologies and materials that cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of those seeking to develop and produce WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. And we must stop the proliferation of non-safeguarded dual-use technologies that place these destructive capabilities in the hands of parties hostile to U.S. and global security interests.36
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Introduction
If nothing else, the complex networks of front companies and deceptive transactions used by several governments to acquire sensitive technologies illicitly gives compelling evidence of the value of effective export control policies in countering these threats. If export controls had an impact only on U.S. security interests, they would arouse very little controversy. Export controls, however, have more than a marginal impact on the day-to-day transfer of a broad range items — from acoustic projectors to zirconium — influencing the flows of billions of dollars in world trade and investment. Virtually all large multinational corporations have departments devoted to implementing export controls, and lawyers and other professionals who provide services related to export controls. With billions of export dollars at stake, disputes over export controls have a direct impact on tens of thousands of manufacturing — as well as other — jobs. Export controls also have important implications for other foreign policy and domestic political objectives, including civil liberties. Controls on the export of encryption software, for example, raise concerns over freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and privacy rights, and greatly affect electronic commerce. How leaders balance these often competing objectives will tell us a great deal about the process of attaining state power. In a seminal work, for example, Albert O. Hirschman showed how Nazi foreign economic policy, including trade controls as well as diplomatic and military initiatives, expanded German national power in the 1930s.37 Similarly, Jacob Viner argued that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries leaders emphasized both power and plenty in their policies.38 As the histories of Spain, the Soviet Union, and other powers confirm, failure to address economic as well as military security for a society not only undermines the legitimacy of a government, it diminishes the capacity of the government to generate military power.39 Many policy makers, nonetheless, now see export controls and economic sanctions as part of a checklist of policy instruments, somewhere between diplomacy and military action.40 Export controls on dual-use items in particular stand at the juncture of high and low politics, of military and economic security, of power and plenty. They are at the nexus of economic and security challenges facing the United States in the post– Cold War era. Understanding the development of U.S. containment export controls then and nonproliferation export control now may reveal much about the future of U.S. foreign policy generally. Understanding export control policies can also shed light on the controversial role of economic sanctions, including export controls, as instruments of policy. The League of Nations had some early success in imposing economic sanctions against Yugoslavia (in 1921) and Greece (in 1925). David Mitrany even wrote a practical guide for applications of sanctions by the League.41 This only made the
Introduction
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9
failure of League economic sanctions in the 1930s appear even more futile.42 Studies by Johan Galtung, Margaret Doxey, and Robin Renwick judged economic sanctions to be weak and ineffective.43 Similarly, in the most systematic assessment of economic sanctions, Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott found sanctions to be successful in only forty-one of 115 cases.44 Despite these critiques, economic sanctions have become a tool of first resort for many policy and makers. The United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions against Rhodesia in 1966 and South Africa in 1977 to protest their racist policies. Other high-profile cases, such as the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the U.S. grain embargo of 1980, drew wide attention to specific causes. Between 1910 and 1950, one study identified twenty disputes associated with economic sanctions, compared with one hundred between 1951 and 1990.45 The United States proved particularly enamored of economic sanctions, using sanctions in sixty-nine cases.46 Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations Security Council has imposed economic sanctions on Yugoslavia, Somalia, Libya, and Iraq to promote global and regional security.47 For the first time, the Organization of American States even agreed to dictate sanctions against a member state (Haiti) in November 1992. Usually, economic sanctions fail to inflict profound damage on the target because significant alternative sources remain available to supply goods or finances.48 Nonetheless, economic sanctions, including export controls, may serve as a relatively low-cost alternative to military action or other policies.49 States can also impose economic sanctions unilaterally or by negotiating with allies, unlike diplomatic action that usually requires agreement with an adversary. For instance, Ambassador Robert Gallucci, the principal U.S. negotiator of the agreed framework covering the North Korean nuclear program, identifies export controls in particular as a “low-cost” activity that is “clearly and almost certainly helpful and effective” compared to diplomatic, military, or covert action.50 Using a more formal analysis, George Tsebelis also demonstrates that sanctions can affect the strategy of target states, even though an empirical assessment might appear to produce no difference in compliance, with or without sanctions.51 Export controls, as with other economic sanctions, can become powerful symbols of principles. Among other things, they demonstrate a “no business-as-usual” policy toward the target.52 As Lisa Martin notes, states often use economic sanctions to send signals, such as displeasure with particular behaviors, to other players in the international arena.53 Since states also sustain costs when levying economic sanctions, sanctions also communicate resolve on behalf of the sender.54 Most important, export sanctions designed to undermine military capabilities of an adversary have achieved some success. Governments used export controls either alone or in combination with financial controls and import restric-
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Introduction
tions in at least seventy of the 115 cases identified by Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott.55 They found that export controls proved effective in all ten cases where governments sought to impair the military capability of the target state.56 While Gunnar Adler-Karlsson and others have argued that “the [COCOM] embargo policy has been a failure,” substantial evidence exists that the COCOM system delayed Soviet acquisition of key weapons systems and military technologies by five to ten years.57 One major study, for example, shows that significant economic growth in the Soviet Union depended on acquisitions of crucial military and commercial technologies from the West from 1917 to 1965.58 On the basis of this evidence, Anthony Sutton concludes that the West should have imposed even more restrictive export controls against the Soviet Union.59 In addition, the Soviet policy of technology acquisition outlined in the “Farewell papers” illustrate the Soviet belief that they needed key Western military and dual-use technologies, but that export controls made such items difficult to obtain.60 From the evidence, strategic export controls, those designed to weaken the military capability of an actual or potential adversary, appear among the most effective forms of economic sanctions.61 Finally, exploring how and why the United States came to adopt and promote both the containment-based and nonproliferation-based export control regimes should also shed light on the formation of international norms and international regimes. Unparalleled U.S. economic, military, and technological resources gave Presidents Truman and Bush an unusually large range of policy alternatives for containment or for counterproliferation. No multilateral program of export controls on military and dual-use items, for example, could prove even modestly effective without U.S. cooperation. At the same time, the United States needed to elicit the cooperation of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and other states to deny or delay the transfer of strategic goods or technologies to targeted countries or end users. This required both administrations to find ways to integrate often diverse interests in other countries with their own. Exploring how the Truman and Bush administrations built and the Eisenhower and Clinton administrations maintained those regimes should shed light on various economic, political, and security issues.
p l a n o f t h e b oo k In the first chapter, I offer a framework for understanding how domestic politics influences the presidents to champion export control policies. Derived from a public choice perspective, the framework builds on the connections among public policy entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs in Congress, and core programs in administration grand strategy as determinants of U.S. export control policy.
Introduction
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11
The chapter will explore how this policy response to domestic pressure hastens U.S. efforts to develop a new multilateral system of controls (a new regime based on a different norm). Chapter 2 includes a brief history of multilateral export controls on dualuse items. The chapter examines U.S. export controls through the end of World War II. As the data show, many basic elements of current export control programs, and many current problems with export controls, have historical antecedents that policy makers have often adopted or adapted to address emerging issues. Chapter 3 covers the evolution of U.S. restrictions on trade with the former Soviet Union and other communist countries under the Truman administration. It reviews the development of anticommunism as a focus for entrepreneurial activity. Most important, it explores the connections between the political interests and coalitions supporting the two major foreign policy initiatives of the Truman administration, aid for Greece and Turkey (the Truman Doctrine) and the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction, with export control policy. Chapter 4 considers why the Eisenhower administration proved unwilling to dismantle export controls despite considerable domestic and international pressure for reform. I outline the sources of domestic and international pressure, the efforts to reform, and the response from the public and political entrepreneurs. In addition, the chapter reviews the distinct implications of the grand strategies of “Trade, Not Aid” and “Trade and Aid” on U.S. export control policy. Chapter 5 shifts the focus to the development of U.S. nonproliferation export controls under the Bush administration. A brief review of export controls to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction before the Gulf War will show that a community of nonproliferation export control entrepreneurs had emerged in the 1980s. In particular, I will examine the relationship between U.S. export control policy and the shift in strategy represented by the change from Desert Shield to Desert Storm. Chapter 6 examines the reform issues facing the Clinton administration. This includes a brief review of efforts to streamline and relax U.S. export controls in previous administrations, followed by a discussion of the emerging approaches to export control reform. The chapter also considers the struggle between industry interests and nonproliferation entrepreneurs in reforming the Export Administration Act. Finally, the chapter considers how the different pace of these two efforts reflects the impact of the grand strategy of “engagement and enlargement.” Finally, Chapter 7 includes an assessment of the preliminary framework and explanations in light of the evidence in the four cases, and a brief appraisal of the several export control controversies in the second term of the Clinton administration. The chapter compares the roles of the policy communities and the influence of
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political entrepreneurs in shaping presidential policy. It also explores the need to make presidential export control policy conform to the central rationales of administration grand strategy, and the influence of domestic interests opposing export controls in that process. From this one can draw implications for political strategies to strengthen U.S. commitment to nonproliferation export controls and for broader theoretical issues regarding how leaders in dominant states come to champion and then guard international norms and regimes.
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d om e s t i c p ol i t i c s a n d e x p ort c on t rol s Presidents, Political Entrepreneurs, and Prohibition Norms ★ ★ ★
p ol i t i c a l op p ort u n i t y a s g r e e k shipping cargo n 1952, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin won reelection to the Senate. Quite apart from his notoriety for claims about communists in the U.S. government, McCarthy had a reputation as the least able senator in Washington. Party politics and seniority meant Senate Majority Leader Robert Taft had to make McCarthy chair of a committee, so he appointed McCarthy to head a minor committee in the Senate hierarchy: Government Operations. Underneath the full committee, however, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals and policy on such diverse matters as loyalty, sexual orientation, and export controls. Not surprisingly, McCarthy decided to use the subcommittee primarily to investigate communism. In early 1953, he assigned Robert Kennedy and Francis Flanagan to examine the extent of trade between the Peoples’s Republic of China and U.S. allies. McCarthy had heard reports that “liberty” ships owned by citizens of U.S. allies were engaged in trade with communist countries.1
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Reluctant Champions
Under the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 (the Battle Act), Congress intended for the president to punish U.S. allies for exporting dual-use industrial goods to the Soviet bloc, if U.S. law subjected those items to controls. The United States needed to threaten to withhold assistance, according to the sponsors of the provision, to build an effective multilateral export control system. In contrast, officials in the State Department and elsewhere saw the Battle Act sanctions as a threat to, not an incentive for, allied cooperation on export controls. Most important, President Eisenhower found both export controls and threatening our allies personally distasteful. Not surprisingly, the Eisenhower administration chose to gut this provision by placing most of these items on a list, that, if violated, would not trigger sanctions. To some members of Congress, these views and actions challenged their role in the overall foreign policy process, as well as their own views on how to promote compliance with export control norms. On the morning of March 28, 1953, Senator McCarthy announced that Greek owners of 242 ships agreed not to trade with communist countries as a result of negotiations with representatives of the subcommittee. Supposedly, this would reduce Chinese foreign trade by 10 to 45 percent.2 The Eisenhower administration dismissed these claims, suggesting that McCarthy acted as a rogue ambassador, perhaps violating U.S. law in the process. In contrast, Drew Pearson, columnist with the Washington Post, wrote that the subcommittee should investigate the inconsistency between Eisenhower trade and foreign policy further.3 McCarthy began hearings on March 30. At the hearings, the chief administrator of the Battle Act, Harold Stassen, tried to defend current policy and foil the actions of McCarthy, Kennedy, and Flanagan. By the end of the day, however, Stassen admitted the subcommittee had collected accurate and reliable evidence on the matter. Stassen also allowed that the actions taken, as a voluntary and private matter, were appropriate. President Eisenhower repeated this view at a press conference held three days later.4 With this approval, McCarthy began similar negotiations with Greek shipowners in London. The administration, however, continued to argue against a ban on all allied trade with China. In subsequent hearings, Robert Kennedy damningly revealed that two British-owned firms had helped transfer Chinese troops in ships formerly leased by the Mutual Security Agency.5 Based on these and other charges, Democratic Senators Stuart Symington and John McClellan urged McCarthy to write Eisenhower requesting an explanation. To avoid more intraparty bickering, Vice President Richard M. Nixon intercepted the letter. Nixon persuaded McCarthy to retract the letter on May 8, shortly after Congress extended the Export Control Act. The subcommittee report on the shipping issue, written by Robert Kennedy and released on July 1, castigated the admin-
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istration. According to the report, the administration was “indecisive and ineffective” on Western trade with communist countries, and labeled this “indefensible trade policy” responsible for raising the death toll among the UN forces in Korea.6 Nearly five decades later, the current debate about the nature of cooperation in international relations and the role of incentives and sanctions in eliciting compliance echoes many of the issues raised in this incident. The event also casts light on the role domestic politics can play in shaping international cooperation. Perhaps even more important, it demonstrates the significant impact individual political entrepreneurs can have in the U.S. policy process.
t h e r e l at i on s h i p b e t w e e n d om e s t i c p ol i t i c s a n d e x p ort c on t rol s The adoption of export controls against the preferences of the sitting President contradicts the typical pattern of foreign and security policy-making in the United States and in democratic states generally. In foreign policy, agenda-setting generally mirrors the preferences of political leaders, especially chiefs of government. The President, for example, has far more influence over foreign affairs and security policy than education, health or other kinds of policy. The President has a legion of advantages over Congress in particular, even when Congress takes an active part in the process. These include more comprehensive sources of information, greater capacity to operate secretly, a hierarchy of command, speed in decision, and accountability to the nation as a whole more than narrow provincial interests.7 The U.S. Supreme Court, moreover, specifically affirmed the primacy of the president in foreign affairs in Curtiss-Wright Corporation v. United States (1934). This pattern of power has its parallels in other democratic states. In reviewing a set of case studies on international cooperation, for example, Peter Evans states: International initiatives in direct response to constituency pressure were surprisingly uncommon. This is especially clear in the case of security issues. . . . It is not that the reactions of domestic constituents were not considered by initiating leaders, or that potential for domestic political gain was uniformly absent. What is missing . . . is a systematic connection between either constituency pressure or domestic political gain and the initiation of negotiations.8
Obviously, not all presidential policy initiatives will succeed, even in the foreign policy arena. Of interest here, however, is the question of why, and when, these initiatives fail.
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Despite the parsimony offered by conventional realist theory, it seems clear that “states don’t make policies, people do, and these people may have objectives other than the welfare of the state as a whole.”9 Vinod Aggarwal and Pierre Allan, for example, assert that “the need to maintain their domestic political position” helps determine leader preferences for international cooperation and other kinds of policy.10 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Randolph Siverson even incorporate realism into domestic politics with their claim that increasing national power often leads to domestic political gains.11 Aggarwal and Allan argue that the capacity of the leader to limit potential domestic opposition to a particular policy, and whether a leader expects to retain power, determines the general shape of foreign policy initiatives.12 With a stable political coalition behind them, leaders can expect to remain incumbents and limit opposition. Under those conditions, leaders will prefer mutual consensus in international negotiations to no consensus. When a leader confronts an unstable domestic political coalition, the converse applies. With two additional elements, overall U.S. power and power in the specific issue area, Aggarwal and Allan apply this model to U.S. policy at the beginning of the Cold War. They conclude that U.S. leaders favored mutual consensus over no consensus, and no consensus over Soviet dominance.13 In part, they reached this conclusion because domestic public opinion and elite views strongly backed U.S. presidents in their dealings with the Soviet Union.14 Aggarwal and Allan admit that “there was some disagreement over how to manage the U.S.–Soviet rivalry,” but they dismiss this as unimportant.15 Policy makers, however, want to know how to conduct policy. Choices about how to manage the U.S.-Soviet rivalry marked the crowning political achievement of the Truman administration: its marriage of anticommunism with internationalism. The current of isolationism often exerts a forceful pull on U.S. presidents, even dominating U.S. foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s. At the end of World War II, many members of Congress still questioned the need for the United States to make extensive international commitments or to participate in multilateral arrangements outside the Western Hemisphere, especially in the United Nations or in peacetime military alliances. During the Truman years, building a political coalition that favored internationalism required the administration to link U.S. actions with something that would limit opposition from the most committed isolationists. Truman created bipartisan support for U.S. foreign policy by his “willingness to identify internationalism with anticommunism, the one horror that even Midwest conservatives could not stomach.”16 If Truman had not made the link between anticommunism and an inherently anti-isolationist strategy like containment, the Soviets may have confronted a United States devoted to isolationist and unilateral behavior. With those values, two other op-
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tions could have tempted U.S. leaders — prevailing through nuclear warfare or withdrawing from the world to await a Soviet collapse. Either strategy would display little regard for the impact of U.S. policies on Europe or Asia. In this sense, domestic perspectives generate even more questions about the dynamics of export control policies. If export control policy serves as a low-cost alternative to other forms of statecraft, then why did the Truman administration initially oppose it? Why did it matter that they appease congressional critics on export controls, when they agreed on the broader issue of anticommunism? Why did some members of Congress support strong export controls more than did other members or the president? Public choice theorists generally argue that political leaders respond to the demands for policy by special interests.17 These special interests often appear at odds with the interests of the larger community (i.e., the nation). Nevertheless, the costs of the policy can be so diffuse and the benefits so concentrated that the special interests have a greater incentive to articulate and promote their interests to the government, and can prevail. Most public choice studies involve international trade and financial policy, especially the demand for import protection, and tend to focus on the domestic forces against, rather than for, cooperation.18 Studies on the role of domestic interests groups and free trade, for example, focus on how states overcome, or fail to overcome, constituency pressure.19 In a notable exception, Helen Milner examines how firms that benefit from widespread application of a free trade norm exert pressure for cooperative free trade policies.20 Strategic export controls and economic sanctions pose a slightly different problem than that found in more typical models of trade policy.21 Instead of concentrated benefits, delaying or denying potential military opponents access to critical goods or technologies is a widely disbursed benefit. Nor are the benefits of military security easily divisible, especially if the gains come from deterrence. Export controls, moreover, may concentrate the immediate economic costs of restrictions on the exporters of dual-use and military items. At both the domestic and international levels of analysis, this should decrease the probability that governments will use export controls, especially if the absolute costs appear high. Domestically, the incentives for opponents to organize are strong (since the costs are concentrated), while the incentives for proponents to organize are weak (since the benefits are diffuse).22 Internationally, a similar logic applies. As Evans notes, if “the costs are concentrated and the benefits diffuse, agreements are usually, though not invariably, doomed.”23 In addition, the probability of failure increases to the extent that groups who suffer the costs have more influence or are otherwise “disproportionately enfranchised.”24 James Q. Wilson constructed a typology based on such dichotomous distributions of the costs and benefits of public policy (either concentrated or diffused).25
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Wilson postulates the existence of four regulatory policy types: majoritarian, client, interest group, and entrepreneurial. Containment and nonproliferation export controls appear to fall most clearly into the category of entrepreneurial policy. The benefits of the anticommunist export control policy — helping to deter a global war with the Soviet Union, defraying some costs of deterrence, and perhaps providing a winning margin if such a war took place — surely met the criteria. Since many Americans in the late 1940s thought that war with the Soviet Union was imminent, many perceived the benefits as real and salient. Similarly, the benefits of effective nonproliferation export controls — making the development of weapons of mass destruction and their associated means of delivery more difficult — appear diffuse and nearly indivisible. Further, by the early 1990s, nonproliferation had become a top security priority for the United States. As Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs Dr. Lynn E. Davis testified, proliferation of “weapons of mass destruction and sophisticated conventional arms is perhaps the single most important security threat” to the United States and its allies.26 In both cases, the costs of export controls appear low (especially compared with the costs of military policies) but concentrated.27 Exports to the Soviet Union, for example, peaked in 1946 at $358 million, even before the United States instituted controls. For the period 1946-1950, total U.S. exports averaged less than percent of its gross national product (GNP). Furthermore, only a few of the largest U.S. enterprises in the late 1940s focused on the world market. Forty years later, total U.S. exports still averaged only around 8 percent of the GNP, but many more companies had an interest in exports. While as many as fifty countries are potential targets for nonproliferation export controls, moreover, U.S. officials see only a few countries (Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Libya) as imminent threats. In one estimate, sanctions in 1989 against Iran, North Korea, and Libya, for example, meant only about $2.2 billion less in U.S. exports.28 According to Wilson, when costs are concentrated and benefits diffuse, entrepreneurs have a crucial impact on the politics of regulatory policies.29 Entrepreneurial activity marks a special type of social behavior.30 Joseph Schumpeter characterized entrepreneurial activity in terms of creative action. Because such activity calls for “doing things that are not generally done in the ordinary course of business routine,” he said, “it is essentially a phenomenon that comes under the wide aspect of leadership.”31 According to Schumpeter, entrepreneurs are motivated by the possibility of very large profits, similar to profits made by monopolists.32 Subsequently, many scholars have discovered that material benefits, private information, and monetary gain alone do not motivate all entrepreneurial behavior.33 For instance, James Forestall, whose entrepreneurial efforts forged the modern U.S. Navy, took a dramatic cut in
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pay to work for the government in 1940.34 These public entrepreneurs—individuals who engage in entrepreneurial activity in the public policy arena and are not motivated primarily by profits—need not be altruists. Many civic and social benefits can motivate public entrepreneurs.35 Arguably, the rate at which public entrepreneurs will champion a policy varies with the potential costs (including time, money, and reputation) facing an individual entrepreneur when he or she starts to promote a policy compared with the potential benefits (including prestige, followers, and influence) to the entrepreneur if the promotion succeeds.36 Under this calculus, if the potential benefits from promoting a cause are great, then a contingent of public entrepreneurs will appear to lead a political crusade. Public entrepreneurs may invent, advocate, or implement a new idea for public policy. Some public entrepreneurs, such as Ralph Nader, wage individual campaigns for new public policy. Nonetheless, the social nature of public policy suggests that public entrepreneurs will often seek the support of or work within a large association. Public entrepreneurs, for example, appear more likely to use large public organizations than private sector entrepreneurs.37 Most of all, public entrepreneurs seek to influence the political agenda.38 Without public entrepreneurs, new ideas about policy simply do not flourish. Furthermore, public entrepreneurs consistently search for opportunities to enter their preferred policy ideas into the political agenda.39 Schumpeter also noted that a group of people can undertake entrepreneurial activity, including an institution or bureaucracy.40 Surely, no individual acts as an entrepreneur all of the time or in every facet of life. Various roles in creating, designing and implementing innovative public policies (such as intellectuals, advocates, or administrators) may even require a community of entrepreneurs, a critical mass of individuals or groups willing to provide leadership to help create new social combinations.41 Public entrepreneurs generally function “outside the formal government system to introduce and implement innovative ideas into the public sector”; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good example of such an entrepreneur.42 Nonetheless, they usually need to attract political leaders (plus a public audience) to turn their cause into public policy. Just as Johnson needed Boswell, public entrepreneurs need politicians. Public entrepreneurs may seek government office to capture administrative control over policy, rather than only accrue influence. In doing so, however, they transform the fundamental nature of their entrepreneurial activity. Generally, individuals that hold elective or appointed government posts must govern across a broad range of issues rather than advance a single cause. If officeholders engage in entrepreneurial activity, even without intent, it affects their political career. Their entrepreneurial activity becomes political and they become political entrepreneurs.43
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As the politics of export controls have concentrated costs and diffuse benefits, entrepreneurs, both public and political, should take an active role in shaping export control policy. This, however, tells us very little about several critical issues. How does entrepreneurial activity turn into export control policy? When do entrepreneurs succeed, and when do they fail in having an impact on presidential export control policy? What kind of export control beliefs, values, or structures do entrepreneurs create?
p ol i t i c a l e n t r e p r e n e u r s a n d p roh i b i t i on nor m s In addition to its own national system of controls, the United States also championed export controls abroad. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower built a multilateral system of controls based on anticommunism, while Bush and Clinton created a similar system grounded in nonproliferation norms. In the international arena, leaders often act like entrepreneurs in creating international regimes and norms.44 In a study of international cooperation in twelve natural resource and environmental issue areas, for example, Oran Young found that cooperation required effective leadership — in its absence, efforts to negotiate international regimes failed.45 A study of the politics of regime formation in the polar regions produced similar findings.46 Young identified effective leadership with a particular pattern of behavior. It is, he said, a matter of entrepreneurship. . . . A leader in this context is an actor who, desiring to see a regime emerge and realizing that imposition is not feasible, undertakes to craft attractive institutional arrangements and to persuade others to come on board as supporters.47
Young also noted that effective leaders neither impose their will nor operate from solely ethical motivations. Instead, they “seek gains for themselves either in the form of advantageous institutional arrangements if they are states or in the form of enhanced reputations or rewards if they are individuals.”48 This makes cooperation more durable than “fleeting considerations of ethical behavior or altruism.” 49 In other words, effective leaders function very much like political entrepreneurs. At the same time, ridding the world of specific evils often serves as a key motive for promoting cooperative international norms.50 James Lee Ray, for example, makes the case that the United States abandoned slavery as a result of moral reckoning (backed by the authoritative use of force).51 In that regard, Ethan A.
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Nadelmann claims that proselytizing “moral entrepreneurs” play a critical role in establishing prohibition norms and regimes.52 From an academic perspective, international regimes consist of principles, norms, rules, and procedures in an issue area around which actors’ expectations and behaviors converge.53 Regimes always involve some form of joint international decision making to achieve specific collective objectives. Regimes also involve persistent patterns of beliefs and behaviors isolated within a well-defined issue area, such as radio frequencies or postal service, not one-shot ad hoc agreements or broad multi-issue frameworks. Finally, the constituent entities of a regime may cover a subset of the international community, usually the principal participants in an issue area, rather than the universe of international actors. In any regime, norms set the stage for action. As Finlayson and Zacker argue, “It is the norms of a regime, and the importance the most influential members attach to them, that largely determine the regime’s rules and rule implementation.” 54 The critical problem for most studies of international regimes is the extent to which norms determine public policy and private action in international affairs.55 The logic of regimes suggests that political leaders adjust their own behavior to conform to international norms, and they come to expect other states, associations, and individuals to make similar adjustments. Nadelmann refined these concepts by identifying prohibition regimes as a separate class of international arrangements. In particular, prohibition regimes have norms that mainly proscribe (rather than prescribe) public and private practices.56 Of special relevance to this study, nearly all prohibition regimes place restrictions on international trade. Agitation for trade restrictions, moreover, comes early in the process of regime formation. For instance, the U.S. constitution expressed anti-slavery sentiments with its ban on slave trade by 1808, even though the abolitionist movement did not achieve its primary goal until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Similarly, at an ambassadorial conference on slave trade shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Viscount Castlereagh suggested that the great powers boycott colonial products of any country not prohibiting slave trade as a step toward abolition.57 Not until two decades later, however, did Great Britain abolish slavery in its empire, while members of the Quintuple Alliance (Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Prussia) took until 1841 to agree to suppress the slave trade. Only in 1862, as the politics of the Civil War moved the Union against slavery, did the United States and Britain sign a treaty to create courts and authorize the search and seizure of slave ships, which the British Navy enforced. Several other prohibition regimes, such as the preservation of endangered species or the conservation of national historical treasures, follow a similar pattern.
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Whether the anticommunism and nonproliferation export control systems functioned as a regime, they certainly encompassed prohibition norms. Clearly, the notion of moral entrepreneurs also bears a close resemblance to that of public entrepreneurs, but with the twist of a crusade against evil. Still, while agitation by moral entrepreneurs might prove necessary, it cannot prove sufficient unless all moral crusades result in regime formation or national regulation, which they obviously do not. Even when supported by governments able to criminalize the prohibited behavior, the presence of moral or public entrepreneurs does not explain why and when political leaders adopt the values of the moral entrepreneurs, nor how they transform those values into policy.58 As Young and Osherenko conclude, the formation of durable international regimes depends on effective entrepreneurial activity by self-interested government officials, not by individuals guided primarily by ethical considerations.59 These considerations imply a three-step process for the creation of presidential export control policy: (1) moral (i.e., public) entrepreneurs espouse a value; (2) political entrepreneurs later adopt the value; then (3) the value becomes incorporated into presidential policy. The president, who represents the broad national interest to maintain public support and govern effectively, may respond to public entrepreneurs promoting national policies, not special constituency interests. After all, presidents must create broad political coalitions to carry out their core foreign policy initiatives and to retain political power.60 These core foreign policy initiatives at least partially define the grand strategy of each administration or, in other words, its strategy of marshaling “domestic and international resources to achieve security.”61 In a system of divided government, such as the United States, a grand strategy plays a vital role in keeping disjointed special interests from dominating foreign economic, diplomatic, and military policy. As Gregory Foster contends, “in a pluralistic society . . . there is an inextricable link between strategy and consensus.”62 While this assumption rests at the heart of the realist approach to international politics, one can adopt the less narrow assumption that political leaders develop preferences for an implicit or explicit schema to guide their decisions on how to allocate political, economic, and military resources.63 This leads to a plausible political framework for analysis of how U.S. anticommunist and nonproliferation export control policy emerged. If Presidents Truman and Bush needed to build a political coalition to support one of their core foreign policy initiatives, then they might have had to appeal or respond to political and public entrepreneurs favoring export controls. A similar framework might also work for the presidential policies of Eisenhower and Clinton, although many factors besides coalition building favor stability in foreign policy.64 Bureaucratic interests, for example, predispose an admin-
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istration to maintain policies once started, and make them very resistant to policy transformation (much less cancellation).65 In a specific reference to export control policy, Tor Egil Førland, for example, concludes that the Eisenhower administration did not press for greater trade liberalization because Eisenhower wanted to avoid damaging his relationship with Congress, and because his cabinet officers and other subordinates simply ignored repeated antiexport control sermons from Eisenhower.66 Moreover, according to Kjell Goldman, policy formation and implementation in a highly fragmented institutional environment, an apt descriptor for the U.S. political system, creates special pressures for policy stability.67 Presidents may also make a personal commitment to support an export control policy rationale. Despite the comments of cynics and comedians, presidents keep the vast majority of their campaign promises once in office.68 If a president, as either challenger or incumbent, promised to support anticommunism or nonproliferation export controls during the campaign, or makes a similar promise while in office, then retreating from that position is very difficult. If a president succeeds in securing international commitments to a prohibition norm and export controls, it further increases the probability of policy stability. Just as promises by the leaders of a nation make commitments difficult to abandon, international agreements multiply these same commitments many times over. Breaking with a cooperative tradition has severe reputation costs.69 The public, in addition, may generally favor international cooperation. Michael J. Gilligan and W. Ben Hunt, for example, found that citizens “seemed to reward their government for creating alliances” by keeping them in power.70 Even though the focus here is on the United States, these forces are likely to be influential in the other countries that cooperate with the United States on export control issues. Virtually all of these states are rich, democratic countries with a powerful (if not always dominant) national bureaucracy. Having made similar bureaucratic and political commitments, they too will resist change. The French government, for example, resisted the relaxation of COCOM controls on computers, because they used this as a surrogate for nonproliferation-based controls.71 More concretely, Japanese law ties export controls on dual-use items to the presence of international export control arrangements. Peter Cowhey notes that generally political parties will back collective goods concerning foreign policy to bolster their political reputations. Once made, these commitments are hard to reverse unless there is a massive shift in voter preferences. The division of power forces institutional innovation (including tinkering with the multilateral regimes) to reconcile new foreign policy commitments with electoral considerations.72
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Despite these pressures for stability, leaders advocate basic changes in grand strategy when the existing strategy appears incapable of keeping vital national interests “effectively promoted and secured against enemies, actual, potential, or merely presumed.”73 This appears roughly analogous to the argument by John Vasquez that national leaders adopt mostly accomodationist or hard-line strategies based on how effective and efficient these strategies proved in the last interstate war.74 If political leaders do not change grand strategy in those conditions, domestic or international forces seem likely to emerge that would produce new political leaders committed to change. In addition, new technologies or social relationships may alert political leaders to outmoded strategies. Before the adoption of new transportation and communication technologies, for example, domestic demand and supply determined most patterns of production and distribution. At various times, the emergence of international markets, however, created opportunities and risks for political leaders to transform their grand strategies. For instance, French mercantilism emerged under Colbert in the 1660s to deny the French domestic market to the Dutch, heavily dependent on external trade, as much as to promote certain French state industries. This penchant for conservation of policies associated with an international norm produces many years of stability separated by short discontinuities characterized by extensive change — in other words, a “punctuated equilibrium.”75 Even de facto grand strategies create a problem of value complexity for political leaders. Grand strategy combines multiple and often competing interests— military, economic, and political. Making policy choices under these conditions creates stress that political leaders will seek to reduce. Indeed, when leaders face complexity, they will often try to avoid choosing between competing values, rather than rank the utility of various competing values.76 In other words, “in politics, it is possible to live with inconsistencies.”77 If choice seems unavoidable, however, leaders set priorities for alternative policies very deliberately.78 Political leaders may also search for ways to reduce stress by resolving competing values and cognitive inconsistencies among various policies.79 Sometimes leaders can create a new understanding about the relationship between values. The British government, for example, promoted classical liberal economic policies in the nineteenth century when it reached a new understanding about imports, exports, national wealth, and security. More often political leaders will create a compromise that will satisfy at least some minimum coalition required to successfully carry out the central policies associated with the grand strategy.80 In either case, political leaders attempting to resolve value inconsistencies will act in an entrepreneurial fashion, and, if successful, their activity will preserve or build domestic support for their continued leadership through securing vital national interests.
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Clearly, presidents must create political coalitions to favor the policies their grand strategies generate.81 As Richard Neustadt argued, presidential power lies in the ability to persuade and bargain to build a consensus behind particular policies.82 When creating support between the public and in government for policies, presidents often make promises to reach compromises with potential backers. In doing so, presidents may promote norms and policies espoused by other political or policy entrepreneurs that complement their grand strategy. By tying multiple causes together, the president can attract powerful followers or, at the least, mute the potential opposition. Economic sanctions are not likely to be part of the initial set of policies associated with a new grand strategy initiative by national political leaders. Effective economic sanctions impose immediate and usually concentrated economic costs on the nation imposing the sanctions. Public choice theory suggests that we should expect organized domestic resistance to these sanctions from the beginning. If presidents try to broaden the appeal of their grand strategy, policies that alienate powerful commercial interests make an ill-suited foundation for a coalition.83 This logic suggests that leaders pay particular attention to both the substance and sources of alternative policies in building this political coalition. Substantively, one would expect leaders to attempt to resolve major inconsistencies in their grand strategies identified by other political and public entrepreneurs. While presidents can live with inconsistencies, John D. Steinbruner contends that failure to resolve inconsistencies is the primary domestic source of foreign policy destabilization.84 By making policy rationales more internally consistent, or by making policy rationales more consistent and more closely linked with other policies, grand strategies of leaders and their associated policies become harder to assail and more costly to reappraise.85 Obviously, presidents have many constituencies that may make demands regarding foreign policy, including their constituents, the Congress, and the executive branch. If key public or political entrepreneurs can characterize the core security or foreign policy initiatives as inconsistent with export controls, however, they could destabilize support for the overall grand strategy. Even one or two principal committee chairs in Congress, for example, can make or break a presidential foreign policy initiative. In the case of export controls, they should become more firmly entrenched in presidential policy over time. In addition to the many conventional arguments about policy stability, the existence of an entrenched community of public and political entrepreneurs also acts as a policy stabilizer. If a president attempts to change a policy in a way that challenges the prohibition norm behind export control policies, already powerful public and political entrepreneurs can challenge the president by exploiting any inconsistencies between new foreign poli-
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cies and established export control norms. At a minimum, it will put new policy initiatives under heightened scrutiny.
d e s i g n o f t h e s t u dy The export control policies of four presidents pose several interrelated research puzzles. In light of their misgivings, why did Presidents Truman and Bush each adopt a new rationale for strategic export controls? From similarly diffident positions, why did Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton uphold these norms and policies? How did all four of these administrations work to build international support for these policies? As discussed in this chapter, one can extract the seeds of several competing explanations from the theoretical literature, but these fail to provide compelling answers to critical questions, especially issues of timing. Most studies of export controls and, more broadly, of economic statecraft, rely on case study methodology.86 Case studies have a poor reputation in some circles, but good case studies have made important contributions to social science. More important, using case studies is perhaps the most appropriate method for exploring “how and why” questions, notably for relatively current phenomena.87 This is especially true when the researcher can impose few controls to separate the phenomenon under examination from its real-world context, a typical problem for the study of public policy.88 Case studies also have proved effective for inferring theories and antecedent conditions through the use of controlled comparisons, process tracing, and other tactics.89 Another advantage of case studies is that they allow the researcher to include a broad range of evidence, including documents, archival records, direct observation, and interviews with participants. This offers special advantages in tracing the process of events that generates the “prescriptive richness” invaluable to theory development.90 In this book, I develop four cases of presidential policy on strategic export controls: • • • •
Truman administration policy from 1947 to 1952; Eisenhower administration policy from 1953 to 1956; Bush administration policy from 1989 to 1992; Clinton administration policy from 1993 to 1996.
The cases cover the entire presidencies of Truman and Bush, and the first administrations of the Eisenhower and Clinton presidencies. This gives the four cases comparable time spans while encapsulating the behaviors that generate the research puzzles.
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Each case examines two linked sets of phenomena (i.e., the dependent variables)—the decisions to adopt or modify U.S. export control policies coupled with the actions taken to build a multilateral export control system. Generally, I identify these decisions as examples of presidential policy or the policy choices advanced by the president, as distinct from the policy preferences of the president or the policy outcomes as modified by other parts of the government. By tracing the process of these decisions, I hope to reveal critical antecedent conditions that will suggest possible independent variables linked to presidential export control policy. The literature on foreign policy and export controls did suggest a rough framework to guide the investigation of how and why export control policy took shape in these four cases. Following this framework, I will explore several independent variables in the case studies: • the activities of public entrepreneurs regarding export controls; • the activities of political entrepreneurs, mainly in Congress, regarding export controls; • the consistency between export controls and administration grand strategy; and • the political support for administration grand strategy. To understand the administration perspective for each case, I relied on the public record of statements, reports, and official documents, particularly those reporting on the views of high-level members of the administration who were directly connected with administering export controls, along with information from secondary sources. In the Bush and Clinton cases this was supplemented by interviews, while for the Truman and Eisenhower cases the availability of many declassified documents help detail the development of administration positions, as well as the policy preferences and actions of key bureaucratic actors that might influence the president. With this information, I trace the process of executive action regarding export controls for each administration. Each case also examines the relationship between these decisions and other potential domestic sources of influence, particularly Congress, industry, and public interest groups — in other words, the export control policy community. To identify these policy communities, I made a systematic review of the public record to isolate those individuals who reportedly made policy decisions or contributed to the policy debate. For the Bush and Clinton cases, I also asked decisionmakers to identify other relevant members of the policy community. To incorporate private sector groups into the analysis, I examined various sources including the Yearbook of Institutions, marking U.S.-based anticommunism or nonproliferation organizations. For the public sector, I reviewed the record for
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U.S. government bodies given the specific authority to conduct anticommunism or nonproliferation activities. Through these multiple channels I sought to overcome the methodological problems inherent in identifying and describing a policy-making community or an issue network.91 Political entrepreneurs hold elected leadership positions in government, particularly in Congress.92 To delineate political entrepreneurs in Congress from the rest of the policy community, I determined which members of Congress made specific public statements or took specific legislative action on export control issues. Critical data for this assessment come from reviewing the Congressional Record for the sessions in question to find who consistently made remarks or introduced materials into the official record regarding export controls. This also helped me trace the legislative activity and match it to presidential policy and other actions of the executive branch. For the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, I also reviewed the New York Times, numerous magazines (including Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, The New Republic, American Magazine, American Mercury, Fortune, Nation, Nation’s Business, and Commonweal), documents from the executive branch, memoirs, and a variety of secondary sources to identify key players in Congress. For the Bush and Clinton administrations, I used online services to search a much wider base for newspaper and magazine accounts, and I had interview data available as well. Most important, I reviewed who introduced or cosponsored key legislation related to export controls. Members of Congress take positions on issues, and believe that such activity makes a difference in electoral competition. Votes, while important, often reflect trade-offs and a minimal level of support or opposition to a bill. Sponsoring or cosponsoring legislation express member preferences more robustly than voting or simple position taking.93 Sponsoring and cosponsoring legislation, in contrast to voting, is “neither rare nor routine” and implies “active” support by individual members.94 As constituents care about the effects of legislation, these activities are not without potential costs, as they associate individual members with specific public policies both good and bad, effective and ineffective. During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, only the Senate allowed multiple sponsorship for bills. This changed in the 1960s, and by the time of the second two cases, House rules permitted virtually unlimited cosponsorship. Analysis of sponsorships and cosponsorships of key legislation should be particularly helpful in identifying political entrepreneurs in the Senate for all four cases, and in the House of Representatives for the Bush and Clinton administration cases. In all four cases, however, I expect to find groups of legislators who, by their remarks and other legislative activity, raise general concerns over export controls in a variety of contexts.
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Again, the analysis of these cases relies on multiple data sources, including official documents, biographies of key players (particularly the presidents), statements made to the media, articles in the popular press by members of the policy community, and the academic literature. In addition, for the Bush and Clinton cases, much of the data come from more than 150 extended interviews with various officials in the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the National Security Council, and the Congress, along with representatives of industry groups and research institutions conducted between October 1992 and June 1996. This follows the outlines of the “concrete methodology” for exploring current policy as described by Ruth Lane.95 While this technique focuses on individuals, the roles individuals play in groups and institutions generally affect individual interests.96 Indeed, the presence of organizations dedicated to either of the two norms of concern here — anticommunism and nonproliferation — indicates a degree of social strength beyond individual activity in a democratic system.
c on c l u s i on The preliminary framework developed here attempts to tie together several divergent strands of thought regarding presidential policy, international norms, and export controls as a collective good to help explain why the United States championed anticommunist and nonproliferation export controls in light of presidential preferences against such policies. The three-step process outlined in this framework — involving public entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs, and the president — generates several expectations for each pair of cases. In the Truman and Bush cases, I expect to find a community of public and political entrepreneurs advocating anticommunism and nonproliferation objectives, respectively. From the basic research puzzles, I also know that both presidents originally opposed using strict export controls as a key policy instrument in their design of grand strategy. I expect to find, however, public and political entrepreneurs declaim the evolving grand strategy as inconsistent unless girded by appropriate export controls. In both cases, I also expect to find that these entrepreneurs occupy significant political offices or other positions of political power that effect the implementation of the grand strategy. In the Eisenhower and Clinton cases, the evidentiary puzzles again indicate that while both continued to follow the new export control norm and its associated policies, they did so with some reluctance. In both cases, I expect to find an official commitment to export controls and powerful public and political entrepreneurs continuing to advocate anticommunism and nonproliferation norms. In
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both cases, however, the concentrated costs of the policy should provide incentives for certain interest groups to advance arguments for less restrictive export controls. Where Eisenhower and Clinton introduce efforts to circumscribe or otherwise modify export control policy, I would expect to see public and political entrepreneurs ready to exploit inconsistencies between the reform initiatives and the norms they advocate. With rare exceptions, case studies cannot function as definitive tests of hypotheses or validation of general models, so both the framework and the cases are best seen as evocative probes into a previously neglected area of study. Through cross-case observations of several variables in two pairs of cases, one pair concerning the adoption of a prohibition norm, one pair concerning maintaining a prohibition norm, and by tracing the political process in each through assessing theoretically interesting questions, these case studies may establish provisional but nonetheless worthwhile generalizations.97 Examining the rich data of the four cases for potential antecedent conditions, such as existing policies, domestic institutions, international norms, and grand strategies, the cross-case comparison should provide nuanced theoretical insights. At the very least, it should help describe the balance of economic, military, and political choices made in developing United States grand strategy at the beginning and at the end of the Cold War. While this study does not test existing hypotheses, it does explore the making of U.S. export control policy in a manner that should prove useful to scholars and policy makers alike.
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t h e e m b a r g o ac t o f 1 8 0 7 n June of 1807 at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the captain of the British naval vessel Leopard demanded the right to board the U.S. naval frigate Chesapeake and search the crew for British deserters.1 The captain of the Chesapeake refused. The guns of the Leopard broadsided the Chesapeake, killing three and wounding seventeen before the American captain surrendered. The British took four sailors, three of whom were native-born Americans. After the Chesapeake struggled back to port at Norfolk, Virginia, and word of the incident spread, angry mobs demanded war. With the intensification of the Napoleonic Wars in 1804, the British government gradually placed more restrictions on vessels and goods destined for ports on the European continent. Through two British Orders in Council in 1807 (those of January 7 and November 11), the government eventually required ships going to all ports in France, its colonies, and its allies to stop first in England, obtain a license, and pay duties to England on the cargo.2 Coupled with the British practice of searching U.S. vessels for suspected deserters relations between the two countries deteriorated dramatically.
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Instead of calling Congress into a special session to declare war, President Jefferson tried to defuse the conflict through diplomacy, and sent an emissary to Britain. The British removed the officers responsible for the attack, returned three of the sailors (the British Navy had hung the fourth), and offered to pay an indemnity to the victims or their relatives. The British government did not, however, agree to stop the practice of searching for deserters on U.S. ships. When diplomatic efforts failed to resolve the issue, President Jefferson sought another means of influencing the British. The American colonies had boycotted English goods in 1765 and again in 1767–1770, eventually forcing Britain to repeal the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts (except for the measures on tea). President Jefferson turned to a similar economic sanction by proposing a policy of “peaceable coercion” embodied in the Embargo Act of December 22, 1807.3 With the Embargo Act, the U.S. government forbade any ships to leave U.S. ports for foreign shores freely. Regarding the expected impact, Secretary of State James Madison declared, “We send necessities to her [England]. She sends superfluities to us. Our products they must have. Theirs, however promotive of our comfort, we can to a considerable degree do without.” 4 Under the act, traders had to obtain government approval before loading goods on ships, coastal shippers had to post a bond of double the value of the goods, and the government could confiscate cargo or ships involved in illicit trade.5 In the next year, U.S. exports declined precipitously, from $108 million to $22 million.6 Imports from England fell by one half, and U.S. inflation soared. An estimated 100,000 sailors, shipbuilders, and others lost their jobs.7 Though New England and New York felt the brunt of the policy (partially mitigated by the increase in overland exports into Canada), the embargo also hurt exporters of Western and Southern forest or agricultural products badly. While the fall in trade did raise prices in England and elsewhere, the British did not change their policy. The Embargo Act revived the Federalist party in the election of 1808. Though the Federalists did not regain control of the government, their success helped push President Jefferson to moderate the export restrictions. In March 1809, President Jefferson replaced the Emargo Act with the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, three days before James Madison became president. Subsequently, the Madison administration negotiated a diplomatic solution to the problem. In April of 1809, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Smith exchanged diplomatic notes with the British Minister in Washington, David Erskine, which temporarily resolved some of the more egregious issues. Nonetheless, the British repudiated the Erskine Agreement (the first important executive agreement made by the United States) only a few months later, when a more hostile representative of the Crown replaced Minister Erskine. After a series of progressively milder measures, Congress passed Macon’s Bill No. 2 (May 1, 1810), which reopened U.S. ports.8 The policies of the belligerents
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continued to harm U.S. shipping, however, so the bill contained a discriminatory provision. If either Britain or France revoked their orders-in-council or decrees, and the other government did not do the same within three months, then the United States would reimpose its embargo on that state. The French said their Berlin and Milan decrees would no longer affect U.S. shipping after November 1, 1810, although this did not mark any real change in French policy.9 Consequently, President Madison reconstituted the nonimportation provisions against England on February 2, 1811.10 Tensions unabated by diplomacy, the U.S. embargo and British naval policy contributed to the onset of war in June 1812. With the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, which freed British troops for use in North America, and the defeat of the U.S. Navy (despite a few U.S. single-ship successes), the fledgling country had to defend itself from British troops at Lake Champlain, Baltimore, and New Orleans. The Embargo Act proved to have high economic costs with few domestic political or foreign policy benefits. Its failure as an instrument of presidential policy made export controls a less attractive option. Not surprisingly, the United States did not use peacetime restrictions on exports for foreign policy or security purposes again for more than a century. The remainder of this chapter explores the progression of U.S. export control policy before the Cold War. The chapter begins with a brief historical review of the evolution of export controls as a policy instrument and the development of U.S. views on the nature of dual-use items as objects of control. Subsequently, the chapter focuses on the multilateral efforts to control exports during both World Wars, the short-lived attempt to control exports to Russia after the First World War, and export controls as a means of maintaining U.S. neutrality between the wars. The chapter concludes with an assessment of why more permanent multilateral cooperation on export controls toward Russia did not emerge and what legacy U.S. wartime export controls gave to the modern era.
t h e e vol u t i on o f dua l - u s e e x p ort c on t rol s World leaders placed limits on the transfer of dual-use goods to proscribed destinations some centuries before the rise of the modern state and modern capitalist economy. One well-known use of trade restrictions arose in 432 b.c. when Pericles of Athens issued a decree against commerce with the Megarians.11 Papal precepts in 1179, 1215, 1245, 1304, and 1454 prohibited the export of military and dual-use goods to Muslim-held lands, threatening violators with excommu-
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nication or imprisonment.12 As late as 1620, the Grand Duke of Tuscany ordered traders in Livorno, Italy, to limit strategic exports to the Barbary Muslims, in accord with papal commands. These goods included “weapons, iron, wire, tin, steel and any type of metal, powder and munitions, timber, hemp, rope or material for making rope,” among others.13 As the modern state system and the global economy evolved, political leaders formed long-term policies to limit the export of dual-use goods specifically to protect state interests. In his seminal work on international law, for example, Grotius argued that some goods fell between the categories of goods useful only in war and goods of no use in war. In times of war, states had a right to intercept neutral shipments of these “objects of ambiguous use” if a state could not defend itself otherwise, but such action required restitution for the lost shipment.14 Even during times of peace, government policies to restrict or regulate the export of strategic items began to play a regular and integral role in the diffusion of arms technology. Typically, when one or a few states got a significant new arms technology, these “first-tier” states then attempted to limit the transfer of weapons and the associated technologies.15 After England built a superior cast-iron cannon industry in the late sixteenth century, for example, the House of Lords made the unlicensed export of “Ordnance, gun metal, iron ore, iron mine and iron shot” a felony in 1610.16 In doing so, English leaders tried to preserve a source of income, avert a growing fuel crisis for its iron industry, and preserve an English military advantage. Elsewhere, Milan and Liège tried to limit the emigration of skilled arms workers, the most effective means of technology transfer then and now.17 Unilateral controls, if any, on dual-use exports characterize the early years of the European state system. One exception was a 1370 treaty signed by Edward III of England with Flanders and the cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres not to supply arms and other merchandise to the English enemies.18 The reason for the dearth of multilateral controls seems clear. As many scholars note, the amount of trade that would allow economic sanctions to have a significant impact probably did not exist before 1500 at the earliest.19 Indeed, governments often imposed controls to maintain an adequate supply of strategic goods as much as to deny access to the goods by an enemy.20 In those cases, an effective policy demanded nothing more than a system of unilateral export controls.
t h e u n i t e d s tat e s a s a t r a d i n g s tat e : u. s. p ol i c y b e f or e wor l d wa r i After the disastrous experiment with export controls in the Embargo Act, the United States generally prohibited dual-use exports to proscribed destinations
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only during times of war or national emergency. During peacetime, other tools of economic statecraft, such as tariffs, aid, quotas, controls on assets or investments, were more in fashion. As divergent as were the mercantilism of Colbert, the German economic nationalism of List, and the free trade policies advocated by Adam Smith or later by the Manchester school, they all advocated that states promote, not restrict, exports. Even without using export controls as a peacetime instrument of presidential foriegn policy, the United States could not escape from decisions regarding the nature of dual-use items and trade. In war, one belligerent may blockade the ports of another. This raises the legal issue of what constitutes contraband (making it subject to the blockade) and the role of neutral ships and goods. As a nation with growing commercial interests, the grand strategy of remaining neutral in European conflicts meant that this issue came high on the agenda of U.S. foreign affairs. Almost from its inception, the new American government began forming an approach to export controls. In Article 27 of the Treaty Plan of 1776, the U.S. Congress, following the example set in the Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce and Navigation at Utrecht, advocated that contraband be limited to “arms, munitions, and horses.”21 This interpretation appears in subsequent treaties and treaty plans through 1830, when the United States called for the exclusion of naval stores, supplies, and associated materials from lists of contraband items.22 In other words, the United States generally stood for the principle of “free ships, free goods” in the nineteenth century, which meant roughly unfettered passage for neutral ships carrying anything but contraband, narrowly defined. While this became part of the international maritime code when the British, along with other European powers, adopted it in the Declaration of Paris in 1856, it still did not resolve the problem. As it became a true maritime power, the United States could effectively impose blockades during wartime.23 President Polk, for example, invoked a blockade on Mexican ports on both coasts in May 1846.24 In the U.S. Civil War, a blockade on trade with the Confederate states, which helped limit Southern supplies of manufactured goods, was a major element of Union strategy. Contraband, however, remained largely undefined under the law. As late as June 1859, U.S. Secretary of State Lewis Cass noted that “no accepted enumeration of the articles called contraband” yet existed in arguing for a narrow definition of contraband that excluded coal.225 In contrast, when President Lincoln announced the Union blockade in April 1861, the contraband list given to customs officers (no lists were given to the Navy or to State Department officials) not only included coal, but articles as diverse as telegraph wire and marine engines.26 Only after the war, in settling cases of blockade running, did the U.S.
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Supreme Court rule that dual-use goods, such as shoes or articles of clothing, were “contraband only when actually destined to the military or naval use of a belligerent.”27 By the turn of the century, the United States had become a global economic power. Its status as a colonial military power was less certain. During the brief war against Spain in 1898, the United States maintained a naval blockade of Cuba and the Philippines.28 Victory brought the United States its first true colonies. Still, many in the United States deemed military conquest and colonialism as antithetical to American principles of democracy and neutrality. To most, the war itself was largely about harsh Spanish colonial policies in Cuba. The bloody revolt in the new U.S. colony in the Philippines in 1902 only sharpened the debate. Other than the war with Spain, however, the United States tried to remain neutral in the increasingly acrimonious affairs of the European powers. As such, the United States still had an interest in a narrow definition of contraband. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, for example, Russia placed coal on its list of contraband. The United States opposed this, though the United States listed coal as a contraband item in its Naval War Code of 1900.29 To settle this issue, Secretary of State Elihu Root instructed the U.S. delegation to the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907 to “bring about an agreement upon what is to constitute contraband; and it is very desirable that the list should be limited as possible.” 30 The delegates agreed on a list of absolute contraband, but the conference did not pass the list because no concurrence on the definition of “conditional” contraband (i.e., dual-use items) emerged. In the end, the U.S. delegation opposed any list of contraband goods, because they and others did not want to specify a list of conditional contraband. One U.S. official noted: The record of the United States in the past is not free from criticism. When neutrals, we have stood for the most restricted lists of absolute and conditional contraband. As a belligerent, we have extended the lists of both according to our conception of the necessities of the case.31
u. s. e x p ort c on t rol s du r i n g wor l d wa r i By the end of 1914, Britain had a blockade against Germany in place and had detained several U.S. ships heading for Northern European ports. As a result, the United States and Britain began to work together to speed the passage of certain U.S. ships through the blockade. Still, the U.S. government continued to express its concern that the British treated many dual-use items, especially foodstuffs, as
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contraband. The United States even got assurances from Germany about the civil end-use of food in early 1915.32 By early 1916, the British began employing a “navicert” system for U.S. shipping.33 The British Embassy in the United States would issue supporting documents based on letters of assurance or their equivalent from the consignees of U.S. exporters. The ships would arrive at one of three ports in Great Britain, where British officials were shown the documents and letters of assurance before the goods could move to their final destination in Northern Europe.34 As the protracted conflict became increasingly global and horrific, U.S. officials started to consider how they might prevent U.S. exports from reaching Germany. In keeping with historical practice, Secretary of State Robert Lansing urged President Wilson to issue a broad and general list of contraband, rather than the very detailed lists of contraband issued by the allies that the allies constantly revised and expanded. The Draft List of Contraband of War covers: (1) All kinds of arms, guns, ammunition, explosives, and machines for their manufacture; component parts thereof; materials or ingredients used in their manufacture; articles necessary or convenient for their use. (2) All contrivances for or means of transportation on land, in the water or air, and machines used in their manufacture; component parts thereof; materials or ingredients used in their manufacture; articles necessary or convenient for their use. (3) All kinds of food and clothing destined to come into possession of control of the enemy government or its officers or agents; articles and materials for the manufacture thereof. (4) Tools, implements, instruments, equipment, maps, correspondence, papers and other articles, machines, or documents necessary or convenient for carrying on hostile operations. (5) Coin, bullion, currency, evidences of debt, metals, materials, dies, plates, machinery or other articles necessary or convenient for their manufacture.35 President Wilson had one major concern with the list — that the controls on vehicles applied mainly to “the enemy government or its officers or agents.”36 In the spring of 1917, Anglo-American cooperation on export control issues gradually increased, anticipating that the United States would create its own export control system. In May 1917, a Joint British-U.S. Subcommittee on Export Licenses reported on the British system of export controls under the Trading With the Enemy (Extended Powers) Act of 1915. The subcommittee pointed out the need to make the prospective U.S. lists nearly identical to two British lists of proscribed consignees, the Statutory List and the Confidential List.37
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The legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, L. H. Woolsey, suggested that the United States adopt the British system, more to conserve supplies of vital U.S. goods and available cargo space than to prevent trade with Germany.38 That same month, the U.S. Ambassador to France reported on the French export control system, the Liste Noire Général (equivalent to the Statutory List), and cooperation between various governments, including Britain, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and Russia.39 After years of neutrality, the United States agreed to help the British and French in their export control programs. Under Title VII of the Espionage Act of June 1917, the Congress authorized President Wilson to restrict exports he identified as vital to U.S. interests.40 Besides arms, ammunition, and explosives, President Wilson registered exports of twenty-one types of items to fifty-six countries and their colonies, possessions, or protectorates as subject to controls in July 1917.41 The inventory of destinations covered virtually every destination, whether ally, neutral, or foe. The items were equally diverse, from food grains to ship plates and scrap steel. The President also created an interagency group, the Export Council, to oversee the new policy. The Export Council would have representatives from the Departments of State, Agriculture, and Commerce, and the Food Administration, with the Department of Commerce granting export licenses.42 President Wilson, however, assured friendly countries that this act was “no prohibition of exports,” but was “directed” control that the U.S. would not apply in an arbitrary fashion.43 In August, President Wilson established the Export Administration Board, with representatives from the Departments of State, Commerce, and Agriculture, along with the Food Administration and the U.S. Shipping Board, to license exports. In September 1917, the Export Administration Board published a list of 800 items requiring a license.44 Shortly afterward, the board produced a list of 600 items that could be exported without a license.45 The policy had goals beyond defeating the Central Powers. In September 1917, for example, the board ruled that U.S. steel exports could go to Japan only if Japan provided ships for the war in the Atlantic.46 On the surface, this policy would meet the German maritime threat. In practice, the objective was to contain Japanese maritime construction and otherwise hinder Japanese “commercial and territorial expansion” in the Far East.47 By siphoning off Japanese maritime power and denying Japan key industrial resources, the United States hoped to maintain its open-door policy in China.48 This was the most explicit use of U.S. export controls on dual-use items for foreign policy purposes since the Embargo Act of 1809. In the short term, the restrictions hurt Japanese manufacturers.49 The policy, however, failed to contain the expansion of the Japanese sphere of influence in the long term.50 Japanese vulnerability to the sanctions led the Japanese government to increase sup-
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port for Japanese steel production. The embargo also created another rationale for Japanese territorial expansion in China, that of providing more secure access to Chinese iron ore.51 In October 1917, Congress passed the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA). Under the TWEA, the president established an interdepartmental War Trade Board to supersede the Export Administration Board and a War Trade Council to advise the board.52 By the end of the year, the War Trade Board had established nine bureaus with 1,526 employees, including Bureaus of Exports, Enemy Trade, and War Trade Intelligence.53 It had published a list of allies of enemies or suspicious entities, and created forms for consular offices to use to screen companies. With the Allied lists, the Bureau of War Trade Intelligence had information on roughly 50,000 entities by 1918 and handled about 1,500 new forms a week. Together, the War Trade Board and the Export Administration Board processed 425,000 trade applications (imports and exports) in less than six months, a monumental bureaucratic undertaking.54 Multilateral policy coordination proved a difficult exercise. Reportedly, differences between the British and French lists in the early years of the war created many obstacles.55 No one wished to repeat this problem when creating U.S. policy. In June of 1917, U.S. diplomats were directed to consult with their British and French colleagues and investigate companies on their lists.56 The United States produced three lists of individuals and entities: the Enemy Trading List, the Confidential Enemy Trading List (subject to the same restrictions but kept unpublished for a variety of reasons); and the Cloak List (unpublished list of fictitious company names or aliases used to cloak activities of enemies).57 Though the U.S. lists by and large reflected the British and French lists, the governments did not harmonize them all completely. The U.S. government did not maintain a “White List” of acceptable companies, though the government would supply information on “trustworthy firms.”58 The United States also refused to publish any list for Switzerland, though other Allied Powers did.59 U.S. officials also wanted to restrict trade to Central American “revolutionaries.”60 The Allies agreed to some procedures for harmonizing their respective enemy lists in February 1918. They vowed to make no changes to their lists without notifying the other two governments and seek nearly simultaneous publication of their lists.61 Discussions concerning list changes for Northern Europe, Latin America, and Spain and Morocco would take place in London, Washington, and Paris respectively.62 The Allies quickly harmonized the Enemy Lists of Britain, France, and the United States (the Italian List was also in close but not complete accord), but as late as August 1918 they were still trying to harmonize the Confidential Lists and agree on how to issue licenses for a listed person.63
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As an incentive to start using export controls, the parties understood that the navicert system would no longer apply to U.S. exports after the United States put its administrative machinery to control exports in line with the activities of the Allied Powers.64 The U.S. government agreed to license exports only if Britain would recognize those licenses. In negotiating the end of the navicert system in early 1918, the British asked the United States to recognize the existing control systems (such as the various navicert arrangements) in the northern neutral countries. They also asked the United States to start informal local committees with the British in these countries to assist in the activities of the domestic systems. Finally, in April 1918 they established an Allied Blockade Committee for the northern neutrals. Meeting in London, representatives from Britain, France, Italy, and the United States worked together to assist in the work of the various local committees.65
e x p ort c on t rol s on s h i p m e n t s to ru s s i a With the collapse of the Russian monarchy in late February 1917, the U.S. government, without public comment, withheld licenses for exports to Russia as a war measure.66 For a time during the war, the Inter-Allied Priority Board coordinated preferences in Allied shipments to Russia.67 As the situation in Russia worsened with the civil war, with epidemics and economic privation, military and humanitarian objectives began to diverge. Decisions by the Priority Board and the British government so ensnared relief efforts by the American Red Cross, for example, that the U.S. ambassador to Britain understood that Britain applied a “practical embargo on all shipments” of goods out of Britain applied toward Russia.68 In the spring of 1918, British and Japanese forces intervened in Russia (soon followed by France and the United States), largely to prevent materials in those ports from being surrendered to Germany. Though the broader interests of the various allied states differed considerably on intervention in Russia, in the summer of 1918 France, supported by Britain and Japan, urged the Allies to place an embargo on their trade with Bolshevik Russia. U.S. officials opposed this notion, and the United States maintained no formal embargo against Russia other than the export of arms.69 In June 1918, in fact, Secretary of Commerce Redfield advised President Wilson to expand trade with Russia as a means of influencing events there.70 Eventually, the United States did agree to control trade with Russia through War Trade Board licenses, making its policy consistent with U.S. support for the actions of the Czechoslovak corps in Siberia and allied forces in northern Russia. Officials stressed, however, their
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commitment to increase trade with Russia given the harsh conditions facing the Russian people. To this end, the administration created a War Trade Board of the United States Russian Bureau, incorporated with $5 million in credit to finance trade with Russia.71 Only a few days before the armistice, the administration assured members of the U.S. House of Representatives that the United States “will not agree to any program that even looks like inter-Allied control of our economic resources after peace.”72 For more than a year after the war, however, the United States did maintain controls on exports to the Bolsheviks in cooperation with the Allied and associated governments and neutrals. To continue the licensing process, the War Trade Board became part of the Department of State in the summer of 1919. In November, the Wilson administration informed Senator James Wadsworth that the United States continued to control exports to Russia under the Espionage Act of 1917. In contrast to the original rationale for the policy—to manage shortages of supplies and transportation—the Wilson administration now argued for controls because the Bolsheviks wanted “world revolution” and “nationalization” of property.73 By 1920, the Russian civil war turned in favor of the communists. In February, Britain, facing its own economic recession without access to oil from the Caucasus, and believing that the worst of the “Bolshevist horrors” had ended, issued a new policy statement favoring trade with Russia, through interaction with Russian cooperatives.74 Correspondingly, the United States lifted its trade restrictions on July 7, 1920, though it did not recognize the new government. As a result, the U.S. private sector conducted such trade entirely at its own risk.75 Some political leaders around the globe, such as Winston Churchill, saw communism as a threat to capitalist values after the war. In 1918, hearings in the U.S. Congress on conditions in Russia portrayed the Bolshevist leaders as antipathetic toward the government of the United States.76 Britain, France, Japan, and the United States even sent troops to Russia, shedding blood and expending treasure against the Bolshevists. Through their respective navies and war trade bureaucracies, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States dedicated and applied resources, however briefly, to the task of restricting trade. Nonetheless, the victorious allies eventually halted the embargo, although many governments refused to recognize the new government (even after Soviet representatives attended the Locarno conference in 1922, signaling Russian interest in exercising a voice in the world community). For the United States, cooperation with the allies on an embargo smacked of an ultimate sin: foreign control of United States trade policy. At the time, Congress held tariff and trade policy as their fief, at least in part because tariffs constituted an important source of federal revenue and could provide indirect assistance to powerful domestic industries. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans favored
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policies that would bring the United States into the set of interlocking treaties that allowed goods to flow relatively freely among the major industrial powers, exemplified by the British free trade strategy. While the Democratic Party supported a more open trading system than did the Republican Party, U.S. international commitments extended to only a few reciprocal tariff treaties with Latin American countries. The vacuum created by its major competitors redirecting their resources toward the war effort in 1914 mainly heightened the impression that the United States had no need to open its markets or otherwise cooperate on matters of international trade. During World War I, for example, the U.S. chemical industry boomed in the absence of German competition. Immediately after the war, U.S. chemical companies sought and received protection from foreign competition through congressional action to preserve their market share.77 In addition, the growing importance of the labor movement in the United States provided many ready sympathizers for communism and the Soviet government. Anticommunism did make good political theater, even in 1918 (when J. Edgar Hoover first entered the political spotlight crusading against communists). The desperate plight of the Russian people, the small military or economic threat posed by the Soviets, and the real market for basic goods (mainly shoes, food, and medicine at first, but later machinery), however, meant that an embargo did not have broad political appeal.
n e u t r a l i t y a n d e x p ort c on t rol s Within a few years, the United States removed itself from multilateral cooperation on security as well as trade issues. The most notable decision came in its dissociation with the League of Nations. The reasons for the Senate defeat of the Versailles Treaty, effectively denying U.S. support for the League of Nations, are complex.78 Clearly, however, the forces for keeping the United States out of multilateral arrangements dominated the Congress, especially the Senate, during the post–World War I years. At the same time, many in Congress began to champion the growing public concern that arms manufacturers in some way fostered war for the sake of profit. As early as 1922, Congress passed a joint resolution restricting the export of arms and munitions to countries where the United States had extraterritorial jurisdiction.79 At first this applied only to China, but later it pertained to Honduras (1924), Nicaragua (1926) and Cuba (1934). Powerful Republican senators such as William E. Borah began to promote more extensive export controls on arms and munitions. Nonetheless, proposals for an arms embargo against the
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belligerents in the Chaco War (Bolivia and Paraguay) ended in deference to Connecticut Senator Hiram Bingham, acting at the behest of the large arms industry in his state, who introduced a motion to reconsider.80 After the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president in 1933, the State Department tried to introduce a new arms embargo bill. Continuing an initiative from the Hoover administration, the bill allowed the President, based on consultations with other countries, to discriminate between aggressors and victims in applying the embargo.81 The Senate Foreign Relations committee saw this weak vision of collective security as too entangling and likely to bring the United States into war with Japan. The Senate subsequently amended the proposed legislation to “impartially apply to all belligerents,” but it did not enact the proposal.82 By 1934, the relationship between the arms industry and the entrance of the United States in World War I had become a central focus of the U.S. peace movement. For the next two years, under the leadership of Senator Gerald P. Nye, the Special Senate Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry elevated this issue to the national spotlight.83 The investigation helped make Senator Nye and other members of the committee, such as Arthur Vandenberg, national figures. While the Nye Committee may not have had much direct impact on subsequent legislation, it surely created the background for a resurgence of isolationism. The committee determined that “trade restrictions, particularly mandatory embargoes on the export of arms and munitions to all belligerents, were essential.”84 Where it had failed before, the Congress authorized the president to embargo arms and munitions shipments to the belligerents in the Chaco War in 1934.85 In 1935, Congress passed the first Neutrality Act by joint resolution.86 The act required the president, after finding a state of war, to impose an embargo not only on arms and munitions, but also “implements of war” to all initial belligerents. The president, however, did have discretion in defining arms, munitions, and the tools of war.87 Under the act, President Roosevelt created the National Munitions Control Board in 1935 to register and license U.S. manufacturers, importers, and exporters of these items.88 Chaired by the State Department, with representatives from the Treasury, War, Navy, and Commerce Departments, the act required the board to meet once per anum and prepare an annual report. In its first report, the board listed the six categories of items defined by the president as arms, munitions, and tools of war. While category five relates to aircraft and parts and category six to four chemical compounds for gas warfare, no other items seem dual-use in nature.89 The act had an immediate impact in keeping the United States neutral in the conflict between Italy and Ethiopia. This inspired the administration to pursue
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an extralegal “moral embargo” in support of the League of Nations oil embargo against Italy. Despite its moral embargo, U.S. oil and other vital exports to Italy increased, helping to undermine the actions of the League.90 Instead of attempting to reverse the Neutrality Act, the Roosevelt administration simply tried to give the president more discretion to determine what items should fall under an embargo. This effort failed. Instead, Congress extended the Act for another year, and it added controls on tin plate and scrap to preserve short domestic supplies.91 In early 1937, the president also imposed an embargo on these exports to Spain.92 In 1937, under a plan envisioned by Bernard Beruch, the administration suggested that U.S. companies could trade with belligerents in noncontraband goods (i.e., mainly dual-use items) if the belligerents paid cash and shipped the goods by non-U.S. carriers. This became known as the “cash-and-carry” scheme.93 Many staunch isolationists opposed the resulting House-Senate compromise bill, which gave the president discretion in determining whether either the cash or the carry portions of the plan should apply. The second Neutrality Act (also known as the Peace Act) of 1937 again proved the power of the general belief that trading with belligerents or participating in multilateral embargoes would bring the United States nearer to war. Under the act, however, President Roosevelt expanded the number of dual-use items subject to controls. Controls would cover twenty-one chemicals for gas warfare, a new category to control propellent powders, and seventeen chemicals for high explosives.94 To protect domestic supplies, President Roosevelt added helium to the list in 1938, which the board and the Department of Interior would license.95 As war fears rose, the State Department called for another moral embargo. In July 1938, it notified registered aircraft manufacturers and exporters that the administration “strongly opposed” exports that belligerents might use to attack civilians (in essence, an embargo against Japan for its actions in China).96 In 1939, the State Department extended the moral embargo to include technical information and gasoline.97 With the outbreak of war in Europe, President Roosevelt imposed an embargo on exports to Europe in September 1939, and recommended the repeal of the Neutrality Act. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, displayed little support for anything more than the export of surplus military equipment to Britain.98 Still, this maneuver allowed Congress to repeal the Act and limit trade with Germany in November 1939.99 Until the summer of 1940, the Congress remained reluctant to take bolder measures. When Soviet forces invaded Finland in December 1939, for example, the administration could only extend its moral embargo on airplanes to apply to
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Russia.100 In July of 1940, however, the United States embarked on a rearmament program and developed the Export Control Act (ECA).101 Under the ECA, the administration began to license and restrict the export of basic war materials. This began with controls on the export of aviation fuel to Japan, then added controls on machine tools in August 1940 when the Japanese expressed interest in ruling the Pacific colonies of the European powers conquered by Germany.102 When Japan signed the Tripartite agreement with Germany and Italy, the United States added iron and steel scrap to the embargo.103 In October 1940 the United States placed restrictions on all exports to any country outside the Western Hemisphere other than Britain and its colonies. This became the basis for a complete embargo on goods destined for Japan after Japan occupied Indochina in the summer of 1941.104 Many scholars point to this last action as evidence that export controls are ineffective, since the embargo failed to deter Japanese aggression.105 The stated objective of these actions, however, was always to conserve supplies for the United States (and, indirectly, Britain). It also served as notice of the U.S. commitment to oppose the Axis powers.106 Maintaining neutrality raised the prospect that the United States could spare itself the costs of a major war, and limit the magnitude and diffusion of international conflicts. Though diffuse, the potential benefits of an export control policy consistent with this grand strategy looked great (unlike the benefits from anti-Soviet export controls after the First World War). Public and political entrepreneurs, such as Senator Nye, emerged to promote these policies. Those industries that suffered most from this kind of regulation, the arms manufacturers, delayed its implementation in the early 1930s, but they proved unable to stop it. The principle of complete neutrality that guided U.S. grand strategy during most of the interwar era, however, had limited appeal as an international norm. For some less powerful countries, such as Switzerland and Sweden, armed neutrality kept others from perceiving them as either threats or opportunities, making it a lucid survival policy. In contrast, even while League members began to assemble information on the relationship between arms trade and war, nearly all the powerful states of the global community eschewed neutrality policies during the interwar years. As a principle of grand strategy for producing order in the world community, neutrality has serious flaws. Neutrality appears morally and practically untenable if it allows the strong to prey on the weak without fear of retaliation. As implemented by the United States, seeking neutrality through “impartial” export controls could limit the diffusion and destructiveness of conflict, once a conflict started. Without a supplemental means of assuring security to specific parties in a potential conflict and without a more proactive diplomatic and military policy
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before the outbreak of violence, however, the export control provisions of the Neutrality Acts did little to secure or promote world order. The Neutrality Acts alone may not have encouraged acts of aggression in Africa, Europe, and Asia in the 1930s. If Britain, France, and even Germany had accepted the broad principle of neutrality, then perhaps Benito Mussolini or other political leaders might even have been less adventurous. Nonetheless, how this principle would have limited political leaders in Germany, Japan, and possibly the Soviet Union from trying to reshape the world order through conquest and intimidation is not clear.
e x p ort c on t rol s du r i n g wor l d wa r i i The United States began to cooperate with Britain on setting up trade restrictions as early as October 1939. Specifically, British officials briefed U.S. officials on its navicert procedure for shipping. As during the First World War, the navicert system established “a visa to facilitate the rapid transit of goods through the contraband control points” imposed by the British Navy.107 The U.S. government informally supported the system by allowing its exporters to apply to the British Navy for certification of their cargos. By December 1939, U.S. exporters had made 4,932 applications. Britain granted 3,212 and rejected 40, with the rest pending.108 Through the work of the National Munitions Control Board, the United States had the basis for registering companies, licensing trade, as well as a list of arms, ammunition, and tools of war. Under new legislation (i.e., the Export Control Act), the Materials and Production Division of the National Defense Advisory Commission, in collaboration with the Administrator of Export Control, identified the items and the necessary level of controls.109 As a result, in July 1941, Presidential Proclamation 2413 modified the list to include: (a) the arms, ammunition, and implements of war as noted in Presidential Proclamation No. 2237 of May 1, 1937; (b) twenty-six kinds of basic materials or products; (c) eleven additional chemicals; (d) five kinds of more sophisticated products; and (e) four kinds of metal-working machine tools.110 As with the old system, the president authorized the Secretary of State to grant or reject license applications. This considerably expanded the items controlled under the Neutrality Acts. Congress remained troubled by this increase in presidential powers. Consequently,
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following its practice under the old laws, Congress limited the duration of presidential authority to one year. Congress continued this pattern of extending the act for short periods into the postwar era. Throughout the war, substantive changes in the controls occurred. Congress expanded the authority of the president, for example, to restrict exports from U.S. dependencies, territories, and possessions. More important, the June 30, 1942, extension amended the act to include “any articles, technical data, materials, or supplies,” although controls on vital information already existed under the TWEA. This exemplifies the growing U.S. concern with maintaining technological superiority. In July 1941, the U.S. government also issued a Proclaimed List of Blocked Nationals. The list included more than 1,700 names, mostly German and Italian companies and individuals, mostly in Latin America, to whom exports were denied, much as the United States had done under the TWEA in World War I.111 To create the list, the Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation surveyed U.S. businesses for their foreign customers from September to December 1940. The government then developed a system of indicators to rate trading partners as potential enemy agents. Using this information, over the first six months of 1941 officials from the Departments of State and Commerce made direct contact with nearly 1,000 companies (and reached 17,000 more through general announcements) about their trade partners.112 As a result, companies canceled about 1,000 trade accounts in the process.113 As in World War I, the United States prepared an unpublished Confidential List to complement the Proclaimed List, in order to prevent enemy agents from “cloaking” their activities under names not on the Proclaimed List.114 The list fell under control of the Economic Defense Board. The Departments of State, Treasury, Agriculture, and Commerce, along with the administrator of export control (under Commerce) and the coordinator of commercial and cultural relations with Latin America (who was Nelson A. Rockefeller) worked together to coordinate these activities. They usually denied license applications listing a suspicious trading partner.115 After the United States declared war, the Economic Defense Board became the Board of Economic Warfare, which became the Office of Economic Warfare in 1943, and later that year the Foreign Economic Administration.116 The Economic Defense Board started to work in close accord with the British. The Ministry of Economic Warfare administered the British Statutory List of denied parties (following the pattern set in World War I). By the end of the summer of 1941, Britain, Canada, and the United States regularly exchanged information on list issues.117 By late 1942, these activities evolved into periodic meetings in London of a multilateral Black List Committee, where Dutch, Swiss, and Swedish
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officials, among others, conducted negotiations about exports with Anglo-American delegates (again following an example from the last war).118 As U.S. war production expanded, the government initiated a complicated system of controls to permit more trade with Latin American countries, especially for projects meant to contribute to the U.S. war effort. This system required U.S. exporters to get a letter of assurance from their foreign consignees before applying for an export license (similar to the pattern in the navicert system). This prior approval method proved so cumbersome, however, that the United States abandoned it within months for a system of letters of assurance or their equivalent at the time of export.
c on c l u s i on For most of its history, the United States used its neutrality to promote American commerce while avoiding war and distancing itself from European political affairs. This became more difficult as the twentieth century progressed. Even during the 1930s, when support for a grand strategy based on neutrality reached its apex, the United States developed experience in administering export controls on both military and dual-use items (see table 2.1). During that time, the U.S. government created a system to register manufacturers and others dealing in arms production and sales. Based in the State Department, this program survives to this day. By the middle of the war, U.S. officials deepened their experience in administering a sophisticated system of national controls. They oversaw public and confidential lists of proscribed destinations. They maintained very detailed lists of controlled items, aimed not only at preserving allied supplies, but also at preventing the transfer of military and dual-use goods and technologies to Germany, Italy, and Japan. They issued export licenses on a broader list of dual-use items. The United States also gained experience in working within a multilateral framework during the war. The unilateral nature of export control policy under U.S. neutrality legislation was replaced by a cooperative effort in which the United States and its allies met regularly to coordinate licensing, list development, and enforcement measures. The allies also showed a willingness to cooperate after the war to control exports. As early as September of 1942, the British recommended that the allies maintain the War Trade Lists (the lists of denied parties) for some time after the war, to limit Nazi power at the end of the conflict.119 Though U.S. officials opposed making the decision public, they agreed with this suggestion.
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Table 2.1 ★ Selected Controls through World War II Date
Action
April 1898
Joint Resolution prohibits the export of coal or other war materials, relates to the start of the Spanish-American War on April 25, until new orders from the president or Congress.
March 1912
Resolution amending the 1898 resolution. It authorizes the president to ban arms or munitions to countries in the Western Hemisphere where U.S. arms contribute to internal violence.
June 1917
Act authorizes the President to limit exports during the war and to specify any proscribed item.
October 1917
The Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA). Bans trade with specified enemies of the United States, unless licensed by the president.
January 1922
Replaces and expands the authority of the president under the resolutions of 1898 and 1912 to include licensing exports of arms or munitions to countries where the United States has extraterritorial jurisdiction.
May 1934
Joint Resolution authorizes the president to ban the export of arms and munitions to belligerents in the Chaco War.
August 1935
The Neutrality Act authorizes the president to prohibit the export of arms, munitions, and implements of war to all initial belligerents in a war.
February 1936
Neutrality Act prohibits the unlicensed export of tin plate because it is in short supply.
May 1937
Amends the Neutrality Act to allow the president to place limits on the export of items in addition to arms, munitions, or implements of war if necessary for national security or to preserve the peace, and extends the act indefinitely.
Fall 1939
British initiate navicert controls on shipping, to which the United States informally agrees, allowing U.S. exporters to make export applications to the British.
November 1939
The Peace Act permits the president to restrict exports of any items to countries at war.
July 1940
Act authorizes the president to limit the export of munitions, military equipment, component parts, and any ma-
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Action chinery, tools, or materials for making or servicing military equipment or munitions.
May 1941
Extends the 1940 act to include exports from all U.S. territories, possessions, or dependencies.
June 1942
Renews the act of July 2, 1940, which authorizes the president to limit strategic exports, as amended.
July 1944
Renews the act to June 30, 1945.
Sources: U.S. Code, Congressional Service, 81, 1, 1949, vol. 2 (Brooklyn, NY: Ed Thompson Company); Berman and Garson, 790–791fn; Foreign Relations of the United States.
The success of this system provided an important example of what was possible and how to do it. Shortly after the war, politicians would also point to the failures of the neutrality rationale as a lesson in why the United States needed a system of export controls directed against the Soviet Union. As the next chapter will illustrate, Truman administration officials believed that they should dismantle the wartime system of trade controls as quickly as possible. They believed that controls, where maintained, should aim only to manage shortages in supplies. Nor, at first, would U.S. export controls target the Soviet Union. This time, unlike 1918, the Soviets were part of the victorious allied coalition. If anything, the Soviets needed U.S. goods, as they had to share in the responsibility for building a new Europe on the ashes of Nazi Germany.
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a n i t c om m u n i s m rom August to October 1945, a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee made a tour of Europe and the Near East.1 Leaked to the press in June 1946, their trip report called for an end to “any semblance of appeasement.” It blasted not only scandalous Soviet activities (telling tales of “pillage, rape, and torture”) in Czechoslovakia and Poland, but also the “ineffective American effort to counter them.”2 Though only two members of the subcommittee, Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) and Francis P. Bolton (R-OH), completed the tour, the other two members of the subcommittee, Thomas S. Gordon (D-IL) and Joseph P. Ryter (D-CT), signed this crucial part of the report.3 The longtime chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, Sol Bloom (D-NY), refused to bring the report before the full committee. Bloom accused Mundt of leaking advance copies of what he called a “malicious and vicious” report. Bloom contended that the report would undermine ministerial talks among Britain, France, Russia, and the United States taking place in Paris at that time.4 In the euphoric months of victory in late 1945 and early 1946, many Americans viewed Russia as a valiant partner against fascism. After the Nazi invasion of
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Russia in 1941, the U.S. government, with help from the mass media and the motion picture industry, began an intensive campaign to build public support for the Soviet Union (though not for communism). This propaganda campaign would not only enhance general support for the war in Europe, it would also help the government extend its lend-lease program to include massive amounts of material destined for Russia. As late as February 1946, the War Department published a pamphlet titled Our Red Army Ally.5 Based in part on the lend-lease program, some Americans viewed Russia as a potential market of immense proportions for U.S. goods. With Henry A. Wallace as secretary, the Commerce Department became the most ardent bureaucratic advocate for better economic relations with Russia.6 Its mandate, under the Second Decontrol Act of 1947, was to “eliminate emergency wartime controls of materials except to the minimum extent necessary” to address the “short supply” problem, to promote the production of goods, to make more goods available, and to assist in achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives.7 The anticommunist sentiment of the prewar era, however, never fully disappeared. Throughout 1946, critics of Russia and communism wrote ever more inflammatory articles and editorials in leading newspapers and magazines that condemned Soviet actions in Eastern Europe, Manchuria, and North Korea. An article titled “Russian Tyranny in Occupied Countries” appeared in Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly, for example, and “Russian Army Savagery in Austria,” by John Dos Passos, was published in Life. Sumner Wells, a high-ranking official in the State Department during the Roosevelt administration, wrote a devastating article in the New York Herald Tribune on Russian plans to Sovietize Germany. Well-known columnists, especially Joseph and Stewart Alsop, called for a strong response to Russian “expansionism” and an end to the worst of all policy abominations—“appeasement.” Their views resonated in the general public. Early in his administration, Truman took the advice of W. Averell Harriman to be “firm but fair” in dealings with the Soviet Union. Many Western observers, especially Harriman, had grown ever more concerned about long-term Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe after the Soviets refused to assist (or let the United States assist) the Warsaw uprising and the collapse of the talks to implement the Yalta agreements in March 1945.8 Though Truman “talked tough” to Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov in April 1945, he at first compared Premier Joseph Stalin with Kansas City party boss Tom Pendergast, who had many faults but kept his word. In June 1945, Truman rejected advice from Churchill to forestall the retreat of American forces to the occupation line and prevent the “descent of an iron curtain between us and everything . . . eastward.”9 Truman saw this as a matter of keeping his word. To Truman, the reputation of a politician for keeping promises, at least publicly, mattered most. No wonder, then, that when
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Stalin did not remove Soviet forces, as agreed, from Iran by the treaty deadline of March 2, 1946, Truman saw this as a personal, as well as a political, violation of trust.10 These and other perceived violations of the wartime agreements set the stage for a new U.S. grand strategy, but they did not write the script. When Winston Churchill delivered in Fulton, Missouri, his more famous reference to an “iron curtain” Truman made no comment and began to distance the administration from support for an anti-Soviet Anglo-American alliance. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, for example, abruptly changed plans to deliver a welcoming speech for Churchill at a dinner in New York.11 Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace, in accord with Senators Claude Pepper (D-FL), Harley Kilgore (D-WV) and Glen H. Taylor (D-ID), called the speech “shocking” and said “I am against taking any steps which would lead to war, whether with Russia, with Britain or any other country.”12 Harold E. Stassen, an early candidate for the 1948 Republican presidential nomination, also condemned the speech as antithetical to the new United Nations, which he saw as the “best hope” for peace.13 At the same time, Truman moved to bring information about Soviet activities in Iran to the Security Council, flatly refusing Soviet requests to postpone such a meeting for less public discussions. Soviet troops began moving out of Iran in late March. This success made Truman and Secretary of State James F. Byrnes more committed to a policy of publicly standing firm to make the Soviets abide by their commitments.
c on ta i n m e n t a s g r a n d s t r at e g y With the end of the war, the Truman administration hoped to shift most U.S. industries to civilian production to satisfy domestic demand unsatisfied during the war. Simultaneously, global shortages of key goods, including steel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and construction materials, increased the demand for U.S. goods. The process of conversion was not smooth, and some industries had a hard time adjusting to a civilian economy. The aircraft industry, in particular, found itself operating at a loss, despite $72 million in tax breaks and a nearly threefold increase in sales compared to 1939.14 Worse, industry leaders had anticipated tremendous growth in the demand for civilian air travel and air cargo after the war, a prospect encouraged by airline officials, and invested deeply in new production. While some growth in air traffic did occur, it fell far below their expectations.15 Heavily indebted, the industry faced a free-fall collapse rather than conversion, which would threaten the larger U.S. financial community, particularly Chase National Bank.16
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This and many other economic difficulties associated with the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy bedeviled the political hopes of the Democratic Party before the 1946 election. As Truman administration officials searched for a winning political strategy, close advisers to the president argued that the prospects for cooperation with the Soviets looked quite low. In February 1946, George Kennan, the State Department’s foremost expert on the Soviet Union, sent the nowfamous “long telegram,” which detailed Soviet views and foreign policy objectives. Kennan also took the opportunity to detail his concerns that the Soviet Union had become even more totalitarian in his seven-year absence from Moscow. As evidence of this increasingly anti-Soviet stance, President Truman surprised the public and removed Wallace as secretary of Commerce on September 20, 1946. As a former vice president, Wallace had unusual latitude in making statements on foreign policy. In a July letter to Truman, Wallace urged the president to increase trade with Russia and give Russia reasonable security guarantees, particularly regarding the use of atomic power, “even at the expense of risking epithets of appeasement.”17 Wallace soon went public with these views. On September 12, Truman hastily approved a speech Wallace would make that evening at Madison Square Garden in New York. In the speech, Wallace attacked the tough line that Secretary of State Byrnes took with the Soviet Union. Byrnes threatened to resign unless Wallace stopped criticizing his policy. Wallace, who made frequent public statements in favor of enhanced trade and aid for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, represented a position that ran counter to the evolving views of President Truman.18 Citing a fundamental conflict over the means (but not the ends) of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, Truman asked for and received a resignation from Wallace. A few days later, Truman replaced Wallace with W. Averell Harriman, a proponent of the “firm but fair” approach. The public debate that followed the forced resignation, a cable by Byrnes stating that the United States should help its friends and not help its opponents, and, most of all, a long-awaited report on U.S.-Soviet relations by White House special counsel Clark Clifford helped clarify U.S. policy. George Kennan provided Clifford advice in accord with the long telegram of February. Kennan asserted that U.S. economic concessions to the Soviets or their allies would not modify the policies and practices that the United States found objectionable, and such assistance would only go to strengthen the Soviet position.19 The report concludes that the Soviets only understand the language of power, and it recommends that Truman increase U.S. military might and assist democratic countries threatened by Soviet forces. The report offers few carrots to induce a change in Soviet behavior. Briefly, Clifford argues that the “best chances of influencing Soviet leaders” would come
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from offering dividends for cooperation in terms of trade, while punishing contrary actions.20 At the same time, however, Clifford warns that Soviet intelligence officers are engaged in a widespread campaign of industrial and technical espionage through the Amtorg Trading Corporation and the Soviet Purchasing Commission.21 Further, the report also recommends that “the United States should avoid premature disclosure of scientific and technological information relating to war material” or risk losing its technological edge over the Soviet military.22 The clear shift in Truman foreign policy was not enough to keep the Republicans from gaining control of Congress in the midterm election of November 1946. Many victorious Republican campaigns, such as the upset victory by firstyear Rep. Richard M. Nixon (R-CA), associated their Democratic opponents and the Truman administration as, at best, communist dupes. Republicans and others viewed this victory as a mandate for rooting out communist “infiltration” at home and “appeasement” abroad.23 At the end of the war, the United States based its strategy on three pillars: the United Nations; collaboration with the Soviet Union to make the United Nations effective; and reliance on Great Britain to handle the many political problems in Europe and the empires of European powers that would emerge after the long war. By the end of 1946, the growing animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union had begun to undermine the first two pillars. In February 1947, the last pillar would fall as well.
e x p ort c on t rol s a n d t h e t ru m a n d o c t i n e As public sentiment began to turn sharply against the Soviet Union and communism, some voices in Congress began calling for a harsher economic policy toward Russia. On a practical level, Congress and the Truman administration wanted to move away from restrictions on trade to assure the fastest possible recovery from the war. Conversion to a civilian economy coupled with global shortages of many goods made export controls an attractive means of preventing critical shortages at home. At the same time, it allowed the government to permit exports for projects crucial to the reconstruction of Europe. On this basis, Congress gave Truman flexibility in applying export controls in the First and Second Decontrol Acts. Within the Truman administration, few officials advocated the application of broad-based export controls to the Soviet Union or anywhere else. Prior to late 1947, U.S. diplomatic traffic rarely mentions export controls on trade with the Soviets or East European countries. In September 1945, the Army and Navy Mu-
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nitions Board had recommended permanent export control legislation to avert an increase in the buildup of potential adversaries, by which they meant the Soviet Union, but by June 1946 the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee concluded that no legislative action was necessary.24 The Clifford report, moreover, advocates expanding, not restricting, trade as a tool in U.S.-Soviet relations. Following Truman administration policy to free the U.S. economy of wartime controls, by September 1945 the Positive List of controlled goods covered only 798 items, down from about 3,000 items in 1944.25 By January 1947, it listed only 653 items.26 Similarly, the Department of Treasury abolished the TWEA Enemy list in March 1947.27 The alacrity with which the administration undertook these changes exposed it to charges of insufficient planning and foresight.28 Truman, for example, transferred the operations of the Foreign Economic Administration to the Office of International Trade (OIT) in the Commerce Department in September 1945. The OIT, however, lacked the staff and equipment adequate for oversight of the dismantling of export controls.29 Under Wallace, Commerce devoted few resources to important elements of export control administration. Wallace, for example, assigned only one person in the OIT to enforce export control regulations.30 Eventually the chief of the OIT, Thomas Remmington, became the target of congressional investigations on charges that he was a communist.31 Administration officials believed that a U.S. embargo would have little impact on the Soviet economy, and that suppliers in Western Europe could circumvent a unilateral embargo in any case.32 Even if Western European countries agreed to cooperate, the embargo would only close vital export markets for countries whose economic recovery the United States deemed essential to Western security. Instead, Truman administration officials focused more on lend-lease, loan, and credit issues in what was a rapidly deteriorating Grand Alliance. Some members of Congress, however, began to express concern that exports to the Soviet bloc exacerbated shortages of key goods in the United States. In February 1947, for instance, Rep. Alfred J. Elliott (D-CA) noted that despite unsatisfied Western demand for pig-iron, tons of it rested at anchor in Los Angeles harbor awaiting shipment to Russia.33 Representative Mundt got Charles A. Wolverton (R-NJ), the new chair of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to pass a privileged resolution instructing the Secretary of Commerce to reveal all Commerce data on exports to the Soviet Union. According to Mundt, “farmers in South Dakota couldn’t send crops to market due to a shortage of freight cars, while exporters were shipping more than two hundred such cars to the Soviet Union.”34 At the same time, the massive relief shipments to war-ravaged nations in Europe of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)
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had neared their scheduled end. On February 21, President Truman requested $350 million to provide humanitarian assistance to those countries until their harvests in the fall. This aid would go directly from the United States to Austria, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and China (although neither the request nor the House measure (HR 153) identified recipient nations by name).35 Members of Congress had sharply criticized the distribution of UNRRA assistance in Russia and Yugoslavia. In a similar vein, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs criticized the new administration proposal. They suspected that relief aid to Russian satellites, such as Poland and Hungary, would not go for humanitarian purposes. In response, Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs William L. Clayton pledged to stop any assistance to countries that used the aid for political or other nonhumanitarian purposes.36 In committee, the critics devised measures to ensure that no funds went to Russia or countries dominated by the Soviets. Lawrence H. Smith (R-WI) moved to amend the bill by limiting the funds to Austria, Italy, Greece, Poland, and China, with no more than $15 million available for use in any other country. Intending to exclude aid to Hungary and Poland, William M. Colmer (D-MS) offered a stronger substitute, denying funds to any country dominated by the Soviets. A measure by Karl E. Mundt (R-SD) softened this by allowing assistance to countries if an American mission could control the distribution of supplies. Subsequently, the House passed the Colmer-Mundt substitute by a vote of 324-75.37 The Smith amendment, nullified by the Colmer-Mundt substitute in committee, was reintroduced successfully on the floor, placing additional limits on the distribution of aid. The bill, which allocated only $200 million for aid, passed the House on April 30. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee proved more amenable to the administration position, reporting the bill out of committee without reference to specific countries or anti-Soviet measures. On the floor, nonetheless, Sen. John L. McClellan (D-AR) introduced an amendment to prohibit aid to Russia or any country under Soviet domination. The Senate defeated the measure, largely because Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-CA) noted that Secretary of State Marshall already had promised in writing to adhere to the restrictions proposed by Representative Smith in the House version of the bill, so similar restrictions need not appear in the legislation itself.38 The Senate passed its version of the bill on May 14, without a roll call vote. In conference, the final bill appropriated $350 million, naming Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, China and Trieste as recipients, with $15 million for emergency purposes elsewhere.39 More important, the Truman administration and Congress also began debate over additional funds for relief and military assistance to Greece and Turkey. In February 1947, British officials informed the Truman administration that Britain
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could not provide more resources to help the Greek government in resisting communist guerrillas. The Truman administration believed that without assistance, a communist regime would replace the Greek government. As Congress spent the winter arguing about how much to cut the total federal budget and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs looked to reduce the existing request for $350 million in humanitarian assistance, gaining congressional support seemed problematic. Consequently, Senator Vandenberg urged President Truman to issue a frank public statement to make this message heard, to “scare the hell out of the country.”40 On March 12, 1947, President Truman addressed Congress, painting a bleak picture of aggression by totalitarian regimes (i.e., the Soviet Union). Truman asked for $400 million in military and economic assistance to the Greek and Turkish governments by June 30 to support their efforts to resist “subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” 41 In the eponymous doctrine, the Truman administration identified the advance of communism as an ideological threat to democracy and said that the United States must resist. Public reaction varied widely. Among major newspapers, some claimed the policy would lead to war, while others complained that this frank admission of enmity came too late. Others warned against expending blood or treasure for the Near East or potentially fascist regimes in Greece and Turkey. One of the most influential critics was the editor of The New Republic, former Vice President and Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, who called the new policy imperialist and argued that it threatened world peace. The public also seemed divided. A Gallup poll in late March, for example, found that 56 percent of the people approved aid to Greece, with 32 percent opposed, while 49 percent approved of assistance to Turkey, with 36 percent opposed.42 At the same time, 56 percent disapproved of providing any U.S. assistance without consulting the United Nations, a sentiment that became more widespread throughout the spring of 1947.43 Of the twenty-two nongovernmental witnesses that appeared in public hearings held by the Senate Foreign Relations committee during the last week of March, twenty opposed the aid bill.44 Nonetheless, the committee reported the bill, SR 938, to the full Senate. With some differences, the House Foreign Affairs committee did the same for the full House. During the debate on the Senate floor, many members of Congress complained of the inconsistency of providing aid to halt Soviet aggression while engaging in trade and providing economic assistance to the Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. After recounting offensive Soviet behavior, the chair of the powerful House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. John Taber (RNY) denounced plans to ship $133 million in U.S. food and supplies under the
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largely U.S.-funded UNRRA programs to Poland, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia, saying: [I]t seems to me that our diplomatic representatives should tell Mr. Stalin that unless these irregular practices cease . . . it would be impossible . . . for us to permit export licenses to be issued for such things as this.45
In another assault, Sen. Chapman Revercomb (R-WV) pointed out that the State Department had argued in favor of providing an advance for equipment and supplies to build a high-octane gasoline plant in Russia worth more than $25 million, that more than $233 million in lend-lease had gone to Russia since the end of the war, and that 80 percent of UNRRA shipments went to Soviet territory.46 Senator Revercomb asked, “How can such contradictory courses be reconciled or understood?”47 Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) led the bipartisan forces in favor of the Truman Doctrine. Among other things, State Department officials prepared a memo on lend-lease shipments to Russia for Vandenberg to use in the debate.48 The memo describes how, with some exceptions, no shipments or new procurement contracts for civilian or war materials under the lend-lease program had been shipped to Russia after Victory-over-Japan (V-J) day. Vandenberg used this information to say that any exports were part of existing contracts. Vandenberg asserted that the United States must fulfill the contracts to keep its word, as the United States was charging the Soviets for failure to keep theirs.49 Eventually, however, Vandenberg agreed that the United States “must have a consistent policy” on exports to the Soviet Union and aid to Greece and Turkey.50 The opponents to the Truman program continued to raise the issue. Using the same figures on exports, Senator George W. Malone (R-NV) asserted: Nothing could illustrate with such clarity our complete lack of an international policy as the recent revelation of our recent shipments of goods and equipment to Russia, the nation we are now asked to stop at the Greek border. . . . I only claim that what we are doing is either too little or too much. . . . I claim that it will be necessary to make a general master plan in support of our security, in which our objectives will be made really clear. 51
Similarly, Sen. Kenneth S. Wherry (R-NE) noted that in the March 19 request for a one-year extension of export controls, President Truman stated that U.S. “international responsibilities cannot be fulfilled without this machinery.” 52 Senator Wherry responded by saying:
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Until we renounce the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam agreements, which compel us to build up Russia’s strength and legalize her aggression, we are in no position to take seriously President Truman’s declaration of an American “quarantine” on Russian aggression around the world.53
On April 22, the Senate passed the bill, S 938, by a vote of 67-23. Debate in the House of Representatives on the Greek-Turkish aid bill, H.R. 2616, took place over four days (May 6–9). The measure, quite similar to the Senate bill, had strong support in the House. It faced little chance of defeat, and members made no prolonged exchanges linking aid with trade with Russia. On the last day of debate, the bill passed by a vote of 287-187. On May 15, both houses of Congress accepted the version that emerged from conference, and it became law a week later.
e x p ort c on t rol s a n d t h e m a r s h a l l p l a n The controversy over the Truman Doctrine served as a precursor for a lengthy debate over a more massive U.S. commitment to assist in European recovery. In a Harvard commencement address on June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall called on the United States to provide an unprecedented assistance package to promote European economic and political recovery. Though aid to the Soviets remained out of the question politically, Marshall stated that the United States directed its policy “not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.”54 The British, French, and Russian foreign ministers then met in Paris on June 27 to discuss the proposals, a day after President Truman gave the plan his “unqualified endorsement.” 55 In July of 1947, George F. Kennan, writing under the pseudonym X in Foreign Affairs, built on the advice he gave Clark Clifford the previous year and wrote arguably the most influential article in the history of U.S. foreign policy. According to Kennan, the United States needed to resist any further expansion of Soviet power. If the West held firm, the Soviet system would inevitably rot and topple under its own weight. By containing Soviet aggression, the West would eventually defeat Soviet communism, without appeasement and without war. More important, the article clearly identified the Soviet Union as the primary enemy of the United States and the free world, providing a rationale for the Marshall Plan. Where many in the Truman administration saw trade with communist states as one of the few means of inducing more cooperative Soviet behavior in the near term, export control policy continued to attract the attention of both anticommunist and isolationist advocates in Congress. While an article in U.S. News
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and World Report in May 1947 hinted that the government would soon use export controls to limit trade with Russia, this change came slowly, and the old control system became a source of political embarrassment.56 Already critical of lendlease shipments of oil to the Soviet Union, the House Merchant Marine Subcommittee began to investigate all shipments of oil to Russia in June 1947. Showing enormous insensitivity, the Commerce Department proceeded to license the export of 248,000 barrels of oil to Russia on July 9, despite protests by Rep. Alvin F. Welchels (R-OH).57 In July, sixteen Western European nations met in Paris to form the Committee for European Economic Cooperation (CEEC). Russia and its satellites received invitations but chose not to attend. By September, the CEEC had delivered a report to the State Department, in which the committee outlined how Western Europe could achieve economic self-sufficiency by 1952. The State Department persuaded the CEEC to reduce its aid request, but it still meant $17 billion in U.S. aid. At the same time, Truman had the Resources Committee (chaired by Secretary of the Interior J. A. Krug), the Council of Economic Advisors, and the President’s Committee on Foreign Aid (chaired by Secretary of Commerce Harriman) explore the likely effects of such assistance on the U.S. economy. All three concluded that the U.S. economy could sustain such a program, though shortages of some goods might occur.58 In Congress, the House Select Committee on Foreign Aid — also known as the Herter Committee after its vice chair, Christian A. Herter, (R-MA) — studied the specific needs of the recipient countries. The committee developed policy guidelines for the program, giving their approval to the general principles of the Marshall Plan in the process. Despite these positive assurances, when he requested $17 billion for the program from Congress on the last day of the 1947 session, President Truman emphasized, without referring to Russia by name, that some nations did not participate in the European Recovery Program. Without any formal destination controls, the Truman administration relied on informal methods, and the groundswell of anticommunism, to dissuade companies from making questionable exports. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, for example, dropped plans to export machinery to a Czechoslovak steel plant in August 1947. Apparently company officials feared that the finished steel would aid the Soviet Union, while they also knew of administration concerns that the sale would divert supplies from Western countries, even though administration officials did not prohibit the sale outright.59 In another example, in October 1947 the Commerce Department acknowledged that it no longer issued licenses for oil exports to Russia because the Soviets would not detail its end use.60 Nonetheless, President Truman made public comments against interfering with trade with Russia.61 In addition, fulfilling its promise to liberalize trade to
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all destinations, the administration continued to remove items from the Positive List. By October 1947, the number of items on the list had shrunk to 352.62 By late 1947, American public opinion had turned against trade with Russia. In a December Gallup poll, 71 percent of the American public believed that the United States should stop shipments of oil, machines, and industrial products to Russia.63 Many notable figures, including former President Herbert Hoover, Sen. Robert Taft, Gen. Curtis LeMay, and former Republican Governor of Kansas Alf Landon, publicly called for an end of trade with Russia. A growing list of institutions, such as the American Legion, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, joined voices with J. Edgar Hoover and other virulent anticommunists to condemn the Soviet Union. In Congress, many spoke out against U.S.-Soviet trade. Critics noted, for example, that $113 million in “foods, textiles, fibers, minerals, petroleum products, metals and manufactures, including railway cars, wheels, tires and axles, machinery and vehicles, locomotives, railway mining and industrial excavating cranes” went to Russia between January and October of 1947.64 These goods included thirty-three steam locomotives, sixty-nine diesel locomotives, 136 internal combustion engines, and 216 freight cars.65 A likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (R-MA) argued that Truman should impose economic sanctions, including trade restrictions, against Russia. On November 20, Rep. Joseph R. Bryson (D-SC), who had protested the sales of scrap iron and other materials to Japan before World War II, rose to condemn “the sale of materials to Russia until there is a better and safer understanding between that country and ours.”66 Members of Congress used these alleged inconsistencies in export control policy to attack the large-scale assistance program envisioned in the Marshall Plan appropriations in November of 1947. Rep. J. Harry McGregor (R-OH) called it “inconsistent” to spend billions of United States taxpayers’ money to feed Europe, and thereby fight communism, and at the same time send to Russia materials and goods which will only strengthen the cause of communism.67
Rep. George H. Bender (R-OH) also charged that a sincere anti-Soviet policy in Europe would “not be permitting the large-scale manufacture and shipment of heavy goods to the Soviet Union.”68 Bender went on to compare the current policy with the inability to impose an embargo on Japan in the 1930s.69 The chair of the House Appropriations committee, John Taber (R-NY), spoke out against trade as the “appeasement of Russia.”70 With supporting remarks by Reps. Frank B. Keefe (R-WI), Gordan Canfield (R-NJ), and John
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Phillips (R-CA), Taber proposed that the United States “cut off everything of a character critical to our own economy.”71 Minority Leader Sam Rayburn (DTX), while continuing to defend the administration position, responded “of course, everybody would agree to that.”72 On that same day, Rep. Katherine St. George (R-NY) introduced House Resolution 379, which banned “the sale of durable goods, machinery, scrap, oils, and gasoline” to the Soviet Union.73 Debate over House Resolution 366 reveals the danger facing the administration. Introduced by Charles A. Wolverton (R-NJ), chair of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce committee, the resolution built on the original version by Rep. Mundt, which Mundt designed to require the secretary of commerce to reveal information on shipments of freight cars to the Soviet Union.74 The committee expanded the resolution to include information on shipments to all countries of heavy machinery and farm equipment.75 Mundt took the opportunity to challenge Congress to decide whether “we are trying to support communism by shipping and selling it the equipment and supplies it requires to make its militant aggression in Europe and Asia formidable, or we are trying to stop communism” by supplying the victims of aggression.76 According to Mundt, the United States was “not great and strong enough to do both at the same time.”77 Rep. H. Carl Anderson (R-MN) protested against machinery and petroleum exports to Russia while documenting fuel-oil shortages in his own state.78 Robert Tripp Ross (RNY) recalled to the attention of the House that Charles J. Kersten (R-WI) also had introduced a resolution to stop shipments of commodities and machinery to Soviet-dominated countries. In the Senate, John L. McClellan (D-AR), who had also spoken out about an inconsistent export policy during the April debate, claimed that the United States could not supply Russia market demands without adding to inflation: I again say it would be inconsistent and incompatible with any sound business principle, and with our own interest, for us to undertake at the same time to supply to Russia goods that are in short supply to the further sacrifice of the interests and welfare of our own people.79 When Sen. Brien McMahan (D-CT) countered these remarks, Sen. William F. Knowland (R-CA) interjected that McMahon had recently made a similar point about an embargo against Russia on sales of machinery for atomic power in the creation of the McMahon Act on Atomic Energy. Senator Knowland followed this comment by asserting: If we continue to ship electrical equipment, industrial tools, and machine tools to Russia, we are strengthening her hands to carry out the
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type of international blackmail in which she has been engaged for the past few years. . . . I believe that the time has long since passed when we should stop shipping these potentials to Russia.80
Later, armed with more information on the extent of U.S.-Soviet trade, Senator Knowland assailed the policy of exporting dual-use items to Russia, charging that it “smacks too much of the years 1938, ’39, ’40, and ’41, when scrap iron and oil were being shipped from this country to Japan.”81 Sen. John McClellan (D-AR) declared, “[W]e cannot consistently continue to permit these strategic materials and supplies to be exported to Russia.”82 Others noted that the Marshall Plan committed billions to fight communism, while we continued to appease Russia with goods. In the face of continuing opposition, including the “inconsistency” of trading with Russia, the Marshall Plan legislation stalled. Congress passed an interim measure for $597 million in assistance for Austria, China, France, and Italy in December 1947. Even then, the House added amendments limiting control over the distribution of aid to noncommunists and requiring the president to halt aid if communists came to power in a recipient country, while Vandenberg made clear that a vote for interim aid was not a commitment to the Marshall Plan.83 The Truman administration, without a Democratic majority in Congress, faced opposition from rural Republicans and Democrats alike.84 As the grand strategy of containment needed long-term support for the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine, continued trade with Russia at the very least threatened to undermine the newfound and fragile bipartisan coalition.
r e f or m i n g u. s. e x p ort c on t rol s The newly created Policy Planning Staff of the State Department began to explore the options for redirecting U.S. export control policy against the Soviet Union in the fall of 1947. While not philosophically averse to controlling trade through a government monopoly, the Policy Planning Staff recommended adapting current licensing policy to the new problem. Under their plan, the United States would continue short-supply controls to keep key items from going to the Soviet Union of Eastern Europe.85 The kinds of equipment that the United States would control included military, semimilitary, capital, and atomic energy items, plus technology.86 The controls would apply to all European destinations, meant to avoid charges of trade discrimination, and would not include food, which would appeal to the rural constituencies in Congress.
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President Truman and the members of the National Security Council (NSC) agreed to make these recommendations in its report on December 17, 1947. Exports to Europe would require a validated license under the “R” procedure (R being the designation for European destinations). This allowed the administration to cut trade with the Soviets and Eastern Europe “without apparent discrimination which might lead to retaliation.”87 The February 1948 coup by the communists to take over the Czechoslovak government solidified the anticommunist mode in Congress and the Truman administration. Hearings began in the Senate in January, with most witnesses in favor of the administration proposals. On February 28, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported the bill titled the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948. Following the program outlined by the administration, the bill created an Economic Cooperation Administration within the U.S. government. Among the duties of the head of the administration, the Senate bill required the administrator to cease U.S. assistance if conditions in recipient countries changed adversely. Committee members interpreted this provision to mean that if a country came under communist control, the aid would stop flowing. The Commerce Department had announced on January 15 that its new policy, under Executive Order 434, would begin March 1. Under the plan, the department would get advice on licenses from the National Military Establishment, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Security Resources Board, the Economic Cooperation Administration, and the Department of State. A similar interagency group also arose to create the lists of items to control. Though all exports to Europe and a few adjacent destinations required a validated license, the program meant to “curtail the movement to Eastern Europe industrial supplies or equipment having a high military value.”88 Acting Secretary of Commerce William C. Foster made this clear in response to a February 27 letter from Senator Knowland that again detailed “major inconsistencies” in administration strategy toward Russia.89 The administration realigned other bureaucratic resources as well. By this time, only one-third of the export licensing activity of the Office of Trade Administration involved short-supply issues. The staff of the export control enforcement unit, for example, grew to fifty by the end of the year. While the Department of Commerce continued to take items off the Positive List through late 1949, and despite claims that the goal of the policy was “not to shut off trade with Eastern Europe for its own sake,” economic considerations became increasingly subservient to military security objectives.90 These changes seemed insufficient to avert the threat the inconsistency posed to the more ambitious strategy of containment the Truman administration now
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envisioned. The Senate debated the Economic Cooperation Act during the first two weeks of March 1948. Senator Wherry specifically questioned proponents about the limits on the development of Western European trade with Eastern Europe. Senator Lodge, in reply, indicated that the legislation has provisions to prevent the development of West-East trade which would harm the United States, but at the same time some sort of trade between the two halves of Europe is desirable for the success of the program.91
Senator McMahan made the most explicit effort to restrict trade, introducing an amendment that would require countries in the program to prohibit exports to any destination prohibited under U.S. law or inconsistent with U.S. national security interests.92 McMahan was especially interested in maintaining controls on nuclear items, though the amendment was not limited to them. Indeed, he used the analogy of selling oil and scrap to Japan before the war when proposing the measure. In the end, McMahan agreed to “not press” the proposal after receiving assurances from the State Department and Senator Vandenberg that the bilateral agreements to implement the plan would take care of these considerations.93 Vandenberg, however, asserted that the United States should not compel participating countries to adopt controls.94 Though the House Foreign Affairs Committee actually began holding hearings on the program on December 17, most of the witnesses testified in January and February. Much of the House debate focused on aid to Greece, Turkey, and China. The House took an even more strident anticommunist tone than the Senate. In the meantime, administration policy came under increasing fire from outside Washington. On March 18, 1948, Gov. Harold E. Stassen sent a telegram to Truman demanding the end to all shipments of machine tools, electrical equipment, and scientific apparatus to Russia and its satellites. Stassen also requested that the West Europeans take similar action. On March 22, members of the Catholic War Veterans (CWV) in Jersey City, New Jersey picketed the loading of machinery on the Chukotka, one of more than a dozen such ships scheduled to take forging presses, drills, furnaces, and other items to Russia in March.95 The placards reminded onlookers of the scrap steel exports to Japan before the war, and many American Federation of Labor longshoremen refused to cross the picket line in sympathy.96 Complaints were also wired to the White House and Congress. On March 23, the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments asked for a probe into U.S. trade policy, particularly the licensing decisions by the Commerce Department on exports to Russia. At the time, the Commerce Depart-
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ment defended the licenses by noting that the United States received strategic materials — manganese and chrome — in return.97 Concomitantly, the administration asked for a huge increase in defense appropriations. In an open session before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 25, 1948, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal testified in favor of a supplemental appropriation for $3 billion more than the $11 billion already earmarked for the military, and a renewal of the draft. Forrestal justified the request with “blunt talk” that “appeared to startle some members of Congress.” 98 In a dramatic presentation, Forrestal compared Stalin to Hitler as a despot with a “remorseless compulsion for aggression,” and said that Russia had a comparable intent to conquer Europe.99 At the same time, just across Capitol Hill, a subcommittee of the House Surplus Property Investigating Committee heard testimony that forty-six new B-24 engines were sold to Russia and Poland in May and December 1947.100 Another witness testified that he sold forty DC-3 and C-47 engines and related equipment to Russia without objections from the Departments of State and Justice.101 In response to these revelations and subsequent calls to prosecute the exporters, President Truman explained that the exports went to friendly countries, including the Soviet Union, under old contracts.102 Nonetheless, President Truman ordered an end to sales of commercial and pleasure aircraft to Russia and its satellites on March 26 (the administration had already banned sales of military aircraft). The War Assets Administration, that very day, also chose to halt (for “study”) a shipment of forty-six locomotives for Finland, which was negotiating a defense pact with the Soviet Union.103 Pressure for more controls on trade with the Soviet Union mounted. The Hudson County, New Jersey, chapter of the CWV Public began to boycott another Soviet freighter, the Volga, and a Soviet liner, the Russia, on March 30.104 That month, Rep. Karl Mundt (R-SD) also blasted the commerce official who oversaw the license to export machine tools to the Soviet Union, Herbert W. Parisus, clearly suggesting that Parisus had communist connections.105 Next, the House added provisions to the Foreign Assistance Act to tighten controls on exports to Eastern Europe from countries participating in the Marshall Plan. Rep. William M. Colmer (D-MS) introduced an amendment that required the administrator to stop delivery of commodities or technical data that recipient countries would use to manufacture exports for any country “which has announced its intention . . . to prevent the success of the European Recovery Program,” that is, Russia and the other communist states of Eastern Europe.106 Reprensentative Mundt offered a substitute amendment meant to encourage Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) countries that were alternative sources of supply to take action that would parallel U.S. export con-
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trols.107 Similar to the provision offered in 1947, the amendment directed the economic cooperation administrator to restrict supplies for items produced in these countries for export to the Soviets, if the United States would deny a validated export license for those same items. In practice, this would have little impact on most trade. As executive officials understood, the United States had no means to prevent OEEC countries from exporting to the Soviets, or even to prevent the reexport of U.S. goods, under the law.108 In other words, without international support, the embargo had little chance to succeed and would merely impose an additional hardship on U.S. exporters. The House accepted the Colmer amendment, however, with the language of the Mundt substitute, by voice vote on March 30. Three days later, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948. Title I of the Act included the European Cooperation Act, the very heart of the Marshall Plan. It also had the Colmer-Mundt provisions.
bu i l d i n g a n i n t e r nat i ona l p roh i b i t i on r e g i m e Administration officials opposed the approach of the Mundt amendment, but not its justification. They recognized that any effective anticommunist export control system required cooperation by the Western European allies of the United States. They also knew that Congress seemed loath to support many aspects of the European Recovery Program (ERP) without it. As promised by Senator McMahan, the Atomic Energy Commission and the State Department negotiated informal agreements on nuclear items in May 1948 with the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, the Benelux countries, Norway, France, Switzerland, Bizonia (i.e., the Western occupied territories of Germany), and Italy.109 The administration also passed instructions to begin bilateral negotiations with some European governments for export controls that summer.110 The administration delayed talks on dual-use items until August 20, eight months after the decision to adopt export controls on strategic goods, until the new secretary of commerce, Charles W. Sawyer, developed a list of strategic items to embargo. The list categorized items as Class 1 (military), further divided into 1A (military) and 1B (semimilitary), and Class 2 (nonmilitary). The 161 items on the 1A list included forty machine tool items, fifteen petrol items, thirty-one chemical items, forty-two scientific or electronic items, and twelve metals.111 About 300 items appeared on list 1B. Negotiations began with Britain and Bizonia, while the administration excluded Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, and Turkey from the initiative as “not
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important.”112 U.S. officials gave European officials a statement of principles and lists of items that varied from country to country, but they based all the proposals on the U.S. 1A and 1B lists. The objective of the negotiations, under the leadership of the special U.S. envoy to Britain, former Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman, was to found a voluntary, multinational arrangement to cover at least the items on the 1A list. This approach did not succeed. From the beginning, the Europeans coordinated their activities, sharing the various lists supplied by U.S. officials. By January 1949, the French had prepared their own list.113 The French did so in secret, allegedly fearing that opponents would see the list as a positive response to U.S. pressure under the ERP.114 The British also prepared a list developed that had only 101 of the 161 items on List 1A. By February 1949, an Anglo-French list emerged from their bilateral discussions. This became the basis for talks among the Europeans.115 The list included 98 of the 163 items that by then the United States wanted to control, but also some European items not on the U.S. list.116 After a request by the British, the French called an informal meeting in Paris of some members of the OEEC, with representatives from Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.117 Getting agreement in the group was important because the OEEC had a rule of unanimity. Recognizing the inevitable, the Truman administration supported the initiative, and the Europeans eventually invited the United States to join the group.118 Meanwhile, strict U.S. controls began to have an impact on U.S. exports to communist countries. Exports to Eastern Europe declined 70 percent between the first quarter of 1948 and the third quarter of 1949, while exports to the Soviet Union plummeted from $20 million to $500,000.119 The Commerce Department attributed this drop to the new procedure of “security screening.”120 Truman administration officials willingly modified their demands for embargoed items, if the items deleted on list 1A went to list 1B.121 Similarly, British officials agreed to put 121 items on the 1A list. The British list most closely resembled U.S. controls, with the French and other states unwilling to adopt such extensive controls. By summer 1949, the bilateral negotiations had reached an impasse.122
t h e e x p ort c on t rol ac t o f 1 9 4 9 Meanwhile, domestic pressure increased for even harsher controls on trade to the Soviet Union. In December 1948, the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, for example, released a report condemning the export licensing practices of the OIT in the Commerce Department in administering the export control program. The subcommittee began by asserting that “the national security aspects of
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our export control program are of transcendent importance, particularly in view of the present activities of the Soviet Union and its satellites.”123 On February 26, only a few days before the authority to control exports under the Second Decontrol Act was to expire, Congress passed the Export Control Act (ECA) of 1949. The ECA made a few practical changes in procedures then in use by the administration. It did make explicit which departments would control licensing, and what procedures the administration should follow. It legally established the Advisory Committee on Export Policy (ACEP). Chaired by the Commerce department, this brought the departments of Defense, State, Agriculture, Interior, Treasury, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Foreign Operations Administration directly into the process. While the ACEP operated at a relatively high level among policy makers (i.e., assistant secretary), ad hoc interagency groups worked did most of the work at an operating level (see Table 3.1). Controls remained temporary measures. As such, the executive branch did not have to follow the guidelines in the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 regarding advance public notice of its operations and proposed rules and standards of judicial review. The ECA even reduced the penalty for violation from a felony to a misdemeanor, though Congress did this to avoid the need for a grand jury.124 The ECA did establish a new rationale for export controls. Through the ECA, national security, not short supply, became the primary objective of U.S. export control policy. Despite congressional concerns on extending broad presidential authority, Harold Berman and John Garson note that “[p]robably no single piece of legislation gives more power to the President to control American commerce.”125
Table 3.1 ★ Licensing Dual-Use Items under the Export Control Act of 1949 Level of Decision
Decision-making Unit
Policy Making (Assistant Secretary)
Advisory Committee for Export Policy (ACEP): Commerce (Chair), Defense, State, Agriculture, Interior, Treasury, Atomic Energy Commission, Foreign Operations Administration
Operations
Ad hoc groups
Department
Commerce
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Under the authority of the ECA, the Department of Commerce developed a new licensing procedure that it put in place in August 1949. The United States now required a validated license to export any item on the Positive List. By then, this included items primarily for reasons of foreign policy and national security, with only two destination classifications, “R” for Europe and “RO” for all other destinations (except Canada).
t h e c r e at i on o f c g / c o c om In early 1949, the Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation of the U.S. Congress sent representatives to study the export control policies of Western Europe.126 Some European countries, such as Italy, simply would not set up any controls without a common list of items.127 The newly formed CIA reported that many West Europeans systematically disregarded the intent of Western, particularly U.S., export control efforts.128 Exports of ball bearings by Sweden, entrepôt trade through Belgium and the Netherlands, and molybdenum exports from Great Britain, for example, concerned U.S. officials. In part, these concerns stemmed from the great disparity between the U.S. and European lists. The British, with perhaps the most compatible list, included only 132 items in full and 9 in part of the 163 items by then on the U.S. 1A list. As early as March 1949, the United States had urged the Western countries to establish a multilateral committee to consider monthly changes in the harmonized lists.129 The Truman administration argued that a multilateral arrangement would mean fewer complicated negotiations, more uniform policies at a higher level of control for all states, and easier and more secure intelligence sharing (in contrast to their earlier desire for bilateral arrangements).130 Administration officials also saw a multilateral arrangement as a conduit for collective pressure on recalcitrant Western states.131 In essence, this organization would reduce the transaction costs of cooperation associated with bilateral methods of negotiating, maintaining, and enforcing controls. In May 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson recommended that the NSC accept that multilateral controls restrict items only on the 1A list. Despite a desire to control more items, moreover, the United States agreed to accept the European version of the list. According to U.S. officials, the delay in implementing controls by Italy and other European countries had foiled overall export control efforts to that point. They believed it wiser to begin controls immediately, and get others to control more items later on.132 In many ways, this arrangement would become the economic arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The detonation of the first Soviet
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atomic device in August 1949, several months after the creation of NATO, added urgency to Western efforts to resolve export control issues. When the U.S. delegation raised the idea of incorporating export controls into the NATO framework in the fall of 1949, however, Britain and others scuttled the proposal over concerns that the focus of NATO might hamper the emerging consensus that the West should develop a permanent framework for export controls.133 Finally, in November 1949, Great Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium, with Norway and Denmark as observers, began serious discussions on a number of export control issues, including the creation of a permanent group. The delegations, excluding the Dutch representatives, agreed to a proposal to create a permanent body at the next plenary meeting in January. That meeting in Paris saw Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the United States, and Great Britain form a Consultative Group (CG), a high-level body, to consider export control issues on a regular basis. They also formed a day-to-day working group, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), to supplement the workings of the CG. Members decided to set the CG/COCOM structure in Paris (rather than London) to avoid publicity.134 Though the Netherlands opposed the creation of the CG/COCOM framework, favoring bilateral negotiations instead, it and Luxembourg joined the group nonetheless.135 Though Sweden and Switzerland did not join the CG, they each created a national mechanism that complemented the CG/COCOM controls based on extensive negotiations with CG/COCOM members, particularly the United States. Apparently, the group chose not to invite Latin American states to join because they had little trade with the Soviet bloc.136 By early 1950, the CG/COCOM countries started to settle on a “tri” list of controls: International List (IL) I for embargoed items; IL II for items subject to quantitative controls; and IL III for items subject to government scrutiny. Of the 177 items on the U.S. List 1A, 144 appeared on IL I. Six more U.S. items went on IL II, while CG/COCOM put another twenty-seven on IL III.137 Despite reservations by Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway about a communist counter-embargo, they, along with Canada, Germany, and Norway, accepted the lists in principle.
n s c 6 8 a n d e x p ort c on t rol s As the Truman administration struggled to create a multilateral body to coordinate Western export control policy, it also tried to define its overall grand strategy. The “correlation of forces” seemed to favor the now nuclear-armed Soviet Union by 1950. The Soviets dominated Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the other
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states of Eastern Europe. That autumn, the communists also wrested control of the Chinese mainland. After learning that the Soviets might soon have a thermonuclear (i.e., hydrogen) bomb, Truman accelerated the U.S. nuclear program and, in January 1950, ordered the NSC to review the basic objectives and programs of U.S. security strategy. Dean Acheson and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson oversaw the process. In April 1950, they delivered arguably the most influential document on U.S. Cold War foreign policy —NSC 68. In many instances, NSC 68 reiterates the premise of an earlier document (NSC 20/4 of November 1948) by stating, “The gravest threat to the security of the United States within the foreseeable future stems from the hostile designs and formidable power of the U.S.S.R., and from the nature of the Soviet system.”138 The report labeled the risk of imminent U.S.-Soviet war as high, particularly since Soviet domination of Eurasia by political or other means would prove unacceptable to the United States from both a strategic and political standpoint. Furthermore, it stated that the United States should “reduce the power and influence” of the USSR and make the Soviet government change its foreign policies to conform to the charter of the United Nations.139 The essential differences between NSC 68 and its predecessors came in its assessment of Soviet objectives and the appropriate U.S. response. It claimed that the Soviet Union had entered a new phase of “waging a total war against the free world” and that the programs associated with NSC 20/4 were inadequate in light of the Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons and the “open revolutionary offensive.”140 To address this issue, the report concluded that a new program was “imperative,” namely a much more rapid and concerted build-up of the actual strength of both the United States and the other nations of the free world. The analysis shows that this will be costly and will involve significant domestic financial and economic adjustments.141
According to the report, affirmative political and economic measures, not just a defensive program, should mark this new program. These measures must build “the moral and material strength of the free world,” and not depend on negotiations with the Soviets. Formally adopted in September 1950, NSC 68 deepened rather than resolved the dilemma over trade with the Soviet Union. Through trade with Russia and Eastern Europe, the “free world,” especially Western Europe, would gain absolute economic benefits (i.e., increase its wealth), even gaining access to supplies of strategic materials such as manganese. Trade, however, would also benefit the
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Soviets for the same reasons. The objectives outlined in NSC 68 aimed to increase the strength of the free world not just in absolute terms, but in reference to the power of the Soviet Union. By declaring the Soviet Union an enemy, NSC 68 requires an analysis of the relative, not just the absolute, benefits from trade. The proposed means, however, remained based on accumulating absolute rather than relative economic benefits. One of the crucial points in drafting NSC 68, for example, was when the authors realized that they should not be bound by a promise by Secretary of Defense Johnson to limit the defense budget to $13 billion.142 The practical impact of defining the problem in relative terms but the solution in absolute terms was to necessitate a case-by-case assessment of Western exports to communist states. Furthermore, by stating the problem and solution in terms of both national (i.e., United States) and collective (i.e., free world) security, NSC 68 virtually guaranteed disputes between the United States and its Western allies on export controls. Clearly, case-by-case assessments by other states about the costs and benefits to their own national security and to the collective security of the free world would often differ.
kor e a a n d c g / c h i n c om Early in 1949, the United States warned Britain that it intended to apply the “R” procedure to Hong Kong and Taiwan (as well as China), and urged the British to impose strict export controls on Hong Kong as a point of reshipment of strategic items to the communists.143 The British responded coolly. With deep commercial and symbolic commitments to its colonies, Britain feared that the Chinese communists would attack Hong Kong or support insurrection in Malaya or Singapore in retaliation. Nonetheless, Britain did not oppose restrictions on strategic goods, narrowly defined.144 By May, the British forbade arms transfers to China from Hong Kong and recommended an overall arms embargo in June. The Chinese Nationalist government collapsed in the fall of 1949. With the victory by communist forces, the United States and Great Britain wanted to add restraints on trade with mainland China similar to their controls toward Europe, if France, Belgium, and the Netherlands agreed. Export controls on China, however, posed a special problem for the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). Rebuilding foreign trade sounded essential to the transformation and recovery of the Japanese economy, and exports to China accounted for about 20 percent of total Japanese exports before the war.145 In May 1949, Washington began to review all exports of 1A and 1B items to China. Over the next few months, SCAP found this increasingly inhibi-
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tive, but the Truman administration only tightened controls, prohibiting the export of 1A items in January 1950, as well as denying exports of 1B items for military end use or transshipment to other communist states.146 The invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, and the appearance of Chinese troops in Korea later that year hardened the resolve of many U.S. leaders to control items to all communist countries. By late summer, the NSC had made a comprehensive review of export control policies to prevent legislation that would gut the Marshall Plan.147 Still, the CIA continued to complain about European reluctance to set up complementary export controls.148 In the Senate, Kenneth S. Wherry (R-NE) introduced a rider to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 1951, which Senators James P. Kem (R-MO), George W. Malone (R-NV), and Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) cosponsored. Wherry wanted to cut Marshall Plan aid to Western European states that did not follow the U.S. lead on export controls to Russia and China. To derail this effort, President Truman wrote the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Clarence Cannon (D-MO), suggesting Cannon introduce a new amendment that would give the president discretion in decisions to cut aid. The Cannon amendment prevailed in the September 1950 amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948, preserving Marshall Plan aid without forcing the president to punish U.S. allies. Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, and the United States met in New York on September 19 to sign a diplomatic minute calling for a joint list of strategic items on which they would impose controls.149 Representatives from these three countries met in London later in the fall to create the list. Of the 318 items under consideration, they withdrew 74, placed 102 on an embargo list, imposed quotas on 73, and decided that they needed more information on 69 items. The proposed list circulated among the participating countries of the CG in December 1950 and January 1951. In January CG/COCOM adopted the list. The members remained divided on whether to subject ball-bearing exports to controls, so the United States maintained its controls unilaterally. On a case-by-case basis, COCOM members agreed to make exceptions and license some controlled items, if no other member objected. This compromise allowed Western European countries to abide by their own laws regarding the sanctity of existing contracts for exports to the Soviet bloc. The war in Korea and Indochina especially heightened the interest in restricting exports to communist China. On June 28, 1950, the United States imposed a complete embargo on exports to North Korea and two days later on exports to China.150 The Truman administration expanded the Positive List from 689 items in March to 1,106 items by June 30.151 U.S. exports to Eastern Europe
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and Communist China virtually ceased from then until 1954. In time of war, the Truman administration, once so hesitant to use export controls in peacetime, now aligned itself with congressional views. Most COCOM members embargoed the items on IL I by July 1950, with the remainder joining in the embargo through the United Nations resolution of May 18, 1951. COCOM members agreed to control exports to China of IL II items in March 1952, followed with controls on IL III items in June 1952. In addition, Portugal, which the United States had considered inconsequential in CG/ COCOM, began to participate in an export control system in 1951 in order to restrict trade between China and the Portugese colony of Macao. As the Japanese acquired more responsibility for their own government from SCAP, including the implementation of strategic export controls, U.S. officials understood that Japan would maintain controls in accord with existing policy for the duration of the hostilities. Truman administration officials recognized that the Japanese government would face immense pressure to resume trade with China after an armistice, but they preferred to keep Japan out of COCOM since Japan could then reduce their controls from U.S. levels to the lower levels imposed under COCOM. Consequently, the United States proposed that Japan meet with U.S., British, French, and Canadian officials to consider postconflict trade security issues and create an Asian parallel to the COCOM arrangement in July 1952.152 Despite U.S. preferences, an East Asian COCOM did not emerge from the talks. Britain opposed the creation of a new organization, concerned that the United States would use it to impose even tighter controls on regional trade and that Japan might exploit the system against Britain.153 A compromise position evolved that allowed Japan to join the CG, but within a distinct coordinating committee, if Japan also guaranteed it would control items on the U.S. lists as well as those controlled under the new arrangement. These five states established a new working group, the China Committee (CHINCOM), to focus on trade with all communist nations in Asia save the Soviets. CHINCOM was open to all CG members. The items on all three COCOM lists were subject to their controls, along with sixteen items important to the Chinese.154 The position of Japan in CHINCOM eventually led to Japanese membership in COCOM. In practice Japanese controls remained stricter than those all other COCOM members except Canada and the United States. Even after the creation of CHINCOM, U.S. officials complained of a “wide variation in contraband lists and enforcement measures.”155 Nonetheless, U.S. and multilateral measures appear to have had an effect. According to U.S. intelligence sources at the time, the value of Chinese imports from non–Soviet bloc sources fell from $382 million to $148 million between the first and second halves of 1951.156
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t h e b at t l e ac t Congressional critics of Western European export controls, however, sought more hawkish, unilateral remedies to multilateral export controls in early 1951. In February 1951, the CIA and the Economic Cooperation Administration determined that the Soviets had covert channels to get items on the 1A and 1B lists. In March, reports of continued exports to communist countries prodded Rep. Laurie C. Battle (D-AL) to hold hearings before a special subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on two pieces of legislation to strengthen export controls. Representative Battle blatantly accused U.S. allies of permitting exports while U.S. soldiers lay dying on Korean battlefields. The subcommittee produced the Mutual Security Bill, which the House approved by voice vote on May 10, 1951.157 The Senate chamber reverberated with similar sentiments. In March 1951, for example, Senator Kem wrote a letter blasting the export control practices of West European countries, calling on Truman to invoke the Cannon amendment. Kem, among other things, condemned Britain for exporting its machine tools, Belgium its iron and steel, and Italy its cranes to China and other destinations. Truman refused to act. In this atmosphere, the Senate began to consider the Third Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 1951. Senator Kem introduced a rider, cosponsored with Senators Byrd, Malone, and Wherry. The Kem rider restricted any funds for nonmilitary assistance to any country that exported items (as defined in U.S. law) that the Soviet bloc, Communist China, or North Korea could use to manufacture military goods, unless the NSC recommended a suspension of the amendment. As it did with the Wherry amendment in 1950, the administration opposed the measure, but the rider had widespread support. The manager of the bill on the Senate floor, Carl Hayden (D-AZ), for example, in accepting the rider, criticized it as ill-advised because it only applied during the Korean conflict and only restricted economic, not military, assistance.158 The Senate adopted the bill, with the rider, on May 10, and the House-Senate conference accepted it on May 18. Truman said the rider made the bill “seriously defective,” as it repealed the Cannon amendment of the previous year, but signed the bill into law on June 2.159 Truman requested that Congress repeal the rider, and if necessary, pass separate legislation based on three principles: to eliminate trade “only when such action will add to the security of the United States and the rest of the world”; to weigh the value of imports from the Soviet bloc; and to allow for simple and effective administration.160 Senator Kem blasted this response and suggested that Truman would not comply with the spirit of the law. The NSC immediately recommended that the President suspend its effects, which Truman did.
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Senators Kem, Wherry, and a few others also opposed the Mutual Security Bill as too flexible and lenient, while the administration saw it as better than the Kem amendment. After approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and then by the full Senate on August 28 (by a vote of 55-16), the legislation went to President Truman, who signed it into law October 26, 1951. The Battle Act, technically the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951, set the legislative framework for U.S. participation in COCOM. It created a Mutual Defense Assistance (Battle Act) Administrator to coordinate interagency action. The core of the bill was a termination-of-aid clause. It required that all U.S. “military, economic, or financial assistance be denied to any nation that knowingly permits shipment of goods to the communist bloc which appear in the Battle Act Lists.”161 Under the act, the Mutual Defense Assistance Administrator was to create two lists. If a country exported items on the first list, it would mean an automatic termination of U.S. aid. A presidential determination could exempt exports of items on the second list from the termination-of-aid clause. The Battle Act also established the Economic Defense Advisory Committee (EDAC), which had essentially the same interagency composition as the ACEP. COCOM members took some steps to make export controls more effective. In May 1951, COCOM states agreed to develop an Import Certificate/Delivery Verification (IC/DV) system to respond to concerns about transhipment or diversion of controlled exports. Under the IC/DV system, exporters got written assurances against transshipment or diversion before the government issued a license (similar to the system proposed but abandoned during World War II for exports to Latin America), followed by the government of the importer verifying delivery. The Commerce Department adopted a system to supply official assurances to the governments of West European exporters on July 19, 1951. Every COCOM country except France and the United States adopted the full system by July.162 The initiative required the U.S. government to implement new regulations, which Commerce did not do until February 24, 1952. The “administrative difficulties” that caused the delay led some U.S. officials to speculate that the Western Europeans would feel less receptive to U.S. initiatives in the future.163 Coordinating Western export controls continued to prove difficult. Belgian officials, for example, proposed control on the transit of goods through CG countries. Dutch objections, based in part on the problems that transit controls would create for the relatively free trade atmosphere of its ports, prompted COCOM members to defer any action on the proposal in June 1952. France, Italy, and the United Kingdom also were reluctant to develop an anticommunist Black List (i.e., a list of companies to which the government would deny licenses). They claimed either to have limited legal authority (although they had
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kept a list during the war), or feared a political backlash.164 Instead, COCOM members adopted a Watch List of companies against which license denials were not compulsory, but checked more thoroughly. As these and other problems in coordinating the policies of COCOM members continued, congressional critics of export control policy had plenty of ammunition to harass the administration. In the discussion of the new authority for the Mutual Security Bill in May 1952, Kem got the Senate, in a 40–32 vote, to adopt an amendment that would make the threat of sanctions much more serious. The House-Senate conference deleted the amendment, but Kem brought it under protest to the floor in the final vote on the bill. On June 9, the Senate defeated the amendment by a substantial margin, 59–11. Despite the defeat of the Kem amendment, Secretary of State Acheson, in a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Chair Connally, described the vote as a cause for “deep concern.”165 The vote went as it did only because the vice president (as president of the Senate) recast the Kem amendment as a vote against the entire mutual security program. Acheson said that despite a “level of cooperative action . . . [which] is without precedent in time of peace” by Western allies, he believed the administration had narrowly averted disaster.166 Indeed, enactment of the Kem amendment would have caused the “collapse of our Mutual Security Program.”167 Three days later, Acheson described his concerns to British and French officials. More problems arose after a six-week, eight-country investigation of European export control operations in the summer of 1952 by Representative Laurie Battle, who wrote, “I am not satisfied with what I have found.”168 In a letter to the director of Mutual Security, Averell Harriman, Battle admitted that the European states had made substantial strides in implementing export control systems, and showed surprising “sympathetic and cooperative” attitudes everywhere except France.169 Battle, however, noted three problem areas: • the United States embargoed twenty-eight more items than found on the international lists and four more items than appeared on the Battle Act embargo list; • the United States had provided little in the way of bilateral assistance to officials in each country to develop a control system; and • while all of the countries had an unexpectedly sympathetic view of the export control effort (except France), the Europeans did not share the U.S. view of an imminent conflict with the Soviet Union but saw “a long drawn out cold war with years ahead.”170 In conclusion, Battle issued a warning to the administration that it “will be extremely difficult to defend the foreign aid program in the next Congress when
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these facts are brought up in debate.”171 Congress also attached a “higher priority” to export controls and would enact more stringent legislation if problems associated with building an effective multilateral system were not remedied.172 Kennan outlined the export control issues in August 1952.173 If the United States wanted a policy of maximum restraint, Kennan argued, then it must prepare to compensate its partners for their trade losses. On the other hand, if the United States wanted to preserve the unity and prosperity of the “free world,” it should focus on the “net advantage” afforded by specific exchanges. Kennan preferred the second approach, where the West would conduct “carefully restricted” trade.174 According to Kennan, however, this offered no “general solutions” to the problem.175
c on c l u s i on The Truman administration had put in place the basic characteristics of the multilateral export control system that dominated Cold War East-West trade policy by early 1951, even before the hearings on the Battle Act. COCOM members did tune the multilateral system during the Cold War, and not only at the behest of the United States. Belgium, for example, recommended the creation of a “gray” list of proscribed parties.176 The United States, reportedly, maintained a gray list of parties (the Economic Defense List) similar to that maintained during World War II.177 The French and Italians apparently ditched this practice (and efforts to create a Black List) by reversing their commitments to maintain a multilateral list of parties, in no small part because it meant revealing the control system to the public.178 Following reports of the existence of COCOM in the New York Times and Newsweek and its mention in a pamphlet by the Japanese Diet, France and the other members finally agreed to reveal a few generic details of the arrangement to the public in August 1952. Most important, the European members also refused to broaden the COCOM terms of reference from “all matters concerned with security controls” to include controls imposed largely for political, not strategic, reasons.179 As the Truman administration and NSC 68 defined the U.S.-Soviet conflict in political as well as strategic terms, this meant that COCOM would garner criticism from the United States, particularly from the more virulent anticommunist members of Congress. Nonetheless, when Representative Battle toured Europe to see the efforts of the COCOM members firsthand, the European export control systems won his grudging approval. The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NSC 68 established the principles, norms, and practical policies that defined containment, the dominant theme of U.S. grand strategy for the next forty years. At first, Truman administration officials saw
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no real role for export controls on dual-use items, congruent with their interest in eliminating controls on most aspects of the economy as quickly as possible after the war. The administration also believed that unilateral U.S. controls would prove ineffective, damaging U.S. economic interests without producing any military benefits. They concluded, moreover, that constructing a multilateral export control arrangement was prohibitively difficult, given the likely importance that the Soviet market would play in the recovery of Western European economies. This rationale did not deter assaults on the policy. A bipartisan group of political entrepreneurs in both the House and Senate sharply attacked the administration through the apparent inconsistency of conducting “business as usual” when it allowed exports to Russia (see table 3.2). After all, the West had some items
Table 3.2 ★ Members of Congress Calling for Financial or Trade Sanctions Against the Soviet Union, 1946–1952 House H. Carl Anderson (R-Minnesota) Laurie C. Battle (D-Alabama) George H. Bender (R-Ohio) Francis P. Bolton (R-Ohio) Joseph R. Bryson (D-South Carolina) Gordan Canfield (R-New Jersey) William M. Colmer (D-Mississippi) Alfred J. Elliott (D-California) Thomas S. Gordon (D-Illinois) Frank B. Keefe (R-Wisconsin) Charles J. Kersten (R-Wisconsin) Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (R-Massachusetts) J. Harry McGregor (R-Ohio) Karl E. Mundt (R-South Dakota) Richard M. Nixon (R-California) John Phillips (R-California) Robert Tripp Ross (R-New York) Joseph P. Ryter (D-Connecticut) Katherine St. George (R-New York) Lawrence H. Smith (R-Wisconsin) John Taber (R-New York) Alvin F. Welchels (R-Ohio) Charles A. Wolverton (R-New Jersey)
Senate Harry F. Byrd (D-Virginia) James P. Kem (R-Missouri) William F. Knowland (R-California) John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas) Brien McMahan (D-Connecticut) George W. Malone (R-Nevada) Chapman Revercomb (R-West Virginia) Robert Taft (R-Ohio) Kenneth S. Wherry (R-Nebraska)
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in short supply, and the Truman administration had begun confronting the Soviets on all other diplomatic, military and economic fronts. In many, if not all, instances, these entrepreneurs opposed committing U.S. military and financial resources to help Western European countries after the war, so they exploited the export control issue to foil the plans of the Truman administration. Cynics may see these inconsistencies as evidence that the Truman administration manipulated the Congress and the public by exaggerating the Soviet threat. Many members of the administration, however, believed the Soviets were bent on expansion and only respected superior military might and a politically cohesive adversary. From this perspective, if the United States adopted a strategy of economic and political isolation, the Soviets would soon dominate the world, including the United States. At times, as Theodore Lowi argues in The End of Liberalism, events tempt U.S. presidents to scare the hell out of the country in an effort to bind the disparate elements of the American polity to adopt and implement an effective policy. Deborah Welch Larson points out, however, that inconsistent views and blunt talk about perceived grim realities about the Soviets did not signal manipulation; instead, it affirmed that the belief sets of Truman and many members of the administration evolved in light of changes in available information about Soviet behavior and domestic political constraints.180 If anything, Truman was a political entrepreneur for more formal U.S. involvement in world affairs. For much of his life, Truman carried with him a copy of the poem “Locksley Hall,” in which Alfred, Lord Tennyson predicts a “Parliament of Man, The Federation of the World.” Reportedly, Truman said that he fought for that vision ever after putting the poem in his pocket.181 First as a senator and later as president, Truman promoted the United Nations as just such an organization. The evolving grand strategy of the Truman administration strayed neither from its vision of the United States a part of an international community of states, nor from the massive transfer of material support from the United States to assist the Western European members of that community. Anticommunist public entrepreneurs by themselves did not create either the U.S. or the COCOM system of restrictions on East-West trade and technology transfer. For one thing, public and political entrepreneurs operated in concert from the start. Though widespread opposition to communism generated support for such policies, the Truman administration opposed using export controls on dual-use items. Even after political entrepreneurs raised concerns about the nature of U.S. trade with the Soviet Union, the Truman administration refused to adopt controls, much less champion them at home and abroad. Nevertheless, the attacks on the precarious base of public and congressional support for this new vision of the United States in international affairs took their toll. Only when these attacks threatened passage of legislation central to that vision, not
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before, did the Truman administration reform U.S. export control policy to eviscerate the base of those critiques. One may argue that the reforms fell far from the strict regime the more vocal anticommunists proposed, particularly regarding the imposition of sanctions on friendly countries if they continued to trade with Russia. The reforms, however, produced a near total U.S. embargo on the export of dual-use items to the Soviet Union and its allies, and a multilateral arrangement to control exports to similar destinations. The emerging norm that Western governments should cooperate to impose strict controls on the export of military and dual-use items to communist states now had its champion.
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t h e e i s e n h ow e r a d m i n i s t r at i on “Damned Silly Practices” ★ ★ ★
“It seems a question,” he said, “of how much blood we and our allies must spend to balance the trade of Western Europe and the British Commonwealth.” — an unnamed Senate colleague of Senator Joseph McCarthy
c om m on s e n s e resident-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower summoned the designated leaders of his administration to gather at the Hotel Commodore in New York City in early January 1953. After Eisenhower read a draft of his inaugural address, Secretary of Defense-designate Charles Wilson expressed concern that the speech implied that the United States might begin trade in nonstrategic goods with some communist countries. Wilson said this might encourage U.S. allies to expand their trade in strategic items with communist states in Eastern Europe. Moreover, Wilson compared such trade to “selling firearms to the Indians.”1 Eisenhower responded that the West should adopt selective trade controls. Cutting off East European trade flows with the West, he said, would only make those states more dependent on Moscow. This did not convince Wilson. The president-elect closed the discussion by saying, “Charles . . . I am talking common sense.” 2
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Circumstances surrounding East-West trade underwent mighty shifts in early 1953. Joseph Stalin died on March 5, removing the man that many Americans perceived as the personification of evil, the instigator of the show trials, the notorious Soviet-Nazi pact, and the perceived missteps of Yalta and other wartime agreements. In addition, on March 15, Chair of the Council of Ministers Georgi Malenkov announced the policy of “peaceful coexistence,” saying that they could settle any current dispute by peaceful means.3 The Soviets even launched a “trade offensive” to attract the Western business community, including the purchase of all sorts of advanced production equipment. Eisenhower administration opposition to export controls, however, predated most of these events. Only warnings from his brother Milton and pressure from senior Republicans kept Eisenhower from calling for increased trade with the Soviet bloc in his last speech of the 1952 campaign.4 In a February 1953 memo, Raymond Vernon outlined the State Department view on U.S. policy regarding trade in nonstrategic items with the Soviet bloc: We do not seek to curtail non-strategic trade, nor do we seek to prevent the consummation of transactions involving certain kinds of strategic goods, where the net advantage in the transaction lies with the West.5
The memo lists the fears of State Department officials if export control policy became too restrictive. Too-strict controls would alienate friendly countries, threaten supplies of strategic materials, and make the administration subject to the charge that it favored economic warfare over economic prosperity. According to the memo, the United States risked the most if it discouraged trade by its allies in nonstrategic goods, but maintained protectionist trade barriers on those same goods, denying the allies an alternative market.6 Clare Boothe Luce reiterated this concern in a June report on the Trieste situation to C. D. Jackson (and so to Eisenhower). Luce wondered why the United States forbade Italian trade to communist states when Italy then faced high tariffs on those goods in the United States.7 On March 3, 1953, the new director of Mutual Security programs, Harold Stassen, identified the measures the administration would take to prevent strategic supplies from reaching the Soviet bloc. The report concluded that the United States would keep a tight embargo on exports to communist China and North Korea. The government, however, would streamline other export controls to reduce interference in nonstrategic trade.8 More important, Stassen chose to pattern the Category A List of the Battle Act on the arms, munitions, and implements of war in the International Munitions List and on the atomic materials in the International Atomic Energy List, already embargoed by COCOM members.9 Many observers had anticipated that the Category A List would resemble
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U.S. Export Control Act lists 1A and 1B, which included many dual-use industrial items. Instead, items on the International Industrial Lists mainly appeared in the Battle Act Category B List. By not placing these items on the Category A List, which imposed mandatory sanctions on allies that exported those items to the Soviet bloc, Stassen effectively negated the intent of Congress.10 All of the administration arguments, of course, missed a more serious political concern: the domestic politics of anticommunism. What Eisenhower saw as common sense, others saw as “indefensible,” even treasonous.11 The investigation into trade with communist China prompted, for instance, the first (and last) accolades from the mainstream press for Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).12 As the summer of 1953 progressed, McCarthy shifted the investigations toward communism and communist infiltration of the U.S. Information Agency (sparking the resignation of Robert Kennedy from the subcommittee staff). East-West trade policy, however, made a particularly inviting target for members of Congress who wanted a hard line anticommunist approach for U.S. foreign policy. In the Greek shipping case, for example, one observer concludes: McCarthy’s insistence that Dulles and Eisenhower were being inconsistent with the use of hard line language against communists in the campaign, while at the same time silently permitting American allies to carry on trade with communist countries in Asia during the Korean War, suggested a weak link in the administration’s foreign policy rhetoric. This was a weakness that McCarthy was determined to exploit for his own personal and political gain.13
e i s e n h ow e r, a n t i c om m u n i s m , a n d “ t r a d e, not a i d ” In Crusade in Europe, Eisenhower asserted that communism was the fruit of economic and social ills.14 Eisenhower saw long-term government intervention in the domestic economy as antithetical to the fundamental values of the United States and to the health of the U.S. economy. In particular, he believed in freeing trade from the panoply of tariff and other trade barriers, including export controls, as the way to generate economic prosperity. Eisenhower believed that the West could defeat the ills that nourished communism through such prosperity. In his “good versus evil” inaugural speech, for example, Eisenhower emphasized that because economic strength was “an indispensable basis of military strength and the free world’s peace, we shall strive to foster . . . policies that encourage . . . profitable trade.”15
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By 1952, support for free trade transcended many traditional political and economic divisions in the United States. From the Dulles brothers to Cordell Hull, from the AFL/CIO to General Electric, from the Foreign Policy Association to the Advertising Council, free trade promised prosperity when many still feared renewed economic depression and a revival of protectionism that marked the interwar years.16 Eisenhower clearly saw national economic isolation as a serious global problem. When Eisenhower asked Harold Stassen to serve in the administration, he predicted that the reluctance of the Soviets to participate in a more open world economy “will be their downfall. Their economies will shrink instead of grow, and you’ll see hardship, poverty, shortage, and starvation,” conditions the United States and the West would avoid themselves by supporting freer trade.17 In particular, Eisenhower held views parallel to those of the Eastern Establishment wing of the Republican Party (and most Democrats), who saw world economic development as a key factor in countering Soviet aggression (and enriching the United States). Republicans, however, generally opposed the public sector approach embodied in the Marshall Plan, and worried that the aid programs, which began as temporary expedients to address the ravages of the war, would become permanent. In a 1951 report, for example, Nelson Rockefeller argued for an International Development Authority that would emphasize private investment as an alternative to government aid.18 While Eisenhower saw cuts in military aid as shortsighted, he too believed that free trade policies would reduce the need for aid over time. The major foreign policy issue of the 1952 campaign for president, however, was neither free trade nor aid, but anticommunism. Both party platforms strongly criticized communism, with the Republican platform being especially vitriolic.19 Drafted by John Foster Dulles, the Republican platform denounced the Truman policy of containment as “immoral” for being reactive, calling instead for a policy of “liberation.” Anticommunism, moreover, had become part of the American social landscape. Several major and minor national organizations, for example, had adopted anticommunism as an objective by the early 1950s (see table 4.1). Throughout the nominating campaign, Senators Robert Taft (R-OH), William Knowland (R-CA), Styles Bridges (R-NH), Eugene Milliken (R-CO), and other powerful voices in the conservative wing of the Republican Party harbored fears that Eisenhower was “soft” on communism. In contrast to Rockefeller and most other Eastern Republicans, these voices called for either a Pax Americana based on antiwar political and military isolationism, economic autarchy, or even a policy of liberation and retaliation. Adopting as the candidate for vice president Richard Nixon of California, whose reputation as an anticommunist rose above suspicion, helped deflect these forces.
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Table 4.1 ★ Anticommunist Nongovernmental Organizations in the United States, 1953 * Name Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples in Russia American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees American Veterans of World War II Americans for Democratic Action Catholic War Veterans of the U.S.A. Citizens Committee for United Nations Reform Committee on Present Danger East Europe Fund Free Russian Youth Club in America Freedom House Serbian National Defense Council of America United States Junior Chamber of Commerce Women for Union of the Free Young Men’s Christian Association
Year of Inception 1952 1951 1948 1944 1947 1935 1946 1950 1951 1956 1941 1941 1915 1953 1844
*Nongovernmental world affairs organizations that expressly included anticommunism as an institutional goal or mission in 1953. Source: Katherine C. Garrique, U.S. Citizens inWorld Affairs:A Directory of Non-Governmental Organizations, New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1953.
During the campaign, Eisenhower argued that to fight communism the United States needed a strong military and a strong economy. Under the direction of NSC-68, the Truman administration argued that the United States must prepare for war with the Soviet Union in the near term by increasing its defense spending. Coupled with the onset of the defense expenditures associated with the Korean War, this generated a federal budget dominated by military spending and large deficits. Though Eisenhower, as NATO commander and through other assignments, was closely associated with the multilateralism of the Truman admin-
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istration, he thought that U.S. defense spending was excessive, and that such waste would sap U.S. economic vitality. Key preinaugural meetings of the future administration, such as those that took place on board the U.S.S Helena as Eisenhower returned from Korea in December 1952, brought the issue of defense spending into a sharper focus. Early in 1953, Eisenhower set the NSC to reviewing U.S. national security policy. At a February 11 meeting of the NSC, Eisenhower sought a defense policy that the United States could “afford.” 20 Throughout the rest of February and on into March, the NSC considered the costs and benefits of basic national security policy. At the time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proclaimed that the proposed cuts in their respective budgets would cripple U.S. military capabilities. In response, Eisenhower suggested that bankrupting the nation might wound it as fatally as could any foreign enemy.21 On March 31, the NSC considered the report of civilian consultants that they had assigned three weeks earlier to examine the costs of U.S. national security policies. Their report blamed the extensive costs on vague policy objectives developed in the Truman administration. They recommended that the United States balance the budget by the next fiscal year and cut military costs. To do so, the administration had to engage in a thorough review of basic U.S. national security goals and programs.22 Considering the report, the Planning Board prepared NSC 149, which the NSC discussed at three April meetings.23 Accepted by the NSC, the final report asserted that the United States faced a long-term threat, rather than imminent global war. Those conditions made a balanced federal budget and a sound U.S. economy “vital” to the defense of the free world. Export controls did not escape the comprehensive review of national security policies. Though export controls, by their nature, might moderate Soviet and Chinese military capabilities, Eisenhower believed that efforts to halt the “natural currents” of trade with communist countries would fail.24 In early February 1953, for example, Senator Knowland, the majority whip, called for a blockade on China. Eisenhower believed that a blockade, an act of war, would merely drive China closer to Russia. Even so, the president recognized that the administration found it “particularly difficult to develop a wise and effective policy in trading between Communist and non-Communist nations.”25 A few weeks later, Eisenhower raised an issue in an NSC meeting that he would repeat throughout his presidency. Harold Stassen began the March 18 meeting with a briefing on trade with the communist countries. After the remarks, President Eisenhower chided Stassen for omitting the question he thought most important, “Namely, which side was benefiting most from EastWest trade — the free world or the Soviet bloc?”26 Eisenhower went on to say that it was:
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little less than crazy to waste as much talent on this problem as was represented by the individuals in this room who were devoting themselves to the problem. The President did admit, however, that of course there was the law of the land [i.e., the Battle Act].27
Instead of acquiescing, NSC members challenged this criticism. Secretary of Defense Wilson vigorously objected to this critique of export controls, especially controls on the sale of antibiotics that communist troops could use in Korea. Others noted that the few U.S. imports from the Soviet Union consisted mostly of caviar, fur, and luxury items, not strategic materials.28 Undeterred, the president continued to denigrate current export control policy. Eventually, the council decided to launch a general review of the policy by senior NSC staff (the NSC Planning Board) and the Department of Commerce.29 The review determined that controls did retard, at least in the short term, Soviet war potential in advanced technology and advanced production techniques.30 The report, NSC 152, compared four alternative policies: maintain the present policy; abandon trade controls; intensify the scope of the program; and concentrate on items most important to Soviet war potential. The report repeatedly makes clear that domestic factors created the greatest obstacles to relaxing export controls: In the United States, the Congress, the business community and public opinion as a whole have been generally favorable to severe limitations on trade with the Soviet Bloc, both by the U.S. and by our Allies. Congress has repeatedly tried to use the withholding of foreign aid to compel other countries to adopt a very stringent trade control program.31
Discussing the option of abandoning controls, the report concedes that it would require a major reorientation of attitudes. Legislative action would be required. . . . The legislative history of the past few years does not suggest that this can be done easily. U.S. exporters themselves might be somewhat reluctant to trade with the Communists unless the climate of opinion in the United States is substantially changed.32
The authors of this report saw this opposition as subject to less than rational decision making at times: In addition, the psychological impact of the pre–Pearl Harbor shipments to Japan . . . and the public concern with the Communist menace have
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sometimes led to an emotional rather than a reasoned approach to this problem.33
The report favored the option of concentrating export controls on items most important to Soviet war potential. At the time, officials operated under the assumption that the conflict with the Soviet Union, while intense, would extend indefinitely at some level short of war. With this premise, the report asserted that concentrating the controls would remove most of the international and business concerns with the program, without requiring legislative action. The report, nonetheless, cautioned that relaxing controls to a narrower base “would be opposed by some elements of Congress and the public. Until there is peace in Korea, the resistance to changes in the current embargo to Communist China would be considerable.”34 Given the circumstaces, the Eisenhower administration recognized it could do little to change the general thrust of export controls in the near term. On May 6, 1953, Congress extended the Export Control Act for another year. During the hearings, Republican Senators Knowland, Bridges, and Milliken accused the administration of subverting the sanctions aimed at U.S. allies that had engaged in trade with the Soviet bloc, and violating the will of Congress in doing so. In early 1953, even with considerable support for reform from President Eisenhower, radical alteration to U.S. export control policy seemed as unlikely as putting a man on the moon.
g r a n d s t r at e g y, “ t h e n e w l oo k ,” a n d p r e s i d e n t i a l e x p ort c on t rol p ol i c y In May, President Eisenhower launched Project Solarium. The administration assigned separate task forces to analyze three alternatives for U.S. grand strategy. Each task force would then defend their alternative before the NSC, similar to lawyers pleading a case. With a target date for the presentations of July 1, the task forces reportedly engaged in intensive, all-day studies for about five weeks. George F. Kennan led the task force reviewing Alternative A, which maintained Truman administration security policies, with the proviso that they brought the budget into balance as rapidly as feasible. Task Force B, chaired by Maj. Gen. James McCormick, studied Alternative B, in which the United States would publicly draw a line in the sand beyond which Soviet aggression risked a strong, even military, reaction from the United States. Finally, the advocates for Alternative C, chaired by Adm. Richard L.Connolly, would consider a much more aggressive posture toward the Soviet Union.
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After some preliminary sessions, the task forces presented their full reports on July 16.35 Eisenhower provided a detailed summary of the three reports and then asked for all the participants to meet and develop a single view. The NSC was to use this to develop a new grand strategy, a sanitized version of which they would present to Congress. Since the alternatives stemmed from different premises, especially about the nature of the Soviet threat and the relevant correlation of forces (and perhaps because the task force members had worked separately for weeks), the key participants concluded that they would not try to meld their reports into a unified whole. Instead, the NSC special staff and the Planning Board labored during the next two months to develop a single policy. On a parallel track, Eisenhower called on the new Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop an “austere” program, in consultation with Treasury Secretary Humphrey and Budget Director Dodge, for the effective use of available national resources for defense.36 The Joint Chiefs concluded that U.S. military commitments overseas (i.e., troops in Europe and Asia) were peripheral to basic U.S. military security. Accordingly, the United States should redeploy these troops to the Western Hemisphere. Eisenhower wanted this view included in the new strategy, but doubted the United States could carry it out anytime in the near future.37 East-West trade and export controls were important subjects in the analysis of each of the Project Solarium alternatives. In the first plenary session of the project (June 26), Kennan argued that the United States should relax restrictions on East-West trade, but discourage it by diplomatic means. Besides allowing U.S. allies to profit from such trade, this approach would have the important benefit of working to counter protectionist sentiment in the United States.38 General McCormick then took a more pessimistic view and insisted that an “economic one [seal] will not work. The latter could at best only delay Soviet bloc economic build-up and would at the same time create too many difficulties to be feasible.”39 In contrast, Admiral Connolly asserted that the “reward in the results cannot be calculated in terms of economic cost” when considering trade controls.40 In particular, a complete blockade of China would make that country an expensive ally for the Soviets and also prove painful to the Chinese. In their final report, Task Force A argued for “careful relaxations” of trade controls to encourage U.S. and allied economic expansion, specifically referring to alternative four (i.e., narrowing and concentrating controls) in NSC 152.41 Task Force B assumed that the Soviets already had considerable economic power. Their remarks emphasized military retaliation and drawing a line of confrontation around the Soviet Union, and did not mention export controls. Much akin to Task Force A, Task Force C concluded that the United States should use East-West trade discerningly to maximize Western gains and minimize benefits to the Soviet. Specifically, the United States should use “selective
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sanctions” against Russia, taking care to deny Russia vital strategic materials including rubber, machine tools, electronic tubes, and tungsten wire.42 Against China, the United States and its allies should “establish stringent controls,” essentially an embargo.43 Eastern Europe called for an even more complex export control policy of selective sanctions. The West should increase trade that drains Eastern foreign currency resources and decreases their dependence on the Soviet Union, while denying them vital strategic materials.44 On July 31, Eisenhower approved the statement on economic defense policy, NSC 152/2, which reflected the consensus that emerged in the Project Solarium exercise.45 It begins by assuming that a “long period of tension short of war” will characterize U.S. foreign relations. Consequently, despite occasional gestures (including trade openings), the United States should treat communist motives with “suspicion and skepticism.”46 Over the long-term, trade controls could not seriously impair communist strength (as Task Force B assumed), but they can retard Soviet military might in selected areas in the short term. Usually, interference in East-West trade “should take place only where a clear advantage to the free world would accrue from such interference.”47 Additions to the control lists “should not be necessary, except where clearly justified by new technology, intelligence or strategic evaluation,” though the United States should work to improve the application and enforcement of existing controls (which mirrored the views of Task Force C).48 These actions will become more important as pressures to trade become stronger after the armistice in Korea, and with a diminution of U.S. assistance to Western European countries. According to the new policy, “a gradual and moderate relaxation in the present practice of virtual embargo of shipments to the European Soviet bloc would be appropriate,” as long as the pace of liberalization did not undermine the overall economic defense effort (as Task Forces A and B recommended).49 Among the sixteen recommendations for action, NSC 152/2 admonishes the United States not to impose “undue restraints on the shipment of non-strategic commodities.” 50 Instead, it should concentrate on implementation and enforcement issues, and avoid extending controls that would generate a “disproportionate expenditure of good will and bargaining power.”51 The United States would consult with the allies on these matters, and remain flexible, giving more consideration to the economic, political, and financial constraints of the allies, while encouraging free trade within the free world by reducing trade barriers.52 The Special NSC Committee on Project Solarium eventually brought these various strands together in a single draft of a new basic grand security strategy for the United States, NSC 162, on September 30, 1953. After further revision, Eisenhower approved NSC 162/2, which formally recognized that the United States faced two security threats: the Soviet threat and a weakened U.S. economy.
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The policy proposed that the United States prevent Soviet aggression (but not interfere with Soviet internal affairs), warn the Soviets of retaliation in specific situations (but limit the warnings to specific situations), and use propaganda and covert action against the Soviets, especially in the satellite nations (but not use the military to roll back the Soviet presence). Adopted on October 30, this presidential policy became known as the “New Look.” The creation of the Economic Defense Advisory Committee (EDAC) system in the Battle Act complicated the review of export control policy.53 Drawing on NSC 152/2 and the emerging consensus on the central elements of NSC 162, the EDAC-ACEP Executive Committee agreed to revise U.S. export control policy in September 1953 through executive action.54 Their plan called for the review and revision of the security criteria for the U.S. and COCOM lists and enforcement programs, a greater effort to gain cooperation from countries not participating in the COCOM/CHINCOM system, increased public education about economic defense, more study of Soviet trade tactics and information on East-West trade, and revision of the existing interagency process.55 The EDACACEP Committee approved the new security standards for including items on the lists in late October. After perhaps the most comprehensive reviews of U.S. national security and export control policies ever, the Eisenhower administration looked ready to “peel off” export controls, layer by layer, if it proved advantageous to U.S. and allied strategic interests. The administration would sidestep congressional resistance by leaving export controls on China and North Korea untouched. In addition, the administration would try to stanch the flow of illicit trade by improving multilateral implementation and enforcement of existing policies. Since many in the administration suspected that Soviet interest in Western nonstrategic goods was a sham, they also believed that diplomatic pressure and lack of demand would prove sufficient to prevent an increase in East-West trade that would alarm Congress and the public.
d om e s t i c p r e s s u r e s f or r e f or m In fact, considerable evidence suggested that some private interests would support a gradual reduction in East-West trade controls. Even before the July armistice in Korea, constituent pressures for legislative reform had mounted. On May 7, representatives of the National Grange reported their problems with export licensing under the Export Control Act (ECA) to the Committee on Ways and Means.56 In arguing for a one-year extension of the ECA, even conservative Senator Taft agreed to “see if we cannot get rid of export controls” in response to
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constituent interest in expanding East-West trade.57 At the same time, the Senate called for an extensive study into the issue of trade controls. In late July, Warren Lee Pierson of Trans World Airlines, Chair of the U.S. Council of International Chambers of Commerce, asserted that “[t]he American public might as well adjust itself to the fact that there will be an increase in East-West trade.” 58 Support for trade with Russia grew in the traditional Republican districts in the Midwest and conservative Democratic districts of the South. While U.S. public opinion of Russia remained intensely unfavorable, as early as August 1953 opinion polls on whether the United States should work out an arrangement to buy and sell goods with Russia split evenly among Midwesterners. Southerners showed only slightly less favor toward such trade, while people from the East and West appeared least inclined toward such deals.59 By the early 1950s, questions about the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization, and U.S. sovereignty, and concerns about roles for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in developing countries resulted in demands for the extensive examination of U.S. foreign economic policy. To address growing issues of trade and payment imbalances, the Congress authorized the creation of the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy (CFEP), which came into being on August 7, 1953. Congress included the revision of East-West trade policy in the CFEP mandate. A bipartisan commission, CFEP included five members chosen by the Speaker of the House, five chosen by the vice president (as presiding officer of the Senate), and seven chosen by the President. Though the president picked six freetrade proponents, the commission had a number of ardent protectionists, including Representatives Daniel A. Reed (R-NY) and Richard H. Simpson (R-PA), and Senator Eugene Millikin (R-CO).60 The chair, Clarence B. Randall, a moderate free trader and a former consultant on the steel industry for the Marshall Plan, dominated the proceedings of the commission. The commission began holding closed hearings in October 1953, and Randall did not invite views on particular industries and products. In its first report, released in January 1954, the CFER called for easier access to the U.S. dollar, an early end to foreign aid, and freer, but not free, trade. The report ignored enormous differences among commission members on many issues, nowhere more so than on export controls. The report recommended that the current ban on exports to China and North Korea, and the restrictions on exports that might contribute to Soviet military power, continue. Nonetheless, the report asked that “the United States acquiesce in more trade in peaceful goods between Western Europe and the Soviet Bloc,” with five commissioners issuing a concurring statement, including Laurie Battle, the author of the Battle Act.61 In the briefing papers, the staff attributed most of the problems to Western Euro-
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pean countries making shipments to fulfill commitments made before the Battle Act came in force in January of 1952, and overall the achievements of the system of controls were “quite extraordinary.” 62 In contrast, six commissioners dissented with the East-West trade section. Representatives Reed and Simpson used their minority report to disapprove of the proposals without “full consideration by Congress of this entire problem and its relation to our national security.”63
the british surprise In bilateral talks with the British in November, however, the administration discovered that the British were reviewing their economic defense policy (which they anticipated completing by March 1954). Specifically, the British considered making deep cuts in International List I (the embargo list) and elimination of International List II (the quantitative list) and International List III (the watch list).64 Given this surprise, Stassen recommended that the administration try to implement a new, more liberal East-West trade policy. It would start with an announcement that the United States would resume trade in nonstrategic goods with Russia and China. Stassen, however, did list among the disadvantages of this new policy that it “may seriously divide internal United States opinion.”65 To hasten the completion of its own policy review, the EDAC-ACEP Committee created a Security List Working Group. The group reviewed the COCOM lists to see how the items fit on a U.S. Master Export Security List, how to change the Battle Act lists, and whether the U.S. should seek to increase or decrease controls on items on the COCOM lists.66 The Commerce Department began to prepare the public for the likely changes in policy. It began, for example, underscoring that U.S. policy approved of the export of nonstrategic goods to the European Soviet bloc, if the exports had no adverse impact on security. The program remained based on the notion of gradually peeling off export controls. By treating this as consistent with current policy, and not insisting on changes in legislation, they believed this approach might dodge some criticism from anticommunist hard-liners. More important, congressional critics could do little to block administration action under this plan. Through press appearances, Congressional testimony, and the Randall Commission Report on Foreign Economic Policy, the Eisenhower administration unveiled its intent to develop “stricter controls on the highly strategic goods and the relaxation of controls on goods of lesser importance.”67 In a press conference on January 4, for example, Foreign Operations Administrator Stassen described the intended shift in policy. During that month, the administration began an item-by-item review of the control lists, firm in the belief that officials who
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wished to avoid charges that they were soft on communism had padded the lists with nonstrategic items. In February 1954, officials from the Foreign Operations Administration (which had replaced the Mutual Security Administration) and State Department explained the new policy in detail to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy.68 Many European business interests, from Danish shipbuilders to West German manufacturers to Norwegian fishers, wanted to increase trade with Eastern Europe. This especially interested British industry. Toward the end of 1953, for example, a panel of the Federation of British Industries concluded that “such opportunities of East-West trade as exist in nonstrategic goods should, nevertheless, be pursued without any inhibitions.”69 In late January 1954, thirty-three British business executives flew to Russia. They received a Soviet offer to purchase $1.12 billion in British manufactured goods, about half of which included controlled items. The British Board of Trade said “We welcome any increase in trade with Russia, provided it is within the nonstrategic field.”70 On February 25, Sir Winston Churchill called on the allies to make “a substantial relaxation of the regulations affecting manufactured goods, raw materials, and shipping—which . . . were made three or four years ago in circumstances which we can all feel were different from those which prevail” on exports to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (though not China).71 In fact, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom already allowed some shipments of controlled items to the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, mainly to fulfill prior commercial commitments, but putting them in conflict with the Battle Act. On March 5, President Eisenhower made use of the Battle Act exception procedure by determining that cutting aid in response to these exports would hurt the security interests of the United States. Writing in The Nation at the time, David Wightman concluded that most people generally agreed that U.S. policy should move to increase trade in peaceful goods, “with the exception of a few crusading Senators.”72 Administrative initiatives to relax export controls, however, merited caution. Stories that the government was about to sell large amounts of surplus butter and cottonseed oil to European Soviet bloc countries at world prices, which then were below U.S. domestic prices, spawned many letters to Congress and the administration in opposition.73 At first, the administration decided not to approve any licenses for such goods. Upon further consideration, the administration informed the Soviets that the United States would permit the sale of agricultural surpluses in return for strategic raw materials, including manganese, chrome, and nickel. The Soviets later agreed to engage in such talks, if the United States would consider trade in other goods. Little of substance came from this exchange, while the sharp negative reaction from the public served as a warning against radical liberalization of export controls.
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t h e e n d o f t h e e m b a r g o on e a s t e r n e u rop e a n d t h e s ov i e t u n i on On March 1, British officials proposed cutting widely used equipment and raw materials from the embargo list and eliminating the quantitative and watch lists altogether. Despite personal sympathy with this approach, President Eisenhower objected to specific details of the proposal in a letter to Churchill. Eisenhower also suggested a meeting of British, French, and U.S. representatives, followed by a high-level meeting of the Consultative Group, to consider the surrounding issues.74 The U.S. policy review, built on the assumption of a “gradual and moderate reduction in the lists,” no longer seemed relevant in light of the impending negotiations.75 A hurried National Intelligence Estimate on the consequences of relaxing controls based on the British proposal forecast an annual half-billion-dollar increase in Western exports to the Soviet Union. This quantity would have only a minor impact on long-term Soviet bloc economic or military capabilities, though it might decrease the effectiveness of the China embargo.76 While the United States might gain a security advantage in relaxing trade controls by obtaining strategic materials or other items, the estimate did not imply that the gains gave the Eisenhower administration freedom to enact large-scale reductions in the controls.77 In preparation for the Consultative Group meeting, which would set guidelines for COCOM, Stassen met with the president of the British Board of Trade, Peter Thorneycroft, and the French secretary of state for foreign affairs, Maurice Shumann, in London on March 29–30, 1954.78 In a public communiqué, the participants agreed that COCOM should review every list item, with a view toward reducing the scope of export controls “substantially,” while acting to make the remaining controls more effective.79 The narrowing of the scope of controls, of course, did not refer to controls on exports to China and North Korea, which stayed much more severe. This caution did not merely reflect U.S. opinion, but also British and French concerns that the conflict in Indochina might escalate into another global war. In his March 30 message to Congress regarding foreign economic policy, President Eisenhower emphasized this view, saying that more trade in nonstrategic goods and goods not covered by the Battle Act “so far as it can be achieved without jeopardizing national security, and subject to our embargo on Communist China and North Korea, should not cause us undue concern.”80 The interagency team that accompanied Stassen left London for various European capitals rounding up support for the trilateral position. Returning to Washington, Stassen went before the public and Congress in early April 1954 touting
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the benefits of relaxing controls on nonstrategic goods.81 In the quarterly report on the Export Control Act, Commerce Secretary Weeks noted that current reviews of U.S. export control lists would likely delete some commodities, though it might add a few new items too.82 The Consultative Group, as with COCOM, did not publicize the results of its April 12–13 meeting in Paris, but it instructed COCOM to complete a review of all its control lists by July 1, with one objective — reducing the scope of the lists. The Consultative Group also ordered COCOM members to develop new, more effective enforcement measures. This approach, dubbed “higher fences, fewer goods” when it reemerged in the 1980s, had tactical political advantages. It relaxed controls to ease trade pressures while it enhanced enforcement activities, undermining the arguments of the more outspoken opponents of liberalization. Reportedly, the technical review covered an estimated 450–475 items.83 In the review, U.S. delegates deferred to other members of COCOM allies so often on technical issues that the list review cut much deeper than the administration anticipated.84 This prompted concerns about the soundness of the overall program. As the negotiations progressed, Stassen would make recommendations to the NSC, which would provide guidance for U.S. negotiators. In one such meeting, the president asked Stassen to assess the relative weight of domestic and strategic factors in decisions to eliminate items from U.S. control lists (done to parallel the ongoing COCOM review). Stassen assured Eisenhower that strategic considerations guided the review on most items. Scrap iron was the notable exception, as many members of Congress could recall the consequences of the sale of scrap iron to Japan in the 1930s.85 Not everyone in the administration felt comfortable with the direction of the reviews. Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, in particular, consistently expressed concern. In a May NSC meeting, Weeks complained that removing U.S. controls on about a dozen items deleted from the international lists might harm U.S. national security interests. Weeks wanted to send a message to COCOM to warn the allies that the United States might use Battle Act sanctions to induce compliance with its more restrictive view (a tactic that Stassen and others opposed). After that exchange, President Eisenhower scolded Weeks. Reiterating that the “net advantage” notion should guide U.S. and COCOM trade policies regarding the Soviets, Eisenhower “expressed doubt as to whether this concept was clearly in the minds of those present.”86 In a letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Weeks took another approach, arguing that the West should use promises of deep cuts in the control lists as bargaining chips with the Russians and Chinese, rather than take action without reciprocal returns.87 In some cases, confusion reigned. Generally, Secretary of Defense Wilson feared that the British proposals would enhance Soviet military capabilities. Wil-
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son thought that the United States should “adhere to the strictest possible control of exports to the Soviet bloc from any free world country.”88 In one NSC meeting, for example, Wilson suggests that Western countries get little strategic return for their exports to the Soviet bloc other than mere money.89 In another meeting, however, Wilson argued that the United States should not appear more hostile than our allies by maintaining a harsher system of controls toward the Soviet Union.90 Throughout these meetings, President Eisenhower appears troubled by the lack of a clear alternative to the existing policy. Eisenhower repeatedly shows sympathy for the view that the West, especially the European countries, could gain a “net advantage” in trading some dual-use goods with the Soviets. When Eisenhower contends that export controls on dual-use items could slow the accumulation of Soviet military capabilities, he also expresses concern that the embargo has limited strategic value. The record of one NSC meeting indicates not simply ambivalence, but befuddlement on this point: The President said we should put it this way: We will go as far in making concessions [in the COCOM negotiations] as we are required in order to allow our allies to make a living. . . . But beyond that the United States itself does not want to make profits out of commerce with the Soviet bloc. The President added that the whole problem was so complicated and had so many aspects that he was not really sure precisely where he stood on it.91
Completed on June 17, the 1954 COCOM review narrowed the lists considerably. Though about seventy dual-use items remained in dispute, the partners resolved to keep these items on the embargo list until the Consultative Group decided their fate. In addition, COCOM delegates had not produced a definitive set of measures to improve the effectiveness of controls.92 Coupled with concerns about the great sweep of the changes, and the delicate position of the French in Indochina (which raised fears that the West would get involved in a larger war against communism), the administration sought to avoid a formal public announcement about the changes. Adjusting the COCOM lists raised the issue of how far to adjust the Battle Act lists. The changes recommended by COCOM went far beyond those anticipated in NSC 162/152. The administration deferred adjustments until after the July meeting of the Consultative Group, noting that “public and Congressional criticism is expected if extensive adjustments are made.” 93 Senators Hiram Walker (R-ID) and H. Alexander Smith (R-NJ), for example, had warned the administration against relaxing COCOM controls that would increase trade with the Soviets.94
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At the July meeting, as expected, the Consultative Group agreed to strengthen enforcement measures and maintain current controls against China and North Korea. Not until the last day of the meeting, however, when the warring parties signed a cease-fire for Indochina in Geneva, did the members agree to set August 16 as the date to begin liberalizing their national export control lists. On August 25, Stassen announced that the NSC had approved the reduction of the COCOM embargo list from 260 to 170 items, the quantitative list from 90 to 20 items, and the watch list from 100 to 60 items.95 The Department of Commerce revealed that its list would go from 1,450 to 787 items four days later.96 They redefined many items on the old embargo list or transferred items to the quantitative or watch lists. The Title I Category A Battle Act list, comprising 12 categories of arms and 11 atomic items, underwent minor changes. The Title I Category B list, mainly dual-use items on the COCOM embargo list, went from more than 270 items to 194. They set the Title II list, containing mainly the items on the COCOM quantitative and watch lists, at 86 items.97 The second prong of the U.S. approach to reforming export control policy was to increase enforcement as a trade-off for liberal cuts in the control lists. In the U.S. government, the Administrative Action Program, which denied licenses and other privileges to entities violating strategic trade controls, became an interagency system. The administration also created an interagency Diversion Control Network to share intelligence and coordinate action on items on the embargo list related to the diversion of exported goods. The administration estimated that more than 5,000 individuals and companies had a hand in diversion activities. Their actions generated perhaps $200 million in illicit trade (about five times the total amount of legal trade of items on Lists I and II).98 The Consultative Group agreed to improve the Import Certificate/Delivery Verification (IC/DV) scheme, in place since 1951, to include all the items on Lists I and II.99 Following the example of the United States, the July meeting of the Consultative Group also produced a decision to have states set up transaction controls, which would control the residents of a member country from moving controlled goods from any country to the Soviet bloc. They also established a package of controls for goods in transit or transshipped goods.
c on g r e s s i ona l r e s p on s e As had Truman, Eisenhower discovered that political and diplomatic forces seemed to outweigh economic and strategic influences in determining export control policy. One should remember that at the time some manufacturers produced advertise-
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ments in major U.S. news weeklies that featured an anticommunist theme. As Tor Førland argues, U.S. export control policy did not change much in the first two years of the administration, despite the wishes of Eisenhower, because Eisenhower felt “anxious about jeopardizing his relations with Congress” and because of opposition by many senior administration officials.100 Domestic advocates of strong export controls prevented the administration from abandoning most dual-use controls, and postponed any real discussion of relaxing the China embargo. The locus of this opposition rested in the Senate (see table 4.2).
Table 4.2 ★ Members of the U.S. Congress Introducing Anticommunist Trade Legislation or Making Remarks Calling for Harsher Trade Controls Against Communist States, 1953–1957 House Victor L. Anfuso (D-New York) Thomas J. Dodd (D-Connecticut) William E. Jenner (R-Indiana)* Ray J. Madden (D-Indiana) Karl Mundt (R-South Dakota)* Melvin Price (D-Illinois) James Roosevelt (D-California) Lawrence H. Smith (R-Wisconsin) Brent Spence (D-Kentucky) Francis E. Walter (D-Pennsylvania)
Senate George Bender (R-Ohio) Harry F. Byrd (D-Virginia) Styles Bridges (R-New Hampshire) Carl T. Curtis (D-Nebraska) Paul H. Douglas (D-Illinois) Allan J. Ellender (D-Louisiana) Sam Ervin (D-North Carolina) Hubert Humphrey (D-Minnesota) William E. Jenner (R-Indiana)* William F. Knowland (R-California) George W. Malone (R-Nevada) Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas) Brien McMahan (D-Connecticut) Eugene D. Milliken (R-Colorado) Karl Mundt (R-South Dakota)* W. Chapman Revercomb (West Virginia) H. Alexander Smith (R-New Jersey) Stuart Symington (D-Missouri) Robert Taft (R-Ohio) Hiram Walker (R-Idaho) Kenneth S. Wherry (R-Nebraska)
* Served in both the House and Senate during the first Eisenhower term. Source: Congressional Record (1953–1957); Congressional Quarterly Almanac (1953–1957)
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These domestic advocates for stringent anticommunist trade controls, however, did not prevent the administration from acceding to nearly all of the budget cuts sought by the United Staes’ Western allies. The administration strategy of “trade, not aid” in 1953 and 1954 largely muted the threat that had proved most effective against Truman — tying strict export controls to support for the foreign aid program. In 1954, Eisenhower proclaimed that the United States should terminate economic grants “as swiftly as our national interest will allow.”101 The potential for congressional influence declined with reductions in the appropriations for the program. Military appropriations for the Mutual Security Program went from $5.3 billion in 1952 to $4 billion in 1953, $2.8 billion in 1954, and $1.3 billion in 1955. Nonmilitary appropriations in the same program also declined from $2 billion in 1952 to $1.5 billion in 1955. Although the administration requested an increase from $4.9 billion to $5.5 billion in overall military aid for 1953, mainly to build NATO, this represented $1.7 billion less than the request made by the Truman administration for the same fiscal year. In contrast, while a contested issue, political entrepreneurs could not tie free trade to an “inconsistency” in the battle against communism. In the 1954 debate over the Trade Agreements Act, for example, Senator Al Gore, Sr. (D-TN) could argue that Congress should support free-trade measures because Russia and China made trade agreements with their allies.102 If anything, the administration argued that U.S. protectionism impeded efforts of U.S. allies to find free world markets for their goods. Streamlining export controls had considerable support within some parts of the government, including the Oval Office, and growing support from U.S. commercial interests. Nonetheless, the primary rationale for liberalization was to preserve allied support for export controls. The administration recognized that any effective controls on dual-use items required allied support and that U.S. interference in their nonstrategic trade carried political costs significant enough to threaten the existence of NATO itself. In July of 1953, through NSC 152/2, the administration articulated its preference for preserving international support for the overall export control program, even if that meant relaxing the controls more than it might prefer. Given that administration officials did not believe that the Soviets had a genuine interest in nonstrategic trade, this seemed a paltry benefit to sacrifice in the name of allied unity. In essence, the deep cuts in the number of items on the control lists helped the Eisenhower administration keep the thrust of the anticommunist export control policy.
trade and aid In October 1954, Newsweek ran an article titled “Will U.S. Help to Arm Russia?” that insinuated that Russian agents could “buy nearly everything” they needed
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strategically from the West because of the steep reductions in COCOM controls.103 In November, concerns emerged that the relaxation in controls had helped increase Western exports to the Soviets by $600 million (not out of line from the amount forecast in the March National Intelligence Estimate).104 Still, administration officials remained convinced that the ongoing Soviet trade offensive was little more than a ploy to divide the West. Yet administration fears grew that if Britain and other Western allies exported goods the United States still sought to control, it would rouse Congress and the public sufficiently to create strains in the alliance system. In separate letters to Prime Minister Eden and to Board of Trade Chair Thorneycraft, for example, Dulles and Stassen suggested that the sale of rolling mills, heavy electric generators, ships, and copper wire and cable would prove deleterious to bilateral relations.105 These unresolved issues from the summer of 1954, along with the mounting problem posed by the discrimination between COCOM controls and the more restrictive CHINCOM system, prompted another review of U.S. export control policy in 1955. Polls of the time show that a solid majority of Americans favored more trade with Russia, and a slight majority even favored selling grain to Russia at reduced prices.106 By 1955, Democrats, who often supported the President on foreign policy issues, won a majority in the House, while Republican isolationists had lost some important leaders, not all through election results (e.g., Senator Taft died in 1953). Eisenhower no longer faced as many problems in garnering congressional support for trade liberalization and other multilateral policies. Moreover, as Joseph McCarthy and his extreme form of anticommunism had peaked, the first summit meeting between Eisenhower and the new Soviet leadership promised an opportunity to enter an era of “peaceful coexistence.” It also offered a chance to mend the differences between the United States and its allies on export control issues. Changes in Eisenhower administration grand strategy, however, would dampen efforts to liberalize the export control system any further. During 1954, the Soviet Union unveiled new tactics in the East-West struggle. The Soviets began to appeal to developing countries through promises of technical assistance, trade (often based on a barter system that better suited their interests), and especially credits. Soviet missions to India, Indonesia, Syria, Egypt, Burma, and other countries brought promises of substantial economic help. The Soviets, for instance, provided assistance to an Indian steel mill project at Bhilai, while the Czechoslovaks sent arms to Egypt.107 In the confines of the United Nations, the Soviets called for more economic aid programs to developing countries. The number of trade agreements the Soviet Union made with developing countries tripled from 1953 to 1956, to nearly 100. Trade between the Soviet bloc and the developing world would increase from $850 million in 1954 to $1.44 billion in 1956.108 Despite an interest in expanding contacts with the
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Soviets, all of this activity exacerbated administration worries about Soviet penetration of the free world. In March 1954, C. D. Jackson, special assistant to Eisenhower, resigned over the slow pace of reform in U.S.-Soviet relations. After leaving government, Jackson helped organize a conference of leading specialists to devise a plan for a new global economy. The conference emphasized the need for global development through free trade and foreign assistance specifically designed to oppose the spread of communism.109 The conference stirred Jackson to urge Eisenhower to do something “big, imaginative, and dramatic” in foreign economic policy.110 Jackson asked two MIT professors, Walt Rostow and Max Millikan, to develop ideas for a new assistance program. Jackson circulated the report widely, and forwarded it to CFER Chair Dodge in late 1954. The authors later developed it into a book and a report to a special Senate committee on the assistance program. The report urged the creation of a $20 billion program to help developing countries, with $10 billion from the United States. This would shift U.S. policy from an emphasis on military and “negative” policies to a positive approach that could compete more favorably with the Soviet model of development.111 Similarly, FOA Director Stassen renewed his call for a Marshall Plan for Asia in an October 1954 meeting of the Colombo Plan group. Eisenhower began to see that trade and private investment alone could not address the economic and social ills of the developing world. This made many developing countries more susceptible to Soviet penetration. At a news conference on December 8, 1954, Eisenhower revealed that he would ask Congress for a special economic assistance package for Asian countries. As with free trade measures, revamping U.S. policy toward economic assistance to the developing world would require legislative action. Eisenhower did not intend to match the billions of dollars for the Marshall Plan or adopt the program advocated by Rostow and Millikan. In his April 1955 budget request, however, Eisenhower called for a $200 million Fund for Asian Economic Development. As part of its standard paring of administrative aid requests, Congress appropriated $100 million for the Asian Fund for fiscal year 1956. Overall, it increased appropriations for nonmilitary assistance from $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion from 1955, while cutting military aid appropriations from $1.3 billion to $1 billion. For fiscal year 1957, however, the administration requested a $2 billion increase in military assistance along with a $200 million increase in nonmilitary assistance. Eisenhower earmarked the bulk of the $1.9 billion in nonmilitary assistance for use in Asia. In addition, the administration asked that Congress commit to fund these assistance programs for more than one or two years.112 This approach was opposed not only by the remaining isolationists, such as Senator Knowland, but by the broader anticommunist faction, such as the new
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chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard Russell (DGA). Instead of the comprehensive aid package Eisenhower proposed, Congress refused to appropriate funds that appeared to make a permanent commitment to these countries, especially if it placed the United States in competition with the Soviets to provide economic assistance. Congress also steered the program away from aid to “neutrals” in the struggle against communism. More important, unlike free-trade measures, opponents to foreign aid could again target the “inconsistency” of spending more on foreign aid to fight communism while the administration dismantled barriers to East-West trade. A hint of the difficulties facing any further relaxation of export controls came in January 1955. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Secretary of Defense Wilson, a consistent opponent of loosening trade controls, stated that he favored an increase in nonstrategic trade with Russia.113 As both the NSC and the CFEP had set up groups to examine the issue of East-West trade that month, this statement seemed to signify that the administration would press for more reforms.114 The virulent anticommunist Rep. William E. Jenner (R-IN) responded by accusing the administration of using Wilson as “window dressing to impress Congress.”115 The negative response to these remarks prompted Eisenhower to say that the testimony did not have his “considered approval.”116 At the same time, Stassen and Assistant Secretary of State Anderson drafted a report to the CFEP suggesting that the administration in fact had agreed to “encourage non-strategic trade with the Soviet bloc.”117 The emergence of new leadership in the Soviet Union (especially the elevation of Nikita Khrushchev) in February 1955 complicated matters significantly. In a letter to Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Armory, Jr., CFEP Chair Dodge expressed the belief that an increase in the Soviet military budget and the funding for heavy industry meant that more Soviet resources would go to war production. Dodge believed that the Soviets would try to use Western goods to compensate for shortages that would result from this shift in resources. Consequently, any exports, strategic or nonstrategic, in effect would bolster Soviet war potential. Armory agreed with this position, suggesting that the United States might exchange a reduction in the controls on trade with China for tighter restraints on trade with the Soviet bloc. In other words, Wilson, Weeks, and other cabinet dissidents might get unexpected support from Dodge for even more stringent export controls. In March 1955, the Steering Committee of the CFER reported its preliminary findings to the NSC. Instead of easing controls, the “Interim Report on the Review of Economic Defense Policy” argued that the United States should try to maintain the status quo in both COCOM and CHINCOM.118 The authors asserted that the “bloc-as-a-whole” model (i.e., treating communism as a mono-
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lith), the “many and diverse views” in the government on what is wrong with export controls and how to remedy those ills, and the confused criteria for selecting strategic items all required a much more time-consuming and comprehensive policy review than had been undertaken thus far.119 The report concludes, with the pressures for liberalization in temporary abeyance, that the administration take the time to develop a new rationale for security trade controls. Meanwhile, the administration should reaffirm existing policy directives to avoid the appearance of conflict in the executive branch when appearing before Congress. Too much division in the administration would invite Congress to formulate “rigid and insensitive” policies of its own.120 In other words, the administration wished to avoid embarrassing episodes like those that had occured two months earlier. In April, the CFEP created a task force to begin this comprehensive review. Before its deadline of June 30, the group compiled eighteen studies and returned a draft report and policy statement to the head of the task force, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Thorsten J. Klijarvi.121 Passed on to Dodge on July 12, the principal recommendations of the report merely called for more of the same, with the exception that: (b) The U.S. should refrain from officially encouraging “non-strategic” trade with the European Soviet bloc, but should approve shipments from the U.S. to Eastern Europe of such commodities (including agricultural products) when U.S. unilateral controls would not be effective.122
Dodge chose not to release the report and recommendations at the time, particularly as it might affect the Geneva Heads of Government meeting that would begin a few days later. For that July 18–23 meeting, the administration remained divided over whether the United States should adopt a more liberal East-West trade policy.123 The majority believed that the United States should encourage East-West trade, contingent on Soviet willingness to do the same. A minority view, reflected in a proposal by the Defense Department, suggested that any increase in nonstrategic trade should be contingent on Soviet concessions on issues other than trade (i.e., military, political, and diplomatic sources of tension between the Soviet bloc and the free world). Though Eisenhower sided with the majority, he agreed that the more liberal trade policy should apply only when trade specifically advanced U.S. interests. Admiral Radford expressed a view that the Soviets wanted only to obtain items that would contribute to their war potential, which might differ from what the delegates might identify as strategic. The president revealed some of his frustration with the East-West trade issue:
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The President observed that the topic of East-West trade seemed to him to arise at nearly every meeting of the National Security Council; hence the U.S. delegation to Geneva would be very familiar indeed with the views of the Council and there was not the slightest danger of making a mistake in this area, although in the area of East-West trade we might find ourselves on one side of the argument while our allies and the Soviets were on the other.124
Moreover, Eisenhower admonished Stassen for attempting to undermine the role of the CFER in advising the Geneva delegations on East-West trade policy. Eisenhower believed that the CFER, with help from Defense and the CIA, “was the best instrumentality for formulating U.S. policy in this field.”125 In the end, the Heads of Government did not specifically discuss the subject of East-West trade. Eisenhower, Prime Minister Eden, and Council of Ministers Chair Bulganin, however, released statements on “The Development of Economic and Cultural Contacts Between East and West,” which many took as a sign that the administration would continue to relax controls on nonstrategic trade.126 The CFER task force clearly linked any future liberalization of strategic items with substantive concessions by the Soviets in or out of the trade arena, including “the fields of security or East-West political relations.”127 The United States should not demand additional Soviet concessions, however, as a precondition for more trade in nonstrategic goods. Instead, the administration should favor trade, participation in Soviet trade fairs, and agricultural barter deals for strategic materials. The task force also called on the Commerce Department to phase out the need for individual validated licenses for such trade, and to operate on a presumption of approval in borderline cases. The CFER accepted the report, but asked for some changes. They directed the task force to redraft the tone of the section that says the United States “actively favors” peaceful trade with the Soviet bloc, replacing it with slightly less positive language.
a b r i t i s h s u r p r i s e, r e du x After the Foreign Ministers Meeting of the Geneva Four-Power Negotiations in late October, administration officials said they would continue with plans to relax controls on nonstrategic trade to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Though the Geneva meeting did little to relieve East-West tensions, U.S. officials believed the symbolic value of relaxing some trade controls in the “spirit of Geneva” would reduce pressures for deeper cuts from U.S. allies.128 Within weeks, however, this rosy view turned gloomy.
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In response to U.S. entreaties to maintain the more restrictive controls of CHINCOM, British authorities said that they intended “by a gradual unobtrusive process, and over a period, to bring the United Kingdom list for China into conformity with the agreed list for the Soviet bloc.”129 Administration officials also heard about the problems that bilateral U.S.-Japanese arrangements and the CHINCOM system created for the Japanese economy. Consequently, Dulles informed Eisenhower that the United States should “accept a graduated reduction to China controls” to avoid complete collapse of the multilateral control system.130 After months of reviews, studies, and reports, presidential policy on export controls now headed for a major clash with proponents of stringent trade controls. Senator Carl T. Curtis (D-NE), for example, threatened more trouble for the administration if efforts to garner multilateral support for U.S. trade control objectives failed. Moreover, some problems would come from within the administration. In an advance copy of an intelligence estimate regarding the impact of the U.K. proposals to Secretary of Defense Wilson, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Radford expressed profound concern with the military implications, in particular its symbolic aspects, if the United States adopted or condoned the British proposals. Radford argues that “our friends and allies of the Far East, together with the world as a whole, would view this as prima facie evidence that this government is retreating under Communist pressure.”131 Radford went on to warn of a rapid deterioration of friendly military forces in the Far East and the large-scale transfer of allegiance of local actors to communism.132 Radford even predicted “a serious political upheaval within the United States.”133 Beyond maintaining a strong deterrent force, NATO, and the other security institutions, the administration had discarded most military options in its struggle against the Soviet Union with NSC 162. Despite its general frustration with export control policy, the administration had few other weapons in its policy arsenal to show displeasure with Soviet actions. The administration continued to face considerable pressure from Congress to impose harsh sanctions on West European countries and Japan for their more liberal trade policies. Through 1955, however, Congress had little leverage over the highly popular president on East-West trade matters. Assistance to these countries continued to decline, and administration assistance programs functioned without the need for serious legislative reform. When Eisenhower shifted the focus of the foreign aid program to anticommunism in the developing world, however, the president gave congressional opponents an inconsistency to exploit. These opponents then had sufficient leverage to force the administration into a desperate position.
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t h e m c c l e l l a n c om m i t t e e i n v e s t i g at i on Before his January 1956 meeting with Prime Minister Eden, the NSC directed the CFER to produce position papers on China trade controls. The CFER recommended that Eisenhower oppose any changes in existing multilateral controls on China. If the entire control system seemed in jeopardy, however, Eisenhower should agree to “minimum reductions” that might benefit Japan and a few others the most.134 For that scenario, they selected nineteen items for possible deletion from the lists.135 Though most NSC members accepted this report, they remained confused about the rationale behind the British request. Secretary of Commerce Weeks, for example, thought that the British economy was operating at full capacity, so it could not supply Chinese demands, while the Chinese had nothing the British wanted. During the visit by Prime Minister Eden, the administration relented to the British position, with the proviso that any action to relax controls must be gradual. Secretary Dulles urged Eden and Eisenhower not to make this decision look like a change in policy. To deflect public criticism, Eisenhower suggested announcing that experts would review what to do within current policy to help the free world. Then they could tell the public to see “what the technicians say to this.”136 They made March 1 the due date for the report. At the same time, Eisenhower repeatedly complained about the absence of a short document on whether trade with the Soviet bloc brought a net economic advantage or disadvantage to the United States. Soon thereafter, Dodge supplied a document prepared by the CIA on this subject. The CIA found that the complete elimination of controls would increase free world exports annually by $350 million, including $150 million from the removal of trade controls on China.137 The report concluded, “Such an increase is too small to be of significant economic benefit to the Free World as a whole; although to a number of business firms, particularly in Japan, this improvement in trade would be important [italics in original].”138 The ruse of an expert study for a technical policy fix did not fool many. Spurred on by this announcement, the chair of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, John McClellan (D-AR), organized hearings on the 1954 revisions to the Battle Act and International Lists. McClellan claimed to have received damaging information about increased exports of strategic items to the Soviet bloc in the wake of the 1954 liberalization of multilateral export controls. The subcommittee held two public hearings (on February 15 and March 29, 1956). At the hearings, John H. Williams, a Defense Department specialist in machine tools, claimed that the new controls allowed the export of machine tools that had mainly military applications. According to Williams, these tools allowed the Soviets to surpass the United States in arms production.139
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This and other charges put the administration on the defensive. In a March 7 news conference, Eisenhower once again defended liberalization of export controls. Here Eisenhower referred to the important role that East-West trade played for U.S. allies (contrary to the CIA brief). In testimony before McClellan, former FOA Director Stassen asserted that the administration had relaxed controls only when such an action became necessary to preserve the Western alliance. Stassen also argued that liberalization had done no real harm, which raised questions about the nature of the export control system itself. The McClellan committee requested more information about the controls and the nature of the U.S. role in the multilateral system. Administration officials refused, invoking both national security and executive privilege. This action moved the status of the hearings from a dispute about export controls to a larger debate about the relationship between Congress and the executive branch, attracting even more attention to the investigation. Regarding the March 1 report and any decisions made in the Consultative Group, CFER Chair Dodge warned administration officials on February 29 “that too hasty or ill-considered action could be used to embarrass the Government program of assistance to other nations, not yet approved by Congress.”140 As evidence of this problem, Dodge specifically referred to a speech on the Senate floor by Senator McClellan on February 23 about the subcommittee investigation and the sympathetic discussion by Senator Russell and others that followed. Undersecretary of State Hoover circulated a memorandum about the subcommittee investigation on April 2. In the memorandum, Hoover explains that most subcommittee members (i.e., McClellan, McCarthy, Jackson, and Symington) believed that U.S. allies have shipped strategic items to the Soviet bloc, that the United States did not bargain hard enough in opposing the 1954 changes, and that the administration was trying to keep these aspects from the public by not releasing the information. Hoover states that “[u]nless secrecy is abandoned, and all the facts are made public, the members will actively oppose foreign aid on the grounds that it is being used by our allies, who, in turn, are building up the Russian war potential.”141 The minority view, in a display of partisan support, included longtime export control advocate Karl Mundt. That view did not assuage the growing rift between the administration and Congress. Among Consultative Group members, however, frustration with U.S. intransigence toward CHINCOM reform continued to grow. In February, the British repeatedly asked for a date for the next Consultative Group meeting. In March, the British decided to export a large number of tractors to China, while also rebutting U.S. objections to a shipment of laboratory chemicals.142 Besides shipping iron, steel, and tin, the French exchanged trade representatives with the government in Beijing. The Danish, Japanese, and German delegations to CHINCOM
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expressed their views that the controls now exceeded their original objective. The Dutch and Portuguese joined in the call for a reduction of CHINCOM controls to COCOM levels, while Belgium, Canada, Italy, and Norway favored more modest liberalization. This left only Greece and Turkey squarely behind the United States, an untenable position.143 Eisenhower continued to press his belief in NSC discussions that the United States should liberalize East-West trade. In early April 1956, Eisenhower suggested the allies decontrol everything except a few vital commodities.144 This brought a sharp response from Admiral Radford that the U.S. list contained nothing but strategic items now. Similarly, Secretary of Defense Wilson emphasized that the Department was “emotional” on these issues and had real concerns over allied trade with the Soviets in copper and electronics machinery. Eisenhower persisted, suggesting that with the passing of the McCarthy hysteria the administration should take “a fresh look at the wisdom of this restrictive legislation.”145 They might even use troublesome U.S. agricultural surpluses as “economic ammunition.”146 Wilson and Radford rebutted this argument, saying that the Soviets would not barter strategic materials for food and that such a policy was inconsistent with our multilateral efforts. Finally, Eisenhower said that everyone was too concerned about the politically motivated Congress and repeated his preference for a “new look” at U.S. export control policy. Despite this optimism, Eisenhower privately suggested that while the administration “had too long been influenced by the McCarthy line,” the Permanent Subcommittee would give the administration “a hard time.”147 By mid-April, Secretary Dulles complained that much of the trouble came from midlevel Defense Department witnesses and partisan subcommittee members. Undersecretary Hoover advised Eisenhower not “to engage in a formal high-level negotiation looking toward a lowering of controls on strategic items under these circumstances.”148 The president reluctantly agreed and instructed Dulles to tell the British. Dulles wrote Foreign Minister Lloyd: There are, I fear, political overtones and appreciable danger that a Congress which finds foreign aid particularly distasteful this election year might try to find in this a reason either for truncating the entire program or for attaching conditions which would seek to penalize heavily any trade with the Soviet or Chinese Communist bloc in whatever Congress might define as strategic goods. I can assure you that this danger is not imaginary.149
Following a conservative proposal developed by the Departments of Defense and Treasury (with which Commerce Secretary Weeks concurred), Dodge rec-
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ommended the administration consider a limited degree of relaxation toward China, though only after they had secured the foreign assistance program. While the administration had released information on actual East-West trade, it withheld the technical description of the items on the list. It is not clear if the administration also withheld the information that exception procedures permitted exports of more than two-thirds of the CHINCOM items and four-fifths of the COCOM items. Though the CHINCOM procedure was stricter than that of COCOM, the process still allowed members to license exports of some controlled items case by case without prior consultation with other countries in CHINCOM. The lists may have included technical specifications for when items were eligible for various administration exceptions (as they eventually did). Withholding the lists would prevent opponents to liberalization from understanding exactly what countries could (or could not) export. While refusing to release information hurt the legislative causes of the administration, Eisenhower thought letting it go would do more damage to the alliance. Eisenhower concluded “whatever we did we could not jeopardize the multilateral controls system,” and suggested that the administration inform McClellan about their forthcoming proposals.150 Vice President Nixon, who rarely spoke on these matters in the NSC, agreed, but said he had “distaste” for telling McClellan and, especially, Symington what was going to happen. Nixon also provided several precise assessments of how different elements of Congress and the public would respond. Nixon assured the NSC that relaxing controls on China trade would not undermine other administration legislative and electoral objectives. The administration also began reversing its accommodation with the British proposals in other ways. Secretary of Commerce Weeks, in testimony before the McClellan subcommittee, revealed his fear that trade was transferring technology to Moscow. Subsequently, Weeks denied a license to Dresser Industries for technical data on drill bits, which the Soviets would repay by providing a Soviet turbo drill. Weeks also canceled plans for decontrolling a long list of items from the Commodity Control List.151 On June 11, the House approved $3.6 billion in assistance with the Mutual Security Act of 1956 (HR 11356), much less than the $4.67 billion Eisenhower requested. The act enjoyed support from a large bipartisan majority. The Senate version called for around $4.4 billion in appropriations. In conference, the two bodies compromised roughly midway between the two figures. Each side then cut the figure again, resulting in a congressional appropriation of $3.8 billion for fiscal year 1957. While this was a half-billion dollars more than authorized in 1956, the act eliminated the Asian Economic Development Fund and new funds proposed for Africa and the Middle East. It also changed most of the development assistance from grants to loans, and banned new funds for military equipment for Yugoslavia.
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In early July, a British request to sell one hundred Land Rovers to China, and to make the CHINCOM exceptions procedure less rigorous, further tested the administration. In the midst of an effort to get Congress to approve supplemental funds for the Mutual Security program though foreign aid appropriations, State Department officials decided to oppose these proposals. To the State Department, acquiescence would produce a “hue and cry” in Congress and hurt the foreign assistance program.152 Similarly, the July CFER review of economic defense policy concluded that the United States should maintain its current China trade policy and postpone another Consultative Group meeting until the end of the year, if possible.153 The report specifically identifies the increased attention Congress, especially the McClellan committee, had paid this issue. Administration officials also believed that the public supported a “China differential.” Simply put, relaxing controls, though the president and U.S. allies preferred it, was too politically volatile. It would have to wait. Senator McClellan filed the majority report with of the subcommittee on July 20, supported by Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Stuart Symington, and Sam Ervin. The report denounced the administration on several counts, from disregarding the intent of Congress in liberalizing nearly 200 items to keeping secret “the fact that foreign nations receiving aid from the American taxpayers are in turn helping the Communists to arm themselves against the United States and the free world.” In a strict sense, the report was accurate. Between January 24, 1952, and December 31, 1956, the executive branch issued determinations to continue assistance in twenty-nine cases for seven COCOM members exporting items on the Battle Act Lists to the Soviet bloc. In the end, the executive used the sanctions but once. In 1952, the United States imposed sanctions on Ceylon for exporting rubber to China in exchange for rice, even though the United States provided no aid to Ceylon at the time. Even this ended after 1956, when Britain, Malaysia, and Singapore refused to continue to embargo rubber exports to China.154 In what must have been one of those rare but wholly satisfying moments of political irony, outspoken anticommunists Karl Mundt and George Bender (ROH) penned a minority report blasting the Democrats and calling the majority report distorted and oversimplified. Only a few years earlier Mundt had led the fight for mandatory sanctions on U.S. allies that exported strategic goods to the Soviet bloc. Only months earlier Bender had introduced a measure to ban all imports from communist countries. In the end, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs removed planks from the Foreign Aid Appropriations that would have mandated the imposition of sanctions under the Battle Act. On July 20, the Foreign Aid Appropriations (HR 12130) to supplement funds for the mutual security program passed the House. The Senate, however, barely rejected
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three attempts to limit an increase in the military assistance portion of the House bill from $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion. Though the final bill won by 11 votes (50 –39), one of the amendments proposed by Louisiana Democrat Ellender failed only by two votes (42 – 44). While most of the anticommunist advocates, such as McCarthy, McClellan, Jenner, and Symington voted against the increase, a few voted to support the administration. Not only did Knowland (who had once called on Eisenhower to blockade China) and Millikin do so, but so did Mundt and Bender. If the United States or its CHINCOM partners had revealed their intent to remove the China differential, it seems likely that this would not have happened. Delaying relaxation of U.S. and international controls on trade with China almost certainly was a factor that made supporting the increase in foreign assistance easier.
c on c l u s i on Despite repetitive sermons on the inadequacies of export controls, Eisenhower did not persuade the NSC to adopt bold reforms in export controls. Although never at the top of the foreign policy agenda, export controls were not a minor matter during the Eisenhower administration; they consumed considerable resources and caused frequent consternation. The details and complexity of the issues often escaped Eisenhower, reducing his capacity to guide the debate within the administration and fend off attacks from political entrepreneurs.155 The administration, for example, found it difficult to develop a strong counterproposal to the increasingly vociferous demands for removing the China differential. Arguably, this meant that Great Britain replaced the United States as the leader of CHINCOM. In the interim, the administration relied on the exception procedures to reduce the stress on the control system. The use of exceptions quickly increased in scope, and alleged abuses of the procedure became more flagrant. This behavior, and the perceptions associated with it, seemed likely to undermine the effectiveness of the CHINCOM system, which would reduce support for COCOM. This might generate a vicious cycle of exceptions in one system undermining control in another until both collapsed. The CHINCOM participants finally met to consider adjusting the control system in May 1957. A French proposal for virtual elimination of the China differential received overwhelming support against the more modest reform proposed by the United States. In June 1957, after an abortive compromise attempt by Germany, the British and French governments informed the United States that they would begin trade with China. Administration officials recognized that by not accepting a compromise in 1956, they now must try to avoid a collapse of
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the entire COCOM/CHINCOM system. Once again, the administration reassessed export control policy. Officials concluded that COCOM must focus on better enforcement of controls on the dual-use items most inherently strategic. In addition, the United States tried to emphasize the military strategic implications of list changes (rather than the economic, political, and diplomatic implications that had dominated previous negotiations), and try to get COCOM members to apply existing controls to China, North Korea, and Vietnam. In a new statement of policy, NSC 5704, issued in March 1957, the administration concluded that the United States should maintain unilateral controls that would support other policies or “fulfill U.S. legislative requirements.”156 The intensification of multilateral efforts, however, was “impractical,” though changes in strategic technologies and other security concerns might justify extensions or reductions in controls.157 Rarely discussed in personal memoirs and biographies, export controls and East-West trade were frequent, almost omnipresent topics in NSC meetings. Controls were a constant source of chagrin for the president and other cabinet officials. Council on Foreign Economic Policy Chair Randall told Secretary Dulles, for example, that East-West trade “was one of the most difficult problems I have had to handle.”158 Again and again, the frustration with export controls surfaced in NSC discussions. One exchange in a February 1958 NSC meeting related to another British request to shed items from the control lists illustrates the particular irritation Eisenhower felt regarding controls. Secretary of State Dulles supported the tenor of the British proposal as he doubted that the controls affected the Soviet Union.159 President Eisenhower said that this was the first time in his tenure that someone supported his views on trade controls toward the Soviet bloc, which he felt were mostly “damned silly practices.”160 According to the record, laughter ensued. If the impetus for the U.S. initiative to promote stricter export controls came from temporary needs to gain support for the Truman doctrine and the Marshall Plan, then why did the United States continue the policy once the immediate cause abated? Though the number of items on the Battle Act list, similar to the combined COCOM lists, declined from 297 to 217 in 1954, U.S. unilateral export controls covered more items and many U.S. officials opposed any liberalization in COCOM and CHINCOM controls throughout the decade. The United States also pressed and won international agreement to develop a more extensive enforcement system. The political value of a “no business-as-usual” policy on exports to communist countries held sway for many years. Lurid tales of espionage and greed, especially regarding the reexport of U.S. goods, were common.161 The political opportunities of attacking trade with the Soviets were ripe, and made for unusual
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political coalitions (see table 4.2). Democrat Robert Kennedy first attained national prominence, for example, by helping Senator McCarthy embarrass the Eisenhower administration over its trade policy with Soviet bloc countries.162 President Eisenhower, though personally popular, was not in a strong domestic strategic political position. Republicans controlled Congress only from 1953 to 1955, and even then the majority was small (ten seats in the House and one seat in the Senate). The issue of East-West trade divided the bureaucracy, which was still reeling from the McCarthy purges. Though farm groups occasionally called for a relaxation of trade in agricultural goods, commercial interests rarely lobbied publicly against export controls on dual-use items. Where conservative opponents of President Eisenhower and his internationalist policies were unable to use export control policy to attack the grand strategy of “trade not aid,” however, they were able to exploit concerns over export controls to assault core elements of the “trade and aid” strategy. After the 1959 review of COCOM controls, the number of items overall changed very little through the late 1970s. COCOM members deleted a few items from the list in every review, while they defined others more liberally. COCOM members also added items or strengthened controls regularly for the next thirty years. These changes recognized the increasing importance of critical civilian technologies with military applications.163 As late as the 1960s, nonetheless, popular opposition to trade with the Soviets would remain fierce enough to prompt President Johnson to write an open letter defending companies interested in conducting East-West trade. The United States began to liberalize export controls to communist countries in the late 1960s, as the costs of export controls increased and became ever more diffuse. Even with the Export Administration Act of 1969, U.S. East-West trade practices bore little semblance to typical commercial policy. Political entrepreneurs continued to use the Soviet threat to great effect, as best witnessed by Ronald Reagan’s campaign for the presidency. It was not until the early 1990s, after the demise of Soviet communism, that large majorities emerged in Congress and elsewhere to bring to an end to the controls established at the beginning of the Cold War.
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Before August 2, 1990, U.S. policy toward Iraq rested on an assumption that Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime . . . could be molded into a force for moderation in the Middle East via U.S. encouragement, credits, and technology transfer. —Jeffrey Record, Hollow Victory: A Contrary View of the Gulf War
d i rt y n e e d l e s n the waning years of the Reagan administration, Steven Bryen served as deputy undersecretary of Defense for trade security and director of the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA). In September 1990 testimony before Congress, Bryen recalled that in June 1988, the administration received a request from a Maryland company for an advisory opinion regarding an export license for 500,000 to 1,000,000 injectors for atropine for the Iraqi army. (Atropine is an antidote for tabin and sarin nerve gases.) According to Bryen, it took him three months to persuade officials at State and Defense, who saw this as a defensive and humanitarian measure, not to support the application. Bryen had to point out that Iraq was the only country in the region with these nerve agents. Coupled with Iraqi use of chemical weapons, the injectors would
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simply allow Iraq to increase its reliance on its arsenal of chemical weapons in both offense and defense. Bryen concluded his remarks by noting that the same company sold 400,000 injector atropine kits to the U.S. Army in early September 1990 to counteract the potential threat posed by Iraqi weapons.1 After forty years of export controls premised on the containment of Soviet power, the end of the Cold War, much as the beginning, marked an era of uncertainty about the very basis of presidential export control policy and U.S. grand strategy. Preoccupied by the transition to democracy in the formerly communist states in Eastern Europe and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union itself, “the vision thing” (i.e., the apparent lack of a coherent and compelling rationale to guide U.S. foreign policy into the next century) plagued the Bush administration. In some ways, the criticism was unfair. Democratic countries may need to be conditioned by circumstances before they accept changes in strategy that the words “leadership” and “vision” imply. Surely, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait acted as a catalytic conditioner for both the U.S. public and for the Bush administration in developing a grand strategy to replace containment. This chapter tracks the Bush administration’s efforts to refocus export controls away from a system based on anticommunist objectives toward one based on nonproliferation. The first sections of the chapter examine some of the pressures for reforming containment-based controls and the search for a new grand strategy that emerged as the Cold War reached its conclusion. The next section explores how and why the Bush administration began to champion nonproliferation (and related export controls systems) in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The final sections detail the changes in presidential export control policy that stemmed from the new grand strategy and the implications for creating new national and multilateral export control arrangements.
p r e s s u r e s f or e x p ort c on t rol r e f or m Over time, seeking military security through restricting the transfer of U.S. high-technology items appeared increasingly at odds with achieving economic security through more exports. This was especially true for trade in high-technology items where the United States had many competitive advantages. The 1976 study by the Defense Science Board Task Force on the Export of U.S. Technology (An Analysis of Export Control of U.S. Technology—A DoD Perspective, also known as the Bucy Report), for instance, argued that U.S. export controls should focus on critical technologies and regulation of the more efficient means of technology transfer.2 The Export Administration Act of 1979 made some reforms as recommended in the Bucy Report and other studies. This proved less
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than satisfactory to most parties, however, and pressures for reform continued throughout the 1980s.3 Subsequent studies also emphasized the need for reform, particularly the influential 1987 study Balancing the National Interest (also known as the Allen Report). The Allen Report concluded that U.S. controls were not “rational, credible, and predictable,” and that the licensing and enforcement process produced “conflict, confusion, and unbalanced policy.”4 The Allen Report again urged that controls focus narrowly on key technologies.5 It also questioned the value of unilateral controls, urging that licensing decisions grant more weight to economic security and foreign availability considerations.6 The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 included some reforms, such as providing the legislative mandate to eliminate more than a dozen unilateral U.S. export controls and improved assessment of foreign availability. Nonetheless, many critics still saw the licensing process as a cumbersome burden on the competitive vigor of U.S. industry.7 Despite the dramatic political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the Bush administration did not ease its opposition to a massive liberalization of containment-based export controls until February of 1990. Then, officials from Commerce, Defense, and State told a House Foreign Affairs International Economic Policy subcommittee that they helped “to expedite consideration of export applications and to reduce substantially the list of goods prohibited for sale to Eastern Europe,” especially in computers.8 Even then, the administration representatives seemed hesitant to abandon conventional U.S. grand strategy, as they emphasized that the Soviet Union remained a significant strategic threat.9 Congress continued to press for reform. In March hearings before the Senate International Finance and Monetary Policy subcommittee, for example, the subcommittee chair chided the administration for not keeping pace with the changing times.10 Shortly before the June 1990 COCOM meeting, the House passed its version of new export control legislation (HR 4643) by a vote of 312-86.11 They designed the bill to “end restrictions on exports that were widely available or of little or no consequence to foreign military aims.”12 The bill also limited the role of the Defense Department in reviews of dual-use licenses.13 Nearly all of the discussion in committees and on the floor focused on guiding the old system of anticommunism export controls to an end. Some critics of the measure characterized it as the “Soviet Military Relief Act.”14 The Senate Banking Committee reported favorably on its version of the bill (SR 2927) on July 17, 1990. As with the House measure, SR 2927 would have reduced substantially the scope of the existing export control system. The administration preferred the Senate bill since it more closely paralleled the changes in COCOM.15
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In the summer of 1990, the United States finally appeared ready to abandon anti-Soviet containment as the basis for export controls. Critics pestered the Bush administration to formulate a new rationale for export controls, but none emerged. As some pundits pondered “the end of history,” concerns about another military threat, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, became ever more prominent.
u. s. a n d m u lt i l at e r a l non p rol i f e r at i on e x p ort c on t rol s b e f or e au g u s t 1 9 9 0 Nuclear Nonproliferation The spread of nuclear weapons capabilities dominates most discussions of nonproliferation. For many years, the United States controlled a few dual-use items using nonproliferation as its rationale. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Section 123(d), for example, restricted the export of naval nuclear propulsion items, but not nuclear propulsion systems for civil maritime use. Not until February of 1965, in the wake of the ratification of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, did the Department of Commerce make those items subject to export controls. After nearly a decade of negotiation, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and many other countries agreed to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons on July 1, 1968. At first, the negotiations centered on curbing proliferation of nuclear weapons among advanced industrial states, including Germany, Japan and Sweden, and the enlargement of existing stockpiles of nuclear arms, particularly the United States and the Soviet Union. By its conclusion, the treaty negotiations also addressed the issues of proliferation among more impoverished nations. With a few exceptions, however, such as briefly restricting computer exports to France in 1964, United States export controls on nuclear and dual-use nuclear items remained firmly targeted against the Soviets and Chinese for most of the Cold War.16 This situation began to change in 1976, when Sen. Stuart Symington (D-MO) sponsored legislation that required the president to halt economic and military assistance to any country that received or supplied items for uranium enrichment or plutonium extraction programs unless the programs were under IAEA safeguards. President Carter invoked the Symington amendment to cut aid to Pakistan, though Congress gave the president new authority to waive this requirement after Russia invaded Afghanistan. With additional legislation by Senator Glenn that separated the issues of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, these amendments incorporated nonproliferation objectives into the legisla-
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tive basis for U.S. grand strategy, such as the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 (NNPA) then clarified and strengthened U.S. nonproliferation aims by requiring full-scope safeguards on entire national nuclear programs for countries importing U.S. nuclear items. The two most significant pieces of U.S. nonproliferation legislation in the 1980s were the Pressler and Solarz amendments, named after the respective sponsors, Larry Pressler (R-SD) and Stephen Solarz (D-NY).17 Passed in 1985, the Pressler amendment required a written presidential determination that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons for the continuation of U.S. aid. Presidents Reagan and Bush delivered these determinations until 1990, when the Bush administration acknowledged it could not certify that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons. The Solarz amendment, also passed in 1985, required the president to stop U.S. economic and military assistance to any country that exported (or attempted to export) nuclear items, in contravention of their legally binding commitments, that enabled another country to acquire a nuclear device. At first, the United States coordinated its nonproliferation efforts with other countries in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), created in 1957. Under article III(2)(b) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which would require the acceptance and application of IAEA safeguards, the Nuclear Exporters Committee (the Zangger Committee) created a trigger list of items between 1972 and 1974, though these did not dictate controls on non-NPT signatories and other matters.18 When India exploded a “peaceful” nuclear device on May 18, 1974, coupled with information about Western assistance to nuclear programs in Brazil and Pakistan, the NPT depository states (Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union) went into consultation in response to an initiative by President Ford.19 From this start the Nuclear Suppliers Group evolved, which included Canada, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.20 In eight meetings in London from November 1975 to late 1977, the Nuclear Suppliers Group members developed guidelines for the transfer of strictly nuclear-use items, which the IAEA published in January 1978. With the NNPA of 1978, the United States also unilaterally controlled seventy dual-use items on its Nuclear Referral List for reasons of nonproliferation. Allegedly, officials discussed at meetings at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the need for multilateral cooperation to restrict these items, but the governments made little progress. The suppliers group created norms and rules of conduct for the export of sensitive nuclear items.21 In their original form, the guidelines called for any re-
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cipient state to pledge not to use controlled items in the manufacture of nuclear explosives, to accept safeguards, to keep the items secure, and to prevent reexport of the concurrence of the original supplier government.22 While the rules of the IAEA and the Zangger Committee did not restrict transfers to non-NPT states, the members of the suppliers group clearly wanted to prevent another “peaceful” nuclear explosion.23 The original guidelines addressed additional exports beyond those found on the Zangger Committee trigger list, including a few dual-use fuel-cycle technologies involving enrichment and reprocessing. Like the Zangger list, the Nuclear Supplier Group trigger list had two parts: Part A, which covers material and equipment (including source or special fissionable material), reactors and equipment, and nonnuclear material for reactors; and Part B, which includes technical data.24 While the group published no lists of countries or projects of concern, activities in Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, India, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, and Taiwan attracted attention. No formal Nuclear Supplier Group meetings took place from 1978 to 1991. Though several informal dinners and other gatherings (e.g., the “Bratislava Club”) took place, members avoided more formal meetings, allegedly to prevent negotiating over controls on more dual-use items. While France and Germany opposed such controls for commercial reasons, others believed such a discriminatory system would create the suspicion that the North meant to deny the South key technologies. France, Germany, and Japan also did not agree to a British-Soviet proposal to require full-scope safeguards for nuclear exports.25 Though often described as moribund in the 1980s, many supplier states did agree to adopt Nuclear Supplier Group guidelines in the years before the Gulf War.
Nonproliferation of Chemical and Biological Weapons Culminating more than two decades of international discussion, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 Prohibiting the Use in War of Poisonous Bases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare committed signatories to no first use of these weapons.26 Though used in many conflicts since then, the United States showed little interest in the proliferation aspects of these weapons in the 1960s and 1970s. In essence, U.S. officials believed that modern chemical warfare had limited tactical appeal, inhibiting the demand for these weapons. The negotiations placed some attention on the stockpile of chemical and biological weapons controlled by the superpowers, but officials made slow progress on the issue. Without appropriate export control policies in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States had little call for multilateral coordination (nor did other states pursue such initiatives) in stemming the
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proliferation of chemical and biological weapons or missile systems. In 1987, the United States even started producing chemical weapons for the first time since 1969.27 In the 1980s, U.S. and multilateral controls on chemical weapons precursors and other dual-use chemical items developed rapidly, largely because of the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. In 1984, the U.S. Department of Commerce, for example, started controlling chemical exports useful in the production of chemical weapons for reasons of “foreign policy” (rather than the containment-based “national security” rationale).28 By February 1989, the U.S. government imposed foreign policy controls on exports of forty chemicals (twenty-three of which the United States had controlled unilaterally under national security controls). Simultaneously, the United States placed foreign policy controls on several types of biological organisms with military potential. An Australian initiative to the nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development resulted in June 1985 negotiations among fifteen major supplier countries to control the export of chemical weapons precursors.29 By 1990, the Australia Group had enlisted twenty members: the twelve members of the European Community, Australia, Austria, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States. The Australia Group essentially opened its membership to any nation seeking to stop the flow of chemical weapons, and has not tried to develop a set of nonmember “adherent” states.30 In its semiannual meetings in Paris, Australia Group discussions focused on four activities: collecting intelligence on chemical weapons in developing countries; industry cooperation to identify suspicious transactions in the developing world; identification of chemical weapons precursors to restrict; and harmonization of export controls by member states.31 The most prominent output of the Australia Group came in the form of a list of dual-use chemicals that served as chemical weapons precursors. Originally, members agreed to restrict only nine items, though they placed forty-one on a warning list.32 Members have substantial discretion in the application of Australia Group guidelines. States, for example, need not report chemical exports, for the group only makes suggestions to its members on how to ensure that importers will use precursors solely for commercial purposes.33 Nor in its early years did Group members share information on license denials. The problem with exchanging this sort of trade data stemmed in part from the volume of trade involved, as many chemicals serve as precursors for very common products (such as plastics and pesticides) as well as poison gases. In any case, before the Gulf War few members of the Australia Group restricted all fifty items on the list of chemical weapons precursors.34 Licensing and enforcement of export controls on chemical items also varied considerably among members.
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Nonproliferation of Missiles Through much of the Cold War the United States exported missiles to its NATO allies.35 Outside of NATO, the United States also transferred missiles to Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan. Generally, it stopped exporting such items to nonNATO countries after the mid-1970s.36 Regarding the export of dual-use missile items, however, the United States had an even more expansive posture. The 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act, for instance, committed the newly created National Aeronautic and Space Administration to promote the transfer of space technology.37 Though the U.S. space industry raised concerns that U.S. assistance and the transfer of missile technology hurt national economic interests, controls on the transfer of dual-use missile technologies continued to focus on the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states. The test of the advanced Indian space launch vehicle (SLV-3) in 1980, however, pushed the Reagan administration to adopt NSD-70 in November 1982, which outlined a new multilateral approach to the transfer of missile technology. This began with informal U.S.-British talks in 1982.38 France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and the United States reached an interim agreement in 1985, but they did not promulgate the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) until April 1987, after two more years of talks to develop common guidelines on controls.39 Events in the 1980s, including the Iran-Iraq “War of the Cities,” the multilateral Condor II missile program, the Jericho IIb launch by Israel, and Chinese deliveries of missiles to Saudi Arabia, precipitated an agreement to conduct regular meetings and strengthen the regime.40 The perception of increasing proliferation also raised the number of adherents to the MTCR. By early 1990, membership in the MTCR had increased from the original five in 1985 to twelve (adding Australia, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain).41 The French acted as the permanent point of contact for group members. While they distributed the record of group meetings, the members had no true institutional home or secretariat. MTCR members initially sought to control the export of items for missile systems that could deliver a 500-kilogram warhead more than 300 kilometers, with a focus on nuclear weapons delivery.42 MTCR members developed guidelines for the transfer of missile technology, along with an annex listing eighteen technologies in two categories subject to control. Exports of Category I items, which include complete missile systems and missile subsystems, carry a presumption of denial. Nonetheless, exporters may ship these items with a certification of the peaceful end use and agreement from the recipient government on appropriate safeguards against diversion.43 Licenses for exports of Category II items, including computers and fifteen other items, do not have a presumption
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of denial, but still require end-use certification and other assurances. Most of the items in Categories I and II follow COCOM classifications, so they required individual validated licenses even among MTCR members in any case. The United States finally curtailed the export of U.S. space launch technology in October 1987 with NSDM-187.44 All the items under the MTCR already required a license for reasons of national security, but now the Department of Commerce could consider foreign policy issues — specifically nonproliferation — on a case-by-case basis as a rationale in licensing these items.45 Still, the Bush administration relaxed controls on project and distribution export licenses imposed for reasons of missile or nuclear proliferation in July 1990, though this did not apply to exports to Iraq and six other nations of proliferation concern.46 Multilateral controls on missile-related goods and technologies remained loose. One observer noted, “There are no provisions in the MTCR agreement that mandate or authorize a member government to apply sanctions against companies or other governments for shipping sensitive equipment to a country of proliferation concern.”47 Members did monitor states involved in missile-related trade and technology transfers, however, and they tried to extract their cooperation and compliance with the evolving export control norms.
t h e v i s i on t h i n g : g r a n d s t r at e g y a n d bu s h a d m i n i s t r at i on e x p ort c on t rol p ol i c y In inheriting the Reagan legacy, President Bush strove to keep U.S. foreign policy on the path outlined by his predecessor. Under President Reagan, anticommunism generally overwhelmed nonproliferation as a policy rationale in U.S. grand strategy. In recognition of the proliferation problem, the Reagan administration supported multilateral cooperation for some export controls, including the MTCR and the Australia Group. Under a 1985 directive, President Reagan authorized the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) to evaluate licenses in eight dual-use categories for fifteen free-world countries, a mandate that covered items and countries of proliferation concern. The Reagan administration, however, did not apply a universal standard to proliferation issues. For governments (and rebels) that opposed communism, the administration turned a blind eye to the progress of superweapons programs, sometimes defying both Congress and the spirit of our multilateral commitments in the process.48 The Commerce Department, for example, interpreted the 1985 directive to mean that DTSA could deny a license only when the potential to divert items to a destination on the existing list of proscribed countries was significant.49 Some critics even allege that the Reagan administration tacitly
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supported some programs, which undermined efforts to promote international nonproliferation norms.50 Members of Congress became particularly outspoken about Iraqi use of missiles and chemical weapons in the 1980s and the diffident response to these actions by the executive branch. Neither the Reagan nor the Bush administrations, for example, called for military action after Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and missiles during the vicious Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988). The Reagan administration removed Iraq from the list of terrorist nations in March 1982, approved the sale of sixty helicopters to Iraq in 1983, and restored full diplomatic relations with Iraq in November 1984.51 Overall U.S. trade with Iraq went from $571 million in 1983 to $3.6 billion in 1989.52 Though the United States mainly exported to Iraq agricultural goods, high-technology items also made their way into the stream of U.S.-Iraqi trade. As noted earlier, the United States approved hundreds of licenses for about $1.5 billion worth of controlled items in the late 1980s through July 1990.53 Iraq was one of fifteen “free-world” destinations DTSA could evaluate. Iranian military success in the Iran-Iraq war, however, drew the U.S. government ever closer to Iraq. While the new government in Iran was not communist, it openly challenged the United States, and, from the red-colored lenses of anticommunism, the Soviets would surely exploit this conflict to their advantage. Bringing another Arab state closer to the Western camp might also reduce tensions in the Arab-Israeli conflict, despite the fact that Iraq remained officially at war with Israel (from the time that Israel bombed a suspected nuclear weapons facility in Baghdad in 1981). While maintaining the overarching strategic objective of anticommunism, President Bush adopted the tactics that began to emerge late in the Reagan administration. As expressed in the national strategy reports mandated under the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department Reorganization Act, the Bush administration stepped back from the unilateral and often combative tactics favored under President Reagan. In the first report, President Bush put improving cooperation with U.S. allies at the top of the political agenda for U.S. security policy.54 Despite frequent exercise of his veto prerogative, President Bush believed in compromise, more so than his predecessor. As a former ambassador to the United Nations, President Bush also understood the necessity for multilateral support for effective international action. On a personal level, President Bush led through team play and accommodation. Nonetheless, nonproliferation issues bedeviled the Bush administration, particularly those regarding Iraq. Support for multilateral proliferation export controls in the first years of the administration was, in the words of one observer, “half-hearted.” 55 Former Secretary of State James Baker, for example, barely
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mentions nonproliferation in any context in his memoirs.56 Although the 1990 national security strategy report notes the importance of preventing the “transfer of military critical technologies and resources” related to weapons of mass destruction, deterring the Soviet Union and traditional arms control measures both held higher priority.57 Proliferation concerns warranted a single paragraph in the report, along with another on chemical weapons (which does not mention the Australia Group), in the defense agenda. The agencies primarily responsible for administering military and dual-use export controls, namely State, Defense, and Commerce, simply did not accord a high priority to nonproliferation export controls. In the appropriation reports and hearings for the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) for the years before the invasion of Kuwait, for instance, neither the questions nor the testimony specifically address nonproliferation even though BXA already controlled items for nonproliferation purposes.58
non p rol i f e r at i on, p ol i t i c a l e n t r e p r e n e u r s, a n d p ol i c y a dvo c at e s In contrast, moral entrepreneurs opposing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their associated technologies flourished in the 1980s. Advocates of nonproliferation have been around practically as long as the weapons, including some people originally instrumental in their development.59 Before the 1980s, the nuclear weapons of the superpowers dominated most of the discourse on weapons of mass destruction. This activity peaked with the nuclear freeze in the early 1980s. During the 1980s, however, many of these groups began to consider the more universal issue of proliferation. At least eight national nongovernmental membership organizations formed in the 1980s specifically mention nonproliferation as a major focus of their activities (see table 5.1). Many came into being in response to proposals from the Reagan administration regarding strengthening the U.S. nuclear arsenal and options for fighting a nuclear war.60 Individual advocates of new policy combinations on nonproliferation included Leonard Spector at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, and Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute. Even in the executive branch, dozens of officials in at least five cabinet departments regularly worked on proliferation export control licensing by the end of the 1980s (see table 5.2). Nonproliferation objectives gradually, if erratically, seeped into the routine of the executive bureaucracy. Enforcement efforts also began to shift direction from containment to nonproliferation.61
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Table 5.1 ★ Selected Nongovernmental Organizations with a Primary Interest in Nonproliferation, 1989 Nongovernmental Organization Arms Control Association Council for a Livable World Global Education Associates Grandmothers for Peace Jane Addams Peace Association, Inc. Legacy, Inc. Mobilization for Survival National Campaign for No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Nuclear Free Zone Registry Peace Development Fund Promoting Enduring Peace, Inc. Psychologists for Social Responsibility Union of Concerned Scientists
Year Formed
Membership
1971 1962 1973 1982 1948 1982 1977 1984
5,000 100,000 5,000 500 NA 35 150 (groups) 2,500
1982 1982 1982 1982 1982 1969
2,000 3,000 2,500 4,600 1,000 100,000
Source: Thomas Woodehouse, International Peace Directory. This list includes membership organizations that specifically mention nonproliferation in its objectives, issues, or activities. A group also had to have a known date of founding. The list does not cover the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the NGO Committee on Disarmament, or the general arms control and peace organizations, such as Women Against War, Citizens Against Nuclear War, or Professionals Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control.
Table 5.2 ★ Dual-Use Export Licensing under the Export Administration Act, 1989 Level of Decision
Unit of Decision
Secretary/Cabinet Assistant Secretary
Export Administration Review Board (EARB) Advisory Committee on Export Policy (ACEP; Chair–Commerce) Subgroup on Nuclear Export Coordination (SNEC; Chair–State) Missile Technology Working Group (MTEC; Chair–State) Chemical and Biological Working Group (SHIELD; Chair–State) Interagency Operating Committee (Chair–Commerce) Bureau of Export Administration, Commerce
Operational
Department
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By 1990, many members of Congress regularly spoke in favor of new policy options, introduced new legislation, or attempted to modify existing legislation to reflect their growing interest in nonproliferation. Many members saw the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by Arab states as an acute issue for Israel, a country with especially close ties to the United States. Others viewed the threat of proliferation as a much broader challenge to global peace and U.S. interests. Whatever their reasoning, supporters covered the political spectrum, including John Glenn (D-OH), Alan Cranston (D-CA), Albert Gore, Jr. (DTN), John Heinz (R-PA), Jesse Helms (R-NC), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Richard Lugar (R-IN), John McCain (R-AZ), and Claiborne Pell (D-RI) among others. In the House, with its more hierarchial structure, influential committee chairs, such as Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), Les Aspin (D-WI), John Dingle (DMI), and Dante Fascell (D-FL), became part of a broad coalition favoring stronger efforts on proliferation issues.
u. s. e x p ort c on t rol s a n d i r aq The executive branch knew of Iraqi ambitions. Iraqi participation in and financing of the Condor missile project in 1984 helped promote the creation of the MTCR.62 Defense officials sent a letter to their counterparts in other agencies expressing their concerns about the Saad 16 weapons complex as early as November 1986. Nonetheless, the CIA did not systematically examine Iraqi WMD programs before the invasion of Kuwait. Commerce would check items if someone voiced a concern with the appropriate licensing officers, but DTSA warned Commerce only twice in writing about specific Iraqi end users, outside of the established interagency routine.63 Allegedly, U.S. officials never actually conducted a complete end-user check for exports to Iraq. Moreover, the NSC cleared many U.S. export licenses for the Saad 16 facility.64 The United States became the first country to ban the sale of five chemical agents to Iraq and Iran in March 1985 (shortly before the negotiations to form the Australia Group). The United States expanded its list of restricted chemicals, and it added Syria to the list of proscribed destinations in 1986.65 The United States added more chemicals to its control list and many more countries of concern in 1988.66 Officials, however, condemned Iraq with reticence. The CIA claimed that Iraqi chemical weapons had proved decisive in preventing an Iranian victory, an outcome to the war unpalatable to the Reagan administration. With the end of the Iran-Iraq war and in direct response to the Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iraq’s own Kurdish population in August 1988, Senators Pell and Helms introduced a bill to cut all aid to Iraq. The bill passed the
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Senate by voice vote in September 1988.67 The Department of State, however, argued that the measure was hasty, and although the department issued a strong protest to Iraq on September 8, its officials rebuffed the idea of “punitive action.”68 Later in the month, the House passed a modified version of the act to ban the export of military items, computers, and oil-production items. The House version did allow for farm exports, but again the Department of State opposed the act as contrary to U.S. interests. Congress failed to agree before the end of session, when the Senate included the measure in its omnibus foreign relations bill, which Senator Helms blocked for unrelated reasons. Senator Pell introduced a broader chemical weapons measure in 1989 (SR 195). Spurred by additional evidence on extensive European participation in the development of the Iraqi and Libyan chemical weapons programs, the Foreign Relations Committee approved it in October 1989. A jurisdictional dispute with Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held up floor action until May 1990, when the Senate approved it unanimously.69 In November 1989, the House passed its version of the bill (HR 3033) by voice vote, which called for sanctions on countries that used chemical weapons and the companies that supplied those programs. The Senate measure also called for “stronger international efforts to restrain trade in supplies and equipment needed to make chemical weapons.” It had thirty-six sponsors or co-sponsors (see table 5.3).70 While the House version gave the president substantial discretion in applying sanctions, the Senate version required the president to impose most of the eleven possible economic sanctions. This brought a veto threat, even after a conciliatory amendment by Senator Dole, allowing the president to waive sanctions for one year. By treating Saddam Hussein as member of the international community, President Bush hoped to sway Hussein to act more peacefully. After his inauguration, Bush requested a strategic review of Persian Gulf policy. A preliminary review was completed by April, but the final decision came in the form of National Security Directive 26, of October 1989.71 The directive spelled out why the United States should increase its use of political and economic incentives to moderate Iraqi behavior on proliferation, human rights, and other issues. It included instructions to federal agencies to encourage U.S. companies to help rebuild Iraq after its devastating war with Iran.72 In 1989, Representative Dan Glickman (D-KS) proposed an end to U.S. Export-Import Bank credits, which Iraq used ostensibly to purchase U.S. food products and other goods. In presenting his proposal, Representative Glickman specifically mentioned Iraqi use of chemical weapons as a reason to deny additional credits. Members from states with large farming interests challenged the motion, including Reps. Norvell Emerson (R-MO), Fred Grandy (R-IA), and
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Table 5.3 ★ Sponsors and Cosponsors of SR 195 (the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control Act of 1989) Democrats Daniel Akaka (Hawaii) Joseph Biden (Deleware) Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico) David Boren (Oklahoma) John Breaux (Louisiana) Quentin Burdick (North Dakota) Kent Conrad (North Dakota) Alan Cranston (California) Thomas Daschle (South Dakota) Christopher Dodd (Connecticut) Wendell Ford (Kentucky) Al Gore, Jr. (Tennessee) Tom Harkin (Iowa) Robert Kerrey (Nebraska) John Kerry (Massachusetts) Patrick Leahy (Vermont) Carl Levin (Michigan) Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) Frank Murkowski (Arkansas) Claiborne Pell (Rhode Island) Charles Robb (Virginia) Terry Sanford (North Carolina) Paul Simon (Illinois) Timothy Wirth (Colorado)
Republicans Rudy Boschwitz (Minnesota)* William Cohen (Maine) Robert Dole (Kansas) Slade Gorton (Washington) Jesse Helms (North Carolina) Gordon Humphrey (New Hampshire) Nancy Kassebaum (Kansas) Trent Lott (Mississippi) Richard Lugar (Indiana) Connie Mack (Florida) John McCain (Arizona) Ted Stevens (Arkansas)
* Senator Boschwitz affiliated with the Independent-Republican party of Minnesota.
William Alexander Jr. (D-AK). Nonetheless, the House adopted the measure by a vote of 234–175, with the Republican vote evenly split. An amendment promising to lift the credit ban if it proved detrimental to U.S. farmers, which passed 208 –191, softened the motion. In the other house, Republican senators Alphonse D’Amato (R-NY) and William Cohen (R-ME,) split against fellow Republicans Phil Gramm (R-TX) and Rudy Boschwitz (R-MN). Paralleling the House debate, Senator Cohen called for an end to credits to “nations like Iraq” that employ chemical weapons, while Senator Gramm included an amendment
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requiring the government to consider the domestic impact of restrictions. After the later amendment passed by a vote of 57–38, the final motion passed overwhelmingly, 83–12. Despite both houses expressing their disapproval, President Bush chose to override congressional objections on Export-Import Bank financing by an executive order on January 17, 1990, authorizing nearly $200 million in credits for grain purchases. The spring of 1990 did witness some change in administration views on Iraq as a potential proliferation threat. In March 1990, the Department of State learned that Iraq had stationed missile launchers closer to the border with Jordan, and, therefore, closer to Israel.73 With considerable fanfare, British and U.S. officials thwarted Iraqi attempts to smuggle forty krytrons, which could serve in detonators for nuclear devices. When the United States stopped an effort to transfer 185 krytrons in January of 1989, it gave hints that an ongoing procurement effort by Iraq may have been paid for with U.S. loans for agricultural goods, funneled through the Atlanta branch of the Banco Nazionale Del Livoro.74 Finally, on April 2, Hussein made a particularly nasty speech threatening to devastate Israel with chemical and other weapons (if attacked, Saddam said, “By God, we will make fire eat up half of Israel”), which provoked angry denunciations from State and convinced State experts that the policy should change.75 These actions prompted a review of U.S. policy toward Iraq, but the administration did not change policy then. In early April, Senators Robert Dole (R-KS), James McClure (R-ID), Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH), Frank Murkowski (RAK), and Alan Simpson (R-WY) met with Saddam Hussein in Mosul. Despite very critical guidance from the State Department, the senators returned to Washington with an optimistic view of the prospects for cooperation with Hussein.76 The administration also remained hopeful it could avoid a confrontation with Iraq. On April 24, for example, Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East John Kelly, in congressional testimony, argued that Iraq might still moderate its behavior, but that imposing economic sanctions would make that impossible. On that basis the administration remained “opposed to the imposition of economic sanctions.”77 While the United States suspended some Commodity Credit Corporation credits, Secretary of State James Baker informed the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that talk of sanctions against Iraq was “premature.”78 The House Government Operations committee began its own investigation of U.S. export controls that spring, but it did not make a report until September, when it criticized the role Bush administration policy played in arming Iraq. As late as July, Bush administration policy on Iraq remained muddled. In 1989, for example, when representatives of Consarc Corporation of New Jersey informed Commerce Department officials that Consarc intended to export four skull furnaces (useful in the production of missile and nuclear weapons parts) to
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Iraq, Commerce indicated that the exports did not need an individual validated license. In addition, the interagency Subgroup on Nuclear Export Controls approved a license for a lathe associated with the furnaces. Not until June 1990 did the State Department have U.S. Customs hold the shipment temporarily. Commerce followed this with a letter indicating that Consarc needed a validated export license for the transaction after all. Not until July 19, after several Senators wrote the President to support the position of Undersecretary of Defense Wolfowitz against the sale, did the White House block the transaction.79 In another example, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on July 29, Gary Milhollin and David Dantzic claimed that Commerce and State Departments officials tried to permit the sale of an IBM supercomputer to entities in Brazil that the U.S. government knew had close connections with the Iraqi missile and nuclear programs.80 Even on July 31, Assistant Secretary of State Kelly emphasized that the United States had no treaty obligations to aid Kuwait if Iraq attacked.81
t h e g u l f wa r a n d g r a n d s t r at e g y Despite these mixed signals before the war, the United States responded swiftly and decisively to the invasion of Kuwait. On August 2, President Bush issued an executive order effectively severing economic relations with Iraq. On the same day, the House and Senate passed measures calling for a full range of economic sanctions against Iraq, including a trade embargo, without opposition.82 Later in the month, the Department of Commerce asked its Technical Advisory Committees, whose members include private individuals and government officials concerned with export controls in key industry sectors, for comments on foreign policy export controls, especially nonproliferation controls.83 When President Bush first addressed the country on why he wanted to send U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia, he did not mention weapons of mass destruction.84 President Bush said that the U.S. mission was “wholly defensive,” designed to “deter Iraqi aggression” against vital U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia (i.e., Western oil supplies).85 President Bush also noted that for the first time in more than two decades, with the Soviets and Chinese acceding to a ban on arms sales, the United Nations Security Council enacted mandatory economic sanctions on August 25. Consequently, U.S. troops in the region could also “enforce U.N. sanctions.”86 President Bush also stated a more extensive ultimate objective: to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.87 Virtually everyone understood that economic sanctions would require time to be effective. House Armed Services committee chair Les Aspin (D-WI) suggested that it would take between three and five months. Secretary of Defense
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Dick Cheney and Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sam Nunn (D-GA) believed sanctions would take even more time, though how much time was indeterminate.88 Nonetheless, they believed that economic sanctions, coupled with the presence of a deterrent force in Saudi Arabia, might work. With sanctions affirmed and a means of enforcement in place, the Bush administration soon touted the impact of the sanctions. On August 8, President Bush stated that “Economic sanctions in this instance, if fully enforced, can be very, very effective.”89 While briefing 150 members of Congress on August 28, President Bush again claimed that “United Nations sanctions are in effect and have been working remarkably well, even on a voluntary basis.”90 At the meeting, President Bush even took credit for blocking the export of the Consarc furnaces before the invasion, without mentioning either the extent of the Iraqi nuclear weapons programs or the efforts by U.S. officials to secure the license.91 President Bush again said in a September 11 speech to a joint session of Congress that sanctions were working.92 As late as October 16, Secretary of State James Baker testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee that economic sanctions might have their desired effect.93 In late September 1990, both houses of Congress worked on resolutions regarding U.S. involvement in the Gulf.94 While expressing support for the actions of President Bush, members couched their praise with fear that hasty action would result in a repeat of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. In the first days of October, both houses passed the resolution overwhelmingly, but did not specifically grant the president leave to use force.95 Members openly argued that the administration would need prior congressional authorization to use force.96 This unease mirrored growing public discontent with U.S. policy in the Gulf. Public support for Bush administration policy, for example, fell from 77 percent in August to 61 percent by early October.97 At least part of the reason for the unease with Bush policy came from the less than clear or compelling aims of U.S. policy. Bush and Baker built a multilateral coalition against Iraq by using a litany of rationales (and specific incentives): “standing up to aggression,” “creating a new world order,” “rising oil prices,” and “a new Hitler.” In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs committee on September 4, 1990, Secretary of State Baker stated that the United States was in the Gulf to secure Western oil supplies.98 In a public address, President Bush outlined the primary stakes for U.S. involvement in the Gulf: Iraqi aggression must not stand; the United States must protect the rule of international law; vital U.S. economic and foreign policy interests were at stake; and, the United States must show that Iraq will not intimidate the country into inaction.99 The bulk of this portion of the address cited a new reason for U.S. presences and leadership in opposing Iraq—the creation of a “new world order.” After years
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of the Cold War, President Bush saw new possibilities for cooperation with the Soviet Union. Together, the countries could create a world order based on a shared responsibility for freedom, justice, the rule of law, and protection of the rights of the weak.100 Iraq could serve as a test case for this new spirit of cooperation. A new grand strategy needs grand stakes. Some members of Congress believed that U.S. financial interests might be leading policy. Senator John McCain III (R-AZ) put it plainly: “If this were another part of the world, we would not see this kind of response.”101 A strategy rooted in base financial concerns did not appeal to the American public. As noted political scientist Robert Tucker stated, the public and Congress were used to seeing the rationale for U.S. foreign policy described in “grander, more apocalyptic terms.”102 What could be grander, or more apocalyptic, than the fate of a new world order? Only at the very end of this part of the address did President Bush mention “something else . . . to curb the proliferation” of nuclear or chemical weapons as a rationale.103 Despite this attempt to paint a more lofty vision of a New World Order, the administration still portrayed the rationale for U.S. involvement in the Gulf in baser terms, usually protecting the oil supplies so crucial to Western economies. As late as November 13, apparently frustrated by the inability to shape a compelling rationale for domestic consumption, Secretary of State Baker asserted, “If you want to sum it up in one word, it’s jobs.”104 At the same time, all parties became more aware of the extent of the Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons programs. The CIA began conducting a systematic review of Iraqi programs in the fall of 1990. Reports appeared in September 1990 that Chinese firms had recently sold nuclear materials, especially lithium, to Iraq. While the transfer allegedly occurred without complicity on behalf of the Chinese government, it showed that Iraq was attempting to advance its nuclear program despite the embargo. Reportedly, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency claimed in November that the Iraqis were within two months of building nuclear weapons, rather than two to five years away as independent experts had estimated.106 Finally, a report surfaced that the Iraqis conducted a successful test of another intermediate-range missile in November 1990.106 Since August, Republican senator Richard Lugar had urged the administration to add the objective of destroying Iraqi chemical and biological weapons.107 In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations committees in early September, Secretary of State Baker indicated a potential need to keep U.S. forces in the Gulf for an extended period of time to “contain and roll back” Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons capability, though Baker remained vague about the possibility of using force against Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons arsenals.108 The fate of the Export Administration Act, however, provides some indication of the presidential reluctance to champion nonprolif-
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eration and export controls. As noted earlier, the House passed a new version of the act (HR 4643) with majority support of both parties. The invasion of Kuwait strengthened congressional resolve to move forward on export control reform, less as an East-West issue than a proliferation matter. In late September 1990, for example, the Commerce subcommittee of the House Government Operations committee held hearings on administration policy on export licenses to Iraq. The subcommittee concluded that the “proliferation threat is now greater than the Soviet threat, making the current control regime nearly obsolete.”109 A GAO report of the time also showed that the threat of proliferation made the traditional statutory distinction between foreign policy controls and national security controls ever more irrelevant.110 On September 13, the Senate passed HR 4653, substituting language from its version of the bill (SR 2927). By voice vote, the Senate also added the sanction provisions from the Pell measure on chemical weapons legislation (SR 195) to the bill, and assured a role for the Department of Defense in denying licenses related to WMD and missiles to Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In conference in October 1990, Congress agreed to a bill that retained the Senate provisions on sanctions and the role of Defense in licensing. The next day, seventy-nine senators wrote President Bush urging him to sign the Omnibus Export Administrations Act into law.111 Anticipating congressional action on nonproliferation controls, the BXA had circulated a draft of a new regulation for exports related to chemical, nuclear, and missile projects.112 This became especially important when President Bush exercised a pocket veto over the legislation. In the November 16 memorandum of disapproval, President Bush argued that the major flaw in HR 4653 is not the requirement of sanctions but the rigid way in which they are imposed. The mandatory imposition of unilateral sanctions . . . would harm U.S. economic interests and provoke friendly countries who are essential to our efforts to resist Iraqi aggression. If there is one lesson we have all learned in Operation Desert Shield, it is that multilateral support enhances the effectiveness of sanctions.113
d e s e rt s h i e l d to d e s e rt s tor m : non p rol i f e r at i on a n d t h e c or e o f t h e n e w wor l d or d e r By mid-November 1990, the U.S. mission in the Gulf clearly was no longer “wholly defensive.” Many pressures favored the choice of offensive military ac-
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tion over relying on economic sanctions. Economic sanctions might not prove a sufficient inducement to move Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, the original objective of the United Nations coalition, or it might take years to accomplish. On the domestic front, a protracted U.S. military presence in the Gulf risked more confrontations with Congress and declining public support. Reliance on sanctions could give the conservative wing of the Republican Party more support for their charge that President Bush was a “wimp,” an unworthy inheritor of the Reagan legacy. Abroad, the proximity of “infidels” to Muslim holy sites and the religious battleground of the Middle East risked making U.S. troops targets for terrorist action. It also promised greater political pressure from Islamic fundamentalists and conservatives on the moderate regimes in the Gulf. Finally, new aims in the Gulf would prove difficult to achieve with sanctions alone. Sanctions alone, for example, seemed unlikely to dissuade Saddam Hussein from pushing forward various WMD programs, and an Iraqi nuclear missile arsenal would change the battlefield equation completely. Almost from the beginning of the Gulf War, President Bush sought to respond to Saddam Hussein with a show of military force. While marshaling a massive diplomatic effort to isolate Iraq, within a week of the invasion President Bush had started to implement Defense Operations Plan 90-1002. The plan had both a deterrence component and a war-fighting component, if the latter became necessary.114 Neither option was particularly attractive to the Saudis and other Arab governments.115 Reportedly, President Bush decided to prepare for offensive action in the Gulf on October 5, in a meeting with the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and Defense Secretary Cheney.116 President Bush said that the United States had insufficient time for a strategy of military containment and economic sanctions from a political perspective.117 At least as early as mid-October, General Colin Powell and Secretary of State Baker had also agreed that the United States needed an offensive force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.118 As Secretary Baker later wrote, “Politically, however, it was unlikely sanctions would ever work to force Saddam out of Kuwait.”119 In testimony before Congress in October 1990, one official revealed that the administration already had a policy to create “an offensive war-fighting force directed at Iraq.”120 As presidential observer Elizabeth Drew reported, administration officials now saw economic sanctions and diplomacy as merely another “box to check” before attacking Iraq.121 Still, on November 1, President Bush said he would “give sanctions time to work.”122 While the elections of November 6 surprised no one, Republican losses in the House (nine seats) and the Senate (one seat) eroded support for the president in Congress. Two days after the election, President Bush announced that he would
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double the number of U.S. forces in the Gulf. While President Bush claimed that this did not commit the United States to war, Defense Secretary Cheney also canceled plans to rotate troops out of the Gulf, a sure sign of an impending military offensive.123 President Bush, however, had not generated sufficient public or congressional support for the policy. Reportedly, as of November 8, Secretary of Defense Cheney believed that the administration still had not found a successful formula for speaking to the various publics out there . . . And the message the administration wanted to convey now —-its rationale for deploying an offensive capability — was different from the one it had wanted to convey in August when the mission was defensive.124
Generally, opinion polls showed little support for offensive military action in the Gulf. Many current or former civilian and military leaders went on record in favor of giving economic sanctions more time to work, including the immediate commander of Desert Shield, General Norman Schwarzkopf. Protest actions took place in dozens of U.S. cities, including a 75,000 strong march for peace on the capital Mall.125 President Bush not only had to mobilize public opinion to support offensive military operations, he had to make an appeal that would garner congressional approval. Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA) and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (R-ME) allegedly made it clear that offensive military operations against Iraq would require an endorsement by Congress.126 Forty-five Democratic members of Congress had even sued in U.S. District Court in Washington to force President Bush to get congressional approval before any attack on Iraqi forces.127 Robert Dole and other key Republican senators called for more time for economic sanctions to have an impact. Some members of Congress, including Dole and Lugar, called for a special session of Congress to consider the new troop deployment. President Bush barely derailed this initiative by promising an “extra mile” of diplomacy with Iraq, which Secretary of State Baker later cited as the key to building a congressional consensus for the use of force. From the stature and number of the opponents to offensive military action, congressional consent seemed far from certain. The Bush administration had more success garnering international support. Since the middle of October, the United States had worked to create a coalition in the United Nations Security Council to support offensive action in the Gulf. On November 29, the last day in the session the United States would sit as chair, the Security Council voted 12–2 (with China abstaining) for Resolution 678 granting
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council members to “use all necessary means” to remove Iraq from Kuwait.128 Resolution 678 established the deadline for withdrawal of Iraqi forces as January 15, 1991.129 The Bush administration rewarded the Chinese for abstaining: the very next day, President Bush received Chinese Foreign Minister Qian, the first visit of a high-level Chinese official since the Tiananmen Square massacre.130 In November 1990, a New York Times/CBS opinion poll uncovered two profoundly revealing pieces of information. First, the public viewed with disdain the most prominent themes the administration offered in support of offensive action in Iraq—restoring Kuwaiti sovereignty, defending Saudi Arabia, and protecting Western oil supplies. In no case did more than 35 percent of the respondents suggest that these reasons were “good enough” to prompt the United States to take military action.131 Second, a slim majority of Americans (54 percent) would support U.S. military action to support a less celebrated rationale—stop Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.132 Coupled with widespread support in Congress for a more active nonproliferation policy, particularly regarding Iraq, this held promise for forging the political coalition President Bush needed. Since the end of September 1990, the administration had implemented export controls with the authority given the president under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In the November memorandum of disapproval of the Export Administration Act, President Bush described a new program of export controls under Executive Order 12735, issued the day before. In it, Bush agreed to carry out the sanctions in the act and create new export controls on chemical and biological weapons. President Bush then staked out the high ground on nonproliferation. By January 1, 1991, the order also directs the establishment of enhanced proliferation controls, carefully targeted on exports, projects and countries of concern. On this issue, as with other important export control matters, my goal is to pursue effective, multilateral export controls.133
Implicit in the memorandum of disapproval, however, is that not until months after the invasion of Kuwait did President Bush begin to initiate critical changes in U.S. nonproliferation export controls and start to negotiate a new multilateral framework for nonproliferation export controls. In a Thanksgiving Day visit to the troops in Saudi Arabia, President Bush departed from the text of the message he had delivered on television to the United States earlier in the day. He added that every hour brought Saddam Hussein “one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal —-and that’s another reason, frankly, why our mission is marked by a real sense of urgency.”134 Secretary of Defense Cheney and National Security Advisor Scowcroft elabo-
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rated on this theme in television interviews on November 25. Scowcroft, for example, claimed that Saddam Hussein could build a crude nuclear weapon in a period of a few months “to as much as 10 years,” and that the “risk made reliance on sanctions untenable.”135 Finally, at a White House news conference on November 30, President Bush continued to include oil, immorality, and the hostages as reasons for offensive military action, but concluded by saying “I’m deeply concerned about Saddam’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.”136 As Secretary Baker later claimed, the administration needed to educate the public about a new threat: the military danger of an Iraq that “had amassed huge stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and was furiously developing a nuclear capability.”137 Nonetheless, congressional opposition to the use of force remained strong. One potential opponent for Bush in the next election, Senator Nunn, chair of the Armed Services Committee, began televised hearings in late November to assess the impact of sanctions and the need for military action. Most witnesses, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairs Admiral William Crowe and David Jones, former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. William Odom, and former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, preferred waiting longer for sanctions to work, especially if the objective was getting Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. In contrast, CIA Director William Webster argued that sanctions “are affecting Iraq’s military only at the margins,” in parallel hearings in the House.138 Many hard-liners took a similar view. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former head of DTSA Richard Perle, House Armed Services Committee chair Aspin, Representatives Solarz and Tony Coelho (D-CA), National Security Advisor Scowcroft, and columnists Charles Krauthammer and William Safire all indicated they feared the long-term implications of an Iraqi nuclear arsenal. Perhaps embarrassed by their earlier support of Saddam Hussein, Senators Simpson and Gramm also voiced this belief. Several public entrepreneurs with this perspective formed the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf in November (including former head of DTSA Perle, Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick, and Representatives Solarz and Coelho). The close ties between the United States and Israel also had an impact: an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction posed a grave threat to the very existence of the state of Israel, as well as to other U.S. interests in the region. To underscore its newfound commitment to nonproliferation, the Bush administration developed the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI), which national security adviser Scowcroft approved on December 11 and announced five days later. Promising much stricter controls on the export of any item, especially strategic items, to any project associated with the development of weapons of mass destruction, the EPCI would mark a major shift in U.S. export control policy.
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Just days before the announcement of the EPCI, however, the Bush administration approved the sale of supercomputers to Brazil and India, and a high performance computer to the People’s Republic of China, despite the potential proliferation concerns.139 While the EPCI specifically included controls on supercomputers, the decisions may have helped earn crucial international support for efforts to isolate Iraq. While export controls became a political staple of a new U.S. policy on nonproliferation, doubts lingered that President Bush ever believed that economic sanctions and export controls were effective.140 Moreover, opponents began to raise doubts about the status of Iraqi WMD programs. Senators Nunn and Gore suggested that the dire warnings issued by the administration simply exaggerated the risks of Iraqi nuclear proliferation. Despite the nonproliferation appeal, protest against the deployment of U.S. troops continued. At this time, for example, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark helped form another group, A Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East. Around the country, opponents used seminars, marches and other forms of political action to protest military action. Public support for Bush policy in the Gulf, however, increased in December.141 Finally, on January 8, President Bush asked for congressional approval for military action in the Gulf. While the letter from the president does not specifically mention nonproliferation, it does appear in subsequent congressional measures, such as in the introduction to the joint resolution approving the use of force: Whereas, Iraq’s conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction pose a grave threat to world peace.142
In the House, HR 77 passed by a substantial margin, 250 – 183. Leading Democrats in the House had long favored this option, particularly Armed Services committee chair Aspin. Cosponsored by Steven Solarz and Republican leader Michael, powerful committee chairs Dan Rostenkowski and John Dingell supported the measure as well. In the more closely contested Senate vote, the proliferation argument shored up Republican support and attracted a few Democrats. Even opponents of the resolution felt compelled to address the argument. Longtime nonproliferation advocate John Glenn (D-OH), for example, criticized the president, who by “overstating the imminence of the nuclear danger may appeal to the emotions but do little to add to understanding.”143 David Boren (D-OK) said he would support the use of force resolution if President Bush could assure that offensive military action would strike only WMD facilities, which the President would not do.144
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Despite this opposition, the Senate passed SJR 2 on January 12, by a vote of 52–47. Only two Republicans voted no: Grassley and Hatfield, neither of whom was a nonproliferation advocate. Ten Democrats voted for the resolution.145 Three of them, Howell Heflin (D-AL), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Charles Robb (D-VA) sponsored the joint resolution and its nonproliferation language. During the debate, most of the other ten made mention of proliferation concerns when explaining their vote. Senator Gore spoke against exaggerating the Iraqi nuclear threat to sway public opinion, but left no doubt that the danger posed by Iraqi WMD programs had swayed his thinking. John Breaux (D-LA), who had cosponsored nonproliferation measures in recent years, specifically refers “stopping Iraq’s quest for nuclear weapons” as a reason to vote for the resolution.146 Of the others, both Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (D-AL) also raised proliferation issues when explaining their votes. Of the ten, Senators Lieberman and Gore clearly fell in the category of core nonproliferation proponents. When announcing the air war on Iraq to the nation, President Bush claimed that economic sanctions had not worked, that Iraq had “raped, pillaged, and plundered” Kuwait, and that as “the world waited, Saddam sought to add to the chemical arsenal he now possesses an infinitely more dangerous weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear weapon.”147 Ironically, what arguably seemed hyperbole about Iraqi WMD programs at the time proved more accurate than conventional estimates. After the war, the IAEA and UNSCOM inspection teams in Iraq found no evidence that Iraq had a detonator or sufficient uranium for a nuclear weapon. But if not for the war, team members concluded Iraq could have produced two or three nuclear bombs a year as early as 1992.148 As arms specialist Jeffrey Record notes, the scope of Iraqi WMD “vastly exceeded prewar coalition estimates.”149 Much of the Iraqi arsenal survived the air campaign intact, including at least 819 Scuds, 46,000 chemical bombs, shells, missiles, 79,000 unfilled chemical, 600 tons of agents, and 3 nuclear weapons component factories.150 In addition, after the head of the Iraqi clandestine weapons and high-technology procurement programs, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, fled Iraq in February 1996, he informed U.S. intelligence agents that Iraq had been only six weeks from successfully building a nuclear device when Desert Storm began.
u. s. non p rol i f e r at i on e x p ort c on t rol s a f t e r t h e g u l f wa r By the end of the Gulf War, the momentum to reform U.S. export control policy shifted from relaxing COCOM and anticommunist export controls to trying
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to construct a system that balanced nonproliferation and trade interests. With his November 1990 declaration of a state of national emergency to address the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons (Executive Order 12735), President Bush required the Commerce Department to develop in ninety days a list of goods, technologies, and services that “would assist a foreign country in acquiring the capability to develop, produce, stockpile, deliver, or use chemical or biological weapons.” 151 The United States would prohibit these shipments, unless the country of destination maintained a comparable export control system. The order also identified a host of sanctions against persons who assist in chemical or biological weapons programs. The policy did not level sanctions at governments that assist other countries in obtaining weapons, however, limiting penalties to those countries that develop chemical weapons.152 In December 1990, NSC Directive 53 improved procedures for settling interagency disagreements on license applications. The old process had led to inordinate delays for legitimate exports and controversial decisions in other cases. Directive 53 addressed these concerns by establishing a time requirement for license approval or denial, while ensuring that agencies could bring significant interagency disputes to the president.153 By January 1991, Commerce and Defense agreed on an expanded role for Defense in the license review process. Defense would review all license applications to export COCOM controlled items to four countries to assess the potential for diversion to sensitive proliferation end users, such as Iran and Iraq.154 In addition, Defense attained a stronger voice in determining the list of countries proscribed for abetting terrorism.155 On March 13, Commerce issued regulations to implement the EPCI and awaited industry comments (Commerce issued revised regulations in August 1991). In May, BXA also issued new, more restrictive rules on the export of high-temperature furnaces, which had been the source of much embarrassment a year earlier.156 After several proposals by Commerce, the NSC amended Directive 53 to require BXA to circulate the criteria for license referrals and to transmit summaries of referral issues to the NSC Policy Coordinating Committees on Non-Proliferation and on Technology Transfer as appropriate. The classified summary, delivered in December 1992, revealed that persistent and substantial disagreement on the referral process remained.157 The administration also became more active in enacting sanctions for reasons of nonproliferation, but the nonproliferation message remained mixed. In 1990, the Bush administration ended the charade regarding the Pakistani nuclear program and refused to certify that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapons program. In June 1991, the administration restricted U.S. commerce with the China Great Wall Industry Corporation and the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation in relation to their alleged transfers of sensitive nuclear items and
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missile components and technology to Pakistan. In May 1992, the Bush administration further tightened controls on the export of satellites and computers to China in response to new allegations of continued support for the Pakistani nuclear and missile programs. The administration considered lifting the original sanctions soon after the Chinese pledged to abide by MTCR guidelines at a November 1991 meeting with Secretary of State Baker, but did not waive the satellite restrictions until September 1992.158 Waiving these restrictions occurred in a context of considerable commercial and diplomatic pressure to improve U.S.China relations, while they extracted less than enthusiastic adherence to the MTCR or nuclear export guidelines by the Chinese. In October 1991, the Department of State sanctioned ARMSCOR, the South African state-run arms conglomerate, for missile proliferation activities. The administration suspended for two years its right to import and export items from U.S. territory, and barred ARMSCOR from U.S. government contracts for two years (President Bush waived similar sanctions against an Israeli company that had worked with ARMSCOR).159 At the same time, a federal grand jury issued a sixty-seven count indictment against individuals involved in allegedly deceptive transfers of munitions and dual-use items between the International Signal and Control Group of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and South Africa. The transactions reportedly included the retransfer of 350,000 fuses for 155mm howitzer shells to Iraq.160 The defendants later claimed that the CIA knew about the transactions involving South Africa, Chile, Israel, Iraq, and efforts to sell items to China.161 An even more controversial case loomed after the Russian Space Agency, Glavkosmos, agreed to sell cryogenic rocket engines (fueled with liquid hydrogen) to the Indian Space Research Organization in 1990. The State Department chose to view these transfers, although of limited military value, as a violation of the MTCR, to which the Soviet Union had agreed informally to abide. As a result, the administration imposed penalties on Glavkosmos and the Indian group on May 11, 1992.162 This frayed U.S. diplomatic relations with the two countries and appeared inconsistent. A U.S. company, General Dynamics Corporation, reportedly had offered to supply India with the same engines (although at a higher price and without similar transfers of technology).163 This gave the sanctions an unsavory taint of commercialism rather than a strong statement about nonproliferation. Not without some irony, India sent a science satellite into lowEarth orbit using its Advanced Space Launch Vehicle and tested its Agni, an intermediate-range missile for military that uses the launch for its first stage, later in the month. In July 1992, the Department of State imposed sanctions on two North Korean entities (Changgwang Credit Corporation and Kyongaksan Machineries and Equipment Export Corporation) and two Syrian entities (the Ministry of De-
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fense and the Centre d’Etudes et Recherches Scientifique) for missile proliferation.164 That same month, the Office of Export Enforcement (OEE) in Commerce also began an enforcement program for the Middle East and North Africa that focused on dual-use proliferation items.165 By September 1992, administration officials had sanctioned the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces Logistics organization of Iran under this program.166 Bush administration commitment to nonproliferation continued to face scrutiny. Senator Gore requested a GAO study on export controls on biological dual-use and military items in February 1992.167 In April 1992, a report by State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk suggested that the department had ignored Israeli retransfers of sensitive munitions since 1983.168 Early in 1992, Gary Milhollin reported that BXA had issued licenses worth $60 million for controlled items to Iran from September 1990 to September 1991.169 The most significant political damage, however, came from the revelations about the degree that U.S. exports and foreign aid, mainly approved by the Reagan and Bush administrations, assisted, either directly or indirectly, Iraqi military capabilities. In early 1991, the Commerce Department inspector general issued a damaging report, implying that administration officials altered records to corroborate their decisions with licensing criteria on exports to Iraq.170 In June 1992, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the alterations in the data, where Commerce officials claimed that the State Department had requested the most damaging changes in the records.171 With the presidential campaign moving into its final phases, House Banking Committee Chair Gonzales attacked the Bush administration’s Iraqi licensing policy by releasing a Department of State memo describing seventy-three licenses for dual-use exports issued from 1986 to 1989 to probable proliferation end users.172 The House Foreign Affairs committee then held a hearing in its probe into licenses to Iran and Syria on July 22. At the hearing, witnesses described how forty-eight sensitive dual-use exports worth $180 million went to Iran between August 1991 and February 1992, while seven dual-use exports worth $3 million went to Syria.173 Finally, in October, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on Iraqi licensing and the ties with Banca Nazionale del Lavorno.174 The U.S. legislative basis for nonproliferation policy changed dramatically after the onset of the Gulf War (see table 5.4). Almost all the new pieces of legislation included a mechanism to penalize states that transfer sensitive items to projects of proliferation concern. The Missile Technology Control Act, for example, denies contracts or export licenses to persons, U.S. or foreign, who improperly export missiles, missile components, materials, and test or production equipment. Perhaps the most far-reaching legislative action, however, led to the creation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. In 1991, Senators Nunn and Lugar
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Table 5.4 ★ U.S. Nonproliferation Legislation Passed After the Onset of the Gulf War Missile Technology Control Act of 1990 Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 Nunn-Lugar Act of 1991 and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Iran-Iraq Nonproliferation Act of 1992 Weapons of Mass Destruction Control Act of 1992 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994
pushed the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act (also known as Nunn-Lugar) into law. With strong bipartisan support, Section 212 of the act authorized the Bush administration to transfer up to $400 million in Defense appropriations to the Soviet Union to Destroy Soviet nuclear, chemical, and other weapons; Transport, store, disable, and safeguard weapons in connection with their destruction; and Establish verifiable safeguards against the proliferation of such weapons.175
Skepticism about the program among key actors in the Bush administration, such as Secretary of Defense Cheney, time lags associated with negotiating a bilateral umbrella and implementing agreements between the United States and the new governments in the former Soviet Union, reliance on the standard Defense Department budget process, the fact the funds were transfers from other programs, and squabbles among domestic actors inside the former Soviet Union all combined to put the actual expenditure of funds on a “glacial pace” (About million of the $800 million allocated had been spent through June 1993).176 On February 20, 1991, the Senate passed by voice vote SR 320, essentially the same measure that President Bush pocket vetoed a few months earlier. Congress, however, postponed further action on export controls in anticipation of the release of the “Core List” that would further reduce COCOM controls, and the publication of another congressionally mandated study by the National Academy of Sciences. By waiting, members of Congress hoped to achieve comprehensive reform rather than a quick fix to contentious export control issues. After the collapse of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, COCOM members changed their approach to strategic trade controls. The most notable changes came in the COCOM Industrial List. COCOM members agreed to a major re-
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duction in the list at the June 1990 high-level meeting. They deleted thirty entries from the Industrial List and compressed at least five into other categories. This reduced the list from 116 to about 80 items. Furthermore, COCOM members identified controls on computers, machine tools, and telecommunications equipment as priority sectors for relaxing controls.177 More important, COCOM members began work on a new list of items to replace the existing Industrial List in October 1990. After considerable discussion, the Core List emerged in autumn 1991.178 The list covered nine categories of items: advanced materials; material processing; electronics; computers; telecommunications; sensors; navigation and avionics; marine technology; and propulsion systems. Of the 80 items on the Industrial List, 78 appeared on the Core List. A closer analysis reveals that members removed or liberalized 350 of the 600 subitems, kept 124 the same, tightened controls on 29 subitems, while both increasing and decreasing restrictions on 97 subitems.179 Even after attempting to make these items less subject to interpretation by eliminating all ninety-seven administrative exception notes, forty-six remained (the changes in essence gave the favorable “green line” controls for China to other countries).180 COCOM members adopted a rolling two-year review procedure for the Core List beginning in 1992, despite the U.S. preference for an annual review. Many of the changes helped conform the Core List to the Military Critical Technologies List, which the administration reviewed in the wake of the end of the Cold War.181 Instead of focusing on revising U.S. export control legislation to address the end of containment, however, Congress heard growing criticism of the new nonproliferation regulations, especially the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI) controls. Willard Workman and Jeffrey Hallett of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, argued that EPCI was well-intended but poor policy, largely because of its unilateral nature.182 Stephen Bryen, the former head of Defense Technology Security Administration, echoed these sentiments.183 Michael Walls of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, claiming that existing U.S. controls were ineffective, cast doubt on the potential for making the EPCI multilateral by noting that the Australia Group rejected similar proposals in 1989.184
u. s. i n i t i at i v e s a n d bu i l d i n g a s t ron g e r p roh i b i t i on r e g i m e Sensitive to the mandate for multilateral action in the EPCI, the Bush administration now promoted efforts for stricter proliferation export controls in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, the MTCR, and COCOM. Adher-
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Table 5.5 ★ Membership in Multilateral Export Control Regimes, 1992 NSG* Australia Austria Belgium Bulgaria Canada Czechoslovakia Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States * † ‡ **
AG†
MTCR‡
COCOM**
Australia Austria Belgium
Australia Austria Belgium
Australia Belgium
Canada
Canada
Canada
Denmark Finland France Germany Greece
Denmark Finland France Germany Greece
Denmark
Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway
Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway
Portugal
France Germany Greece
Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal
Spain Sweden Switzerland
Spain Sweden
United Kingdom United States
United Kingdom United States
Spain
Turkey United Kingdom United States
Nuclear Suppliers Group Australia Group Missile Technology Control Regime Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls
ence to these arrangements had grown slightly over time, but for the most part membership in the groups remained limited to the countries of the rich industrialized world (making a close parallel to what Michael Doyle calls the “international liberal community”; see table 5.5).185 Though some accused President Bush of overselling the Iraqi nuclear program, the information on the extent of
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the program and the degree of support from Western sources proved shocking.186 Coupled with evidence that Pakistan had constructed an unsafeguarded uranium enrichment facility mainly through the acquisition of dual-use items, action to shore up the leaky multilateral arrangements picked up pace.187
Export Controls on Dual-Use Nuclear Items In March 1991, following an invitation from the Dutch, the Nuclear Suppliers Group held its first full meeting since 1977 when the member states assembled in the Hague. Representatives of twenty-six nations attended.188 A working group chaired by the United States representative began examining proposals for controls on dual-use exports. Even with the collapse of the Soviet Union (allegedly the same personnel carried on representing Russia in the working group), the working group moved with alacrity. After years of inactivity, largely because of little agreement on dual-use controls, this new direction reflected a rapidly changing atmosphere concerning the proliferation of nuclear weapons. France finally agreed to sign the Nonprolifieration Treaty in June 1991, for instance, while South Africa signed it in July, and China announced its intent to sign the treaty that August. Negotiations at the October Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting stalled briefly over U.S. requests to include computers on the list of dual-use items. Using the U.S. Nuclear Referral List as a foundation, the working group produced a list of sixty-five dual-use items in eight categories by January 1992 (a high-level meeting in March finalized the list).189 Most, but not all, of the items came from the U.S. Nuclear Referral List. One category of items strongly advocated by U.S. delegates, computers, did not make the Nuclear Suppliers Group list, while non-U.S. delegations apparently advocated controls for about a dozen items the U.S. did not control. Members added electromagnetic separators, for example, in deference to the discovery that Iraq used this obsolete technology in its nuclear weapons program. Formal agreement on the list came at the April 1992 plenary. Nuclear Suppliers Group members also moved toward requiring full-scope safeguards. By August 1990, Australia, Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the United States had made it their policy to approve nuclear exports only to those states that complied with full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.190 Soon Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom took similar positions. In March 1992, Russia also adopted the full-scope safeguard criteria. Finally, in April 1992, NSG members agreed to require full-scope safeguards as a condition of new contracts, and worked to make existing contracts conform to full-scope safeguards.191
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The Nuclear Suppliers Group also acquired staff resources in 1992. In a wellregarded act of leadership in the issue area, Japan volunteered to staff a point of contact in Vienna. Members also agreed to consult at least annually. Some members began to share their experiences and issue license denial notices. Most important, members agreed not to ship items when another member has denied a similar export without prior consultation (i.e., a “no undercut” rule).
Export Controls on Dual-Use Chemical and Biological Items President Bush also proposed a multilateral effort to license all fifty of the precursor chemicals listed by the Australia Group. In December 1990, the group met in Paris to consider the implications of the Gulf War on chemical weapons proliferation, and whether the war served as a “compelling motive” to buttress export controls.192 At that time, members agreed to adopt controls on all 50 chemical weapons precursors and a list of production equipment.193 After a series of bilateral talks beginning in March, the United States advocated that Australia Group members adopt commensurate versions of the EPCI at a May meeting.194 The Commerce Department issued a list of dual-use items in twenty-three categories that contribute to the spread of chemical and biological weapons in March 1991.195 The State Department also identified ten countries and two regions to which exports of these goods would require a validated license.196 Eventually, Australia Group members agreed on additional control lists of equipment related to the production of chemical weapons precursors, and biological organisms and equipment.197 The group also developed a warning for industry, the scientific community, and others on assisting in the development of biological weapons.198 During this time, many other states undertook unilateral efforts to tighten their controls on chemical items. Germany, after a series of revelations about German companies contributing to the chemical weapons capabilities of Libya and Iraq, imposed much stricter controls.199 Australia, Japan, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands also strengthened their domestic export controls on chemicals.200 Members pledged to create a similar system of controls for all fifty precursor chemicals and license shipments to Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya (though the group still avoids specific publication of proscribed destinations, either countries or projects). At the December 1991 meeting of the Australia Group, members discussed controls on dual-use equipment for processing chemical or biological weapons.201 The group approved controls on biological processing equipment in its December 1992 meeting. Finally, in June 1992, Australia Group members agreed to expand the precursor list to control fifty-four chemicals, and to under-
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take controls on equipment useful in the production of biological weapons.202 Participation in the group grew only slightly after the Gulf War. By early 1993, however, Finland and Sweden had joined, and Argentina, Hungary, and Turkey had applied for membership. As important, President Bush ended U.S. insistence on retaining 2 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile, removing a major obstacle to a new Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). In accord with the approach to proliferation, President Bush called for any new Chemical Weapons Convention to have mandatory export controls.203 On December 4, President Bush signed HR 1724, which requires the executive branch to impose sanctions on countries that develop chemical or biological weapons, although the president can issue a waiver.204 These steps paved the way for the September 1992 agreement on a draft CWC. The Australia Group reportedly played an important role in finalizing the negotiations on the CWC and the Biological Weapons Convention, as well.205 The Australia Group delegates apparently agreed to review any export controls against those states that become parties to the convention, in order to get support from a group of fourteen developing countries, most of whom were suspected of harboring chemical weapons programs. The Australia Group list of items, however, and the items on the three CWC schedules are not fully harmonized. Nine items on the Australia Group precursor chemical list do not appear under any CWC schedule, for example. In another instance, the Bush Administration denied a license for BP Chemical to export a plant capable of producing hydrogen cyanide to Iran. Reportedly, hydrogen cyanide is not on the Australia Group list because it disperses too quickly to be an effective chemical weapon, but it does appear on CWC Schedule 3 (items subject to licensing).206
Export Controls on Dual-Use Missile Items As with chemical and biological weapons controls, the Bush administration sought to change the MTCR as well. An administration review resulted in an initiative in January 1991 to redraft the MTCR Annex, which had not changed since its creation in 1985.207 Though MTCR partners considered revisions in their Tokyo meeting in March 1991, they took no action. Finally, at a meeting in Washington in early November 1991, MTCR partners concluded revisions to the Annex.208 In the June 1992 meeting in Oslo, MTCR members agreed to tighten licensing and control procedures. Instead of the 500 kg/300 km rule, which meant to deter countries from designing missiles for delivering nuclear weapons, the MTCR guidelines now included missiles of any range with the capability of delivering any weapon of mass destruction. As a number of partici-
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pants at the March 1991 meeting noted, the deluge of Iraqi Scuds pressured participants to act quickly on the issue of missile proliferation.209 In November 1991, the partners concluded a revised control list, outlining specific export licensing requirements and harmonizing interpretations of which items were subject to controls.210 At its June 1992 meeting in Oslo, the partners agreed to monitor production of missiles that can deliver any WMD payload, not just those exceeding the 500 kilogram payloads necessary for a nuclear device. They also decided to institute strict retransfer controls on list items. In January 1993, the MTCR went further to proscribe the shipment of any missile or unmanned air vehicle system or subsystem that could carry a weapon of mass destruction.211 MTCR partners also began circulating some denial orders, following a kind of nascent no-undercut rule. Membership had grown to twenty-two by 1993: new members were Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. A number of other countries, most important Argentina, China, Israel, and the postcommunist states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, promised to respect MTCR guidelines.
Export Controls on Supercomputers The well-known opposition to export controls on relatively low-level computer technology sharpened U.S. interest in controlling more sophisticated devices for nonproliferation purposes. Within his message of disapproval of House Resolution 4653, the Omnibus Export Amendments Act of 1990, President Bush noted that he had instructed the Secretary of State to begin, by January 1, 1991, negotiations to ensure that supercomputer export controls are multilateral in nature and not undermined by the policies of other supplier countries. By June 1, 1991, in consultation with industry, we will devise and publish a method to index supercomputer license conditions to reflect rapid advances in the industry and changes in strategic concerns.212
In June 1990, the United States and Japan entered into a formal agreement to control trade in supercomputers, which relaxed controls on exports to the COCOM states but increased restrictions on supercomputer exports to others.213 The raison d’être of the arrangement was to prevent the use of supercomputers in the development of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles.214
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The accord defined supercomputers as any computer with a composite theoretical performance (CTP) of at least 195 million theoretical operations per second (Mtops). The two countries used a version of the COCOM computer standard, roughly 20 Mtops (which COCOM reduced to 12.5 before the supercomputer accord), as a base. They defined a supercomputer as having roughly ten times this performance level. The arrangement divided the world into supplier countries, countries with three or more supercomputers already installed on their territory, low-risk countries (states that pose no risks for reasons of proliferation, security, or terrorism), high-risk countries, and proscribed countries. The level of licensing restrictions increases across the categories, from no curbs on trade among the supplier countries to a denial on exports to the proscribed countries. Originally, only a small number of companies, most of them in the United States, produced something comparable to a supercomputer. As the technology advanced, however, more companies developed the capacity to produce something akin to a supercomputer, and the market soon outpaced the standard. This made it more difficult to attract other suppliers to participate in the arrangement. Reportedly, Britain, France, and Germany refused to join unless the accord raised the CTP substantially (Britain wanted a CTP of 400–450, while France and Germany wanted a CTP of 600–650, thresholds that now appear insignificant).215 At the same time, Japan resisted making the bilateral agreement as flexible as the United States wished. As a result, the Bush administration did not manage to reform the arrangement.
The Transformation of COCOM Even COCOM appeared ready to shift its focus to nonproliferation issues. In addition to item liberalization, COCOM took more steps to provide preferential treatment for postcommunist democracies in Eastern Europe. COCOM members eventually accepted the U.S. proposal to make Eastern European democracies eligible for more favorable consideration if they implemented export control safeguard systems. The criteria for favorable consideration included: a high-level national commitment to ensure that they controlled items used for military or nonmilitary purposes; government-issued and -enforced assurances about the end use and end users of items (an import certificate/delivery verification system); authorizing prelicense and postshipment checks in coordination with COCOM member officials; a legal framework for export controls; procedures against improper reexports; a system of sanctions and investigative activities; and cooperation with COCOM member enforcement authorities.216
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Through these and other actions, relaxing strategic trade controls became a reward for political and economic reform in postcommunist societies. By easing access to Western technology, COCOM members also hoped to make Eastern Europe economically competitive, which would, in turn, create support for the fledgling democracies of the region. COCOM members continued to include other nations in their efforts to coordinate controls on strategic trade. Through a memorandum of understanding with the United States, for instance, Taiwan agreed to improve its implementation of strategic trade controls.217 Formerly neutral Finland also joined COCOM in September 1992.218 In this vein, members created the COCOM Cooperation Forum in November 1992. Stemming from an initiative by U.S. Secretary of State Baker made for a visit by President Yeltsin to the United States, COCOM members agreed to invite representatives from the postcommunist governments of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as a number of European neutrals, to join with COCOM states in a new body, the COCOM Cooperation Forum.219 Basically, this was a political gift to show the Russians that COCOM would not bar East-West cooperation. The long-term objectives of the forum were less definite. U.S. policy makers wanted the forum to be a multipurpose nonproliferation arrangement. While all the COCOM members and the European neutrals recognized the proliferation problem, they did not agree that COCOM was an appropriate institution for coordinating nonproliferation export controls. Some European COCOM members (particularly France) were very reluctant to turn that body into an arrangement for North-South proliferation controls. At the same time, the European neutrals and others desired an institutional basis for proliferation controls on dual-use exports.
c on c l u s i on : c h a m p i on i n g non p rol i f e r at i on e x p ort c on t rol s A cris de couer for Bush administration grand strategy came with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. President Bush perceived the invasion as a serious violation of international sovereignty norms and a major threat to the global (and so the United States) economy. Almost from the beginning, President Bush apparently believed that the United States and its allies must use force to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty.220 To create a coalition to employ offensive military action to remove Iraqi security forces from Kuwait, President Bush sought support among the U.S. public, the Congress, and among leaders of the great powers, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
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President Bush did not have a strong political position domestically. His approval ratings began to decline in the fall of 1990, in no small measure because of his reversal on the “no new taxes” pledge. In Congress, Democrats controlled both houses and showed little enthusiasm for a war in the Gulf. Internationally, the United States had become the only truly global power. President Bush had cultivated many world leaders over the years, and maintained strong personal ties with them. Many foreign leaders, however, opposed offensive military action. The new UN coalition against Iraq appeared very fragile, especially with the politics of the post–Cold War so uncertain. The threat to the global economy or to the international norm of state sovereignty proved insufficient to cause the formation of the necessary domestic coalition to support offensive military action. From August until late November 1990, President Bush alluded to rationale after rationale, in the media and in private discussions, without settling on a compelling reason for expanded military operations in the Gulf. In late November, the Bush administration discovered that the U.S. public and many key members of Congress would support offensive action against Iraq to curtail the development of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.221 Iraqi’s use of chemical weapons and missiles in its war with Iran proved Iraqi capabilities, and there was convincing evidence that Iraq had embarked on a nuclear weapons program. It seems likely that the Bush administration came to champion nonproliferation through a shotgun approach to developing presidential policy: Fire enough ideas toward a target, and some will hit. Once it became apparent that incorporating nonproliferation goals might attract support from the public and from political entrepreneurs, then developing an export control policy consistent with that overall objective became essential. With an enduring commitment to the value of international institutions, and a realization of the inherent weakness of unilateral controls, the Bush administration invigorated cooperation in a variety of multilateral export control institutions. With the Baker initiative, they formed the COCOM Cooperation Forum and tried to turn it toward nonproliferation issues. The administration helped transform the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Australia Group, and MTCR into more active and effective nonproliferation bodies. They tried to attract participants in a new system to control the export of supercomputers to sensitive destinations for proliferation purposes. Support for multilateral export control norms became a key condition in easing access to U.S. technologies. Proliferation, an issue to which the United States had paid little attention in the past, became a central focus of U.S. grand strategy. In the first National Security Strategy of the United States after the Gulf War, the administration expanded its discussion of nonproliferation to an entire page, revealing a three-tier ap-
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proach to the issue: stengthening existing regimes; expanding the membership of current regimes; developing new nonproliferation initiatives.222 The report unequivocably states that controls on the export of sensitive items “must be strengthened,” and that the Gulf War taught important lessons regarding proliferation.223 President Bush optimistically titled the preface to this report “A New World Order.” Without question, these efforts helped build the surge of cooperative activities that followed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Though its membership remained relatively stable, for example, COCOM gained the cooperation of many additional states on export control issues. The number and nature of items controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, and the MTCR, and, to a lesser degree, membership, altered sharply. The Nuclear Suppliers Group also underwent a radical increase in the frequency of contact and began some major institutional changes. Despite this progress, by the end of the Bush administration supplier states differed significantly on the threat posed by potential end users and proscribed destinations. While officials privately conceded that agreement on dangerous end users was more extensive than that portrayed in public (mainly Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and at the time, Serbia), nonetheless, the United States and the other members of the Group of Seven disagreed considerably on what controls ought to be applied even to these states, particularly Iran.224 Even more important, key supplier states, such as Japan and the United States, disagreed on the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation as proliferators. For a short time, the swift military success of the UN coalition against Iraq gave President Bush an aura of domestic political invincibility. His popularity soared. Many of his potential opponents for the next presidential election campaign, moreover, had voted against the use of force, damaging their chances for the presidency, and influencing their decisions not to run for office. Within a year, however, President Bush no longer looked invulnerable. Throughout his first two years in office, President Bush had subjugated nonproliferation export controls to other national goals. He appeared to respond too slowly to the disintegration of Soviet communism and became the target of charges that his administration helped build the Iraqi war machine and otherwise abet the proliferation of WMD programs. Eventually, this undermined one of his key campaign messages — that he was more experienced and capable in handling foreign affairs than his political opponents. Perhaps with more sense of the vicissitudes of leadership, President Bush titled the preface to his last national security strategy report, issued in January 1993, “The World as It Is.”
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t h e c l i n ton a d m i n i s t r at i on It’s the Economy, Stupid ★ ★ ★
chamber music ome members of the audience still sought their places when the music of Mozart began wafting through the room before the House Economic Policy, Trade and Environment Subcommittee. Suddenly, the room filled with static, and, just as suddenly, the music began anew. With a few strokes on the keyboard of a laptop computer, representatives of the Business Software Alliance had connected with a computer site in Germany, copied and imported an encryption software program that used a data encryption standard algorithm (a 56-bit code key used on blocks of 64 bits), played, encrypted, and decoded the digitally stored sounds. The witnesses noted that with a single keystroke they could transfer the encryption program back to its source in Germany or anywhere else. They choose not to transmit the program because exporting encryption software with a data encryption standard algorithm without a license would violate the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Common software packages, such as Lotus Notes™ or Norton Utilities™, contain encryption programs for electronic mail and other communications.
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Even programming ordinary automated teller machines involves the use of encryption software. The collapse of the Soviet military threat and the increased need for secure transmission of market and financial data had driven some COCOM members to eliminate their controls on some of this software. The National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other enforcement agencies, however, argued that exporting high-level encryption software would impair their capacity to decipher electronic communication worldwide and threaten U.S. national security interests. As a result, the United States chose to maintain its controls unilaterally, since its companies dominated the market. Speaking for the Business Software Alliance, Ray Ozzie urged Congress to permit exports of software with the data encryption standard (DES) or other comparable 56-bit algorithms. For domestic operations, companies already used algorithms with 128-bit code keys such as IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm). Ozzie estimated that U.S. companies risked $6 billion to $9 billion in annual revenues because of the gap between what controls allowed companies to export and what was, or would soon be, available in the world market.1 Representing companies accounting for more than 70 percent of the prepackaged personal computer software published by U.S. firms, including Apple Computer, Borland International, Lotus Development, Microsoft, Novell, and others, this testimony had powerful backers. Several months before the October 1993 hearing, the administration had introduced the “Clipper Chip,” an encryption device created by the government to replace the DES. Installing the Clipper Chip in commercial computer systems would give the U.S. government the capacity to decode the encrypted messages sent from those devices while restricting the transfer of encrypted information by other algorithms or mechanisms. Although industry objections to the device ultimately sank the Clipper Chip, it was among the first concrete indications that the Clinton administration would take a fresh look at obstacles that had plagued export control reform efforts. Given these signals, by late 1993 the Business Software Alliance and other industry groups were in the midst of a strenuous campaign to transform U.S. export control policy. For any administration, developing presidential policy to implement its grand strategy is not about choosing between national security and economic prosperity, but about how to achieve both.2 Regarding export controls, the Clinton administration followed the lead of its predecessors: Officials tended to see military security and economic prosperity as competing objectives. The demise of the Soviet Union and its associated military threat, however, offered President Clinton an opportunity to devise a grand strategy that could alter the fundamental relationship between those objectives.
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For U.S. commercial interests, the end of the Cold War paved the way for a radical reformation of export controls. If the United States removed the bulk of the controls, with market reforms in the former Soviet bloc already under way, leading U.S. manufacturers saw an unparalleled opening for new sales. With the election of President Clinton, many industry leaders perceived this as the most propitious moment to act. Consequently, industry lobbyists intensified their campaign to relax and streamline export controls. Almost immediately after the November 1992 election, pundits tried to foresee the direction of export control policy under the Clinton administration.3 This was no easy task. During the campaign, Clinton had issued several confusing signals regarding the future of export control policy. One body of evidence suggested that the Clinton administration would seek to tighten nonproliferation export controls. The Clinton campaign rhetoric identified nonproliferation as a high, if not the highest, foreign policy priority. In a September 1992 position paper, Clinton promised a nonproliferation-based export control policy that would “lay a marker down for the rest of the world.”4 Candidate Clinton also assailed President Bush for too lenient controls on exports to China, and for Bush administration export control policy toward Iraq. Clinton even selected a running mate, Senator Al Gore, Jr., with a solid record of promoting nonproliferation export controls while in the Senate. Finally, presidentelect Clinton supported the U.S. initiative to get G-7 countries to operate on a presumption of denial when considering export license applications for Iran. At the same time, the campaign also effused signals that President Clinton might tilt away from export controls toward export promotion. The campaign theme, “It’s the economy, stupid,” translated into a vision of a new U.S. economy, led by high-technology exports. As had most modern governors, Clinton worked hard to promote exports from his home state. Indeed, candidate Clinton promised to redefine national security to include more economic concerns. Specifically, Clinton pledged to create an economic equivalent to the National Security Council. In a campaign document, “Manufacturing for the Twenty-first Century,” candidate Clinton called for more liberal export controls, streamlining the export control process, and eschewing unilateral controls.5 Although committed to strengthening export controls against the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological, Clinton also wanted to rid the U.S. system of its Cold War vestiges. These promises appear to have helped win Clinton considerable political support and financial contributions from high-tech industries during the campaign. After a description of some historical efforts to reform the export control licensing system, this chapter follows the evolution of export control policy in the first Clinton term (1993–1996). As we shall see, the views of the protrade forces, including those of President Clinton himself, initially dominated export
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control policy. By the end of the 1995, however, both the pressure for and the process of liberalization reached its peak. The politics of drafting new export control legislation shifted to “front-load” the views of nonproliferation advocates into the legislative process, while continuing to press reforms through executive orders. In the first term, however, nonproliferation entrepreneurs, public and political, had difficulty tying export controls to inconsistencies in the core foreign policy programs of the Clinton administration, including support for democracy in Russia and trade with China. This inhibited their capacity to influence presidential export control policy.
e n g ag e m e n t a n d e n l a r g e m e n t a n d a n e w e x p ort c on t rol r at i ona l e A few conceptual precursors of Clinton administration grand strategy appeared in the Bush administration national security strategy reports. The March 1990 report speaks of “enlarging” the “commonwealth of free nations.”6 The January 1993 report describes a strategy of “collective engagement” by which the United States seeks to promote global and regional stability, democracy, and freer trade.7 Early in 1993, President Clinton settled on a grand strategy of “engagement and enlargement” to guide national security efforts.8 The administration bluntly asserted that the Cold War, with its twin threats of communist aggression and a large-scale nuclear war, was over. A strategy of engagement and enlargement would address a host of different threats, including proliferation, terrorism, drug trafficking, the environment, and manmade and natural disasters. The Clinton administration also placed much more emphasis on promoting domestic and international prosperity as a means of enhancing U.S. security than did the Bush administration. By enlargement, the administration meant building a framework that would protect, consolidate, and enlarge “the community of free market democracies.”9 Clearly this meant promoting democracy in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, especially in Russia, and elsewhere. Equally as important, however, it meant supporting U.S. policies and international institutions that enhanced international trade, especially U.S. exports. By engagement, the administration meant leadership by “preventive diplomacy.”10 The United States would rely on international agreements as the foundation for selectively addressing security (and economic) problems. It would engage other nations through persistent dialogue and other diplomatic measures. By this process, administration officials hoped to diffuse lingering security, trade, and human rights disputes with old foes (and old friends), and prevent the esca-
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lation of new problems into disputes that threatened regional stability and economic prosperity. Both engagement and enlargement included efforts to shield the community of free market democracies from a panoply of threats. The administration gave nonproliferation “critical priority” in this regard.11 Although, the Clinton administration supported “improved [emphasis added] export controls for nonproliferation purposes both domestically and multilaterally” as part of these efforts, it had another major aim: reforming what many saw as an outdated export control system.12 This mainly meant eliminating many controls, especially for trade among COCOM members, and further reducing restrictions on exports to former communist countries. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait produced a consensus that the United States needed to transform the Export Administration Act (EAA). Three approaches emerged from the debate on how to reform the law: export enhancement; nonproliferation; and rogue states.13 Advocates of the rogue nation approach argued that controlling exports to Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea had a commonsense appeal for the public (and imposed limited costs on U.S. exporters). Advocates of the nonproliferation and export enhancement approach often saw the rogue nations approach as a tortured compromise between their more principled positions. Each of these approaches attracted a cadre of supporters. From the start of the Clinton administration, export enhancement advocates sought to increase the weight of commercial interests in making U.S. export control policy. These advocates portrayed U.S. export control policy as out of balance, overemphasizing military security objectives and underplaying the costs to U.S. economic security associated with export controls. Many industry groups emerged to take a strong stand in favor of this approach. Among the most active groups, the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer and the National Association of Manufacturers lobbied Congress extensively. The Industry Coalition began during the struggle to create the Export Administration Amendments Act of 1985. At the time, Reagan administration officials complained about endless rounds of meetings with different business representatives, all of whom made identical arguments. In a classic interest group pattern, the Industry Coalition allied various high-technology industry groups.14 These groups created the coalition solely to reach unified industry positions on export controls and help these associations speak with a single voice regarding a regularly revised export control agenda.15 In contrast,the National Association of Manufacturers brings together more than 14,000 individual companies that account for about percent of U.S. exports.16 The industries these groups represented had a direct financial stake in
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liberalizing U.S. export controls, with the estimates of costs ranging $10 billion to $40 billion per annum. Instead of declining costs from the end of East-West trade controls, an internal survey by the NAM revealed that the increased burden of complying with nonproliferation export controls offset the benefits of relaxed national security export controls. On average, each company devoted $1.3 million a year and twenty-four employees on activities related to export licensing, and almost 40 percent noted that the burden had increased in the 1990s. A few groups had federal mandates to produce studies on reforming export controls, generally with a view toward decreasing the burden on U.S. industry. In A Trade Policy for a More Competitive America, for example, the Competitiveness Policy Council argued that the criteria for export controls should assess “foreign availability, controllability, and substitutability,” which “reflects the rapid pace of technological evolution.”17 The Council also asserted that the United States should base export controls securely in a multilateral framework, and avoid unilateral controls. Similarly, the National Research Council produced a new study suggesting that the proliferation problem was largely one of demand.18 The report deemed supply-side measures (i.e., nonproliferation export controls) on high-technology items as so ineffective in the long run that the United States should relax export controls to reap economic gains.19 Nonofficial studies also supported the export enhancement position. For example, J. David Richardson identified export controls for national security or nonproliferation purposes as the leading disincentive to U.S. exports. According to the study, export controls cost the U.S. economy as much as $30 billion annually.20 Even institutions with a strong interest in nonproliferation, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sponsored and produced studies that supported the export enhancement approach.21 Not all the players in previous debates participated in these new exercises. In particular, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stayed on the sidelines. Allegedly, chamber staff believed the majority of their constituents did not produce items subject to controls, had a domestic market orientation, or exported to markets where proliferation controls posed few problems. Chamber staff concluded that the large multinational companies and the high-tech business associations would press to eliminate the most onerous Cold War controls, which did interest their members, no matter what the Chamber did. During the first years of the Clinton administration, a bipartisan group in Congress favored the enhancement approach. Among the Democrats, many came from states where high-technology industries played an important role in a state or district economy, particularly California, Illinois, and Washington. These included Maria Cantwell (D-WA), in whose district Microsoft had its
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headquarters, and Donald Manzullo (D-IL). Among Republicans, Toby Roth (RWI) surfaced as the most ardent supporter for reform. As ranking minority member on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Affairs and Trade, which had jurisdiction for the EAA, Roth was in an especially influential position. Many officials in the Clinton administration also supported the export enhancement approach. President Clinton, among his first executive orders, established in January 1993 a new body to coordinate U.S. economic policy and appointed Robert E. Rubin to head this National Economic Council. Soon after, at a National Association of Manufacturers meeting, Rubin suggested that he intended to give business interests greater weight in formulating U.S. export control policy.22 Similarly, the administration would make expanding markets and increasing U.S. exports the “first priority,” for the Commerce Department Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), the lead unit for export licensing and enforcement.23 In addition, the export enhancement position had a new bureaucratic ally. As the threat from the former Soviet Union diminished, and as budget constraints increased, the Clinton administration looked for ways to cut costs but preserve the defense high-tech industrial base. Administration officials concluded that the military could increase its use of dual-use goods and technologies in this regard.24 This inferred that the Defense Department might prove more amenable to liberalizing export controls, as producers of those items often depended on exports.25 Even more important, Clinton created a new national security management team that simply did not put much faith in export controls to address the problems posed by WMD proliferation. In 1992, for instance, the Brookings Institution published a monograph calling for a new U.S. security strategy based on the concept of cooperative security.26 The strategy specifically turned away from the use of export controls as a tool against WMD proliferation. The authors, Ashton Carter, William Perry, and John Steinbruner, asserted that the diffusion of sensitive technologies, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, meant that these trends do call into question very strongly the future viability of those control strategies. They suggest that strategy based on denial of access and orchestrated by the advanced industrial nations will fail in time—and for some nations and some weapons types is failing already.27
This study took on more meaning as Carter and Perry became high-ranking officials in the Defense Department, with Perry eventually rising to the post of secretary. In his confirmation hearing, Perry took an even more strident position,
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calling controls on dual-use technologies “hopeless,” and saying that trade in these goods made a better inducement than sanction in promoting cooperation with nonproliferation agreements.28 In another example, Mitchell Wallerstein, who had led the National Academy of Sciences projects to reform national security export controls, became deputy assistant secretary of Defense responsible for nonproliferation issues. As such, Wallerstein supervised the voice of the department in the licensing process, the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA). Under Wallerstein, DTSA had sharp reductions in staff, sent far fewer license applications out for technical analysis, and generally adopted a more liberal view on export licensing and other export control matters.29 At the same time, nonproliferation advocates had a clear and recent case that they could use to generate widespread support for tighter export controls—Iraq. Program officers in a number of large foundations, such as W. Alton Jones and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, delivered new support for the activities of groups associated with nonproliferation issues. By the mid-1990s, more than thirty U.S. nongovernmental organizations conducted research programs on nonproliferation issues (see table 6.1).30 Generally, they focused their attention on broader nonproliferation issues, especially those issues central to the 1995 NPT Extension Conference. Eighteen of the Washington-based arms control groups, for example, came together in the Campaign for the Non-Proliferation Treaty to provide a unified front on issues related to the treaty. These groups also maintained strong transnational links. Foreign groups interested in nonproliferation export controls, such as the Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt, the Programme for Promoting Nuclear Non-Proliferation, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, propagated global interest in the issue. This approach even had support from some in the business community. The Business Executives for National Security, for example, was founded to increase private sector commitment to stemming WMD proliferation. By early 1992, the organization developed a set of ethical guidelines for business designed to address proliferation concerns.31 A few nonproliferation entrepreneurs took on positions of responsibility in the Clinton administration. As noted earlier, Vice President Gore had served as a key nonproliferation advocate in the Senate. In such diverse roles as directing the National Performance Review, which examined the export control bureaucracy, and chairing the Gore-Chernomyrden Commission, which outlined U.S.-Russian cooperation on export controls, the vice president took on significant responsibilities in formulating export control policy. In Congress, many of the political entrepreneurs interested in nonproliferation won reelection and a strong contingent of nonproliferation entrepreneurs
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Table 6.1 ★ Selected U.S. NGOs Interested in Nonproliferation, by Type, 1995 NGO Type
NGOs
Research Institutions
Brookings Institution Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Center for Strategic and International Studies Center for International Trade and Security Henry L. Stimson Center Institute for Defense Analysis Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Institute for Science and International Security Monterey Institute of International Studies Natural Resources Defense Council Nautilus Pacific Research Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Nuclear Control Institute Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control
Membership Organizations
American Association for the Advancement of Science Arms Control Association Business Executives for National Security Campaign for the Non-Proliferation Treaty Council on Foreign Relations Federation of American Scientists Lawyers Alliance for World Security Union of Concerned Scientists United Nations Association of the USA Washington Council for Non-Proliferation Women in International Security
Foundations
Eurasia Foundation W. Alton Jones Foundation Henry P. Kendall Foundation John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation John Merck Fund Prospect Hill Foundation Rockefeller Foundation Ploughshares Fund Scherman Foundation Winston Foundation for World Peace
Source: Organization representatives attending the conference on “Nuclear Non-Proliferation in 1995: Renewal, Transition, or Decline?” January 30–31, 1995, Washington, D.C.
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appeared in the House and Senate. Usually, different members of Congress took the lead in addressing different elements of the nonproliferation problem. Sen. John Glenn (D-OH), for example, would forge most of the legislation on nuclear nonproliferation, while Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Bingaman (DNM) focused on missile proliferation issues. In the House, Rep. John Kasich (ROH) pushed for the creation of a panel of independent experts to advise the president on arms proliferation, while Tom Lantos (D-CA) specialized in nuclear issues. The House even created a Subcommittee on International Security and Nonproliferation with Ken Timmerman, a longtime public nonproliferation entrepreneur, briefly serving as a staff leader.32 Nonetheless, nonproliferation entrepreneurs, both public and political, remained divided on the precise value of export controls. In addition to denying certain exports, nonproliferation advocates often call for transfers of some sensitive dual-use technologies. Improving the safety and protection of stockpiles of sensitive materials, for example, requires extensive use of dual-use monitoring equipment. Few nonproliferation advocates, moreover, want to use export controls in a way that further alienated governments of emerging nations against support for nonproliferation norms. The prevailing solution to these concerns was to adjust controls to the specific end uses and end users of dual-use exports. Although Congress had trouble crafting a new EAA in the 1980s, it had passed several acts that imposed sanctions on states, organizations, or individuals for their proliferation activities. The Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Amendments Act of 1989, for instance, required validated licenses for exports that could make a significant contribution to the military potential of countries on the Department of State list of governments that support acts of international terrorism. Congress would later amend this to presume that any item on the MTCR Annex exported to these countries required a validated license. Some members of Congress examined the value of nonproliferation export controls not through the lens of specific end users and end uses, but through the degree of threat posed by specific countries. This fit the way the Bush administration had emphasized the danger of WMD proliferation. It was not so much that Iraq had or might obtain more WMD, as it was that Iraq was a rogue state trying to enhance its WMD programs. The rogue state approach found strong allies among various political entrepreneurs in Congress. Sometimes, these concerns melded very unusual alliances of conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans. Senator Larry Pressler (R-SD), for example, designed one of the most contentious parts of U.S. nonproliferation policy in the 1980s. The Pressler Amendment of 1985 meant that U.S. assistance to Pakistan would stop if Pakistan moved ahead with its nuclear weapons program. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), the inheritor of the
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“China Lobby” of the 1950s, made criticism of Chinese proliferation activities part of his overall assault on Beijing. Under the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal years 1992 and 1993, for instance, Congress conditioned trade with China on PRC proliferation activities, and requires the White House to report on Chinese nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile proliferation practices. Similarly, Sen. Alphonse D’Amato (R-NY), who paid close attention to Israeli interests, offered a bill to restrict trade with Iran and Iraq (and to sanction other countries that chose to trade with Iran and Iraq), in order to condemn the two countries. The primary advantage to the rogue state approach derives from the general consensus that no one should export any military or significant dual-use items to four states: Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea. These four countries, along with Cuba, Sudan, and Syria, also appeared on the State Department list of states supporting international terrorism. Despite considerable protests from industry about unilateral controls that targeted these states, Sam Gejdenson (D-CT, chair of the House subcommittee with primary jurisdiction over the EAA) and the administration agreed on the necessity of presidential authority to impose controls, whether unilateral or multilateral, against these countries.33 The nonproliferation community saw these states as presenting a clear and present danger to nonproliferation norms. Strict controls also posed limited costs to U.S. industry, as few companies would risk their reputation by transferring sensitive items to any end users in these states. Although U.S. companies lost some large-scale deals to foreign competitors, such as the sale of airplanes to Iran, at most these controls meant the loss of a minute proportion of the market for U.S. high-technology exports. Unlike the export enhancement or the nonproliferation approach, however, the rogue state approach lacked firm principles on which to base choices about appropriate targets, what to control, and how to control it. While most U.S. friends and allies agreed to restrict their sales of military and key dual-use items to Iran, for instance, this consensus took a long time to build. It still led to significant differences in interpretation as to the nature of what they could or could not export.34 In addition, without a general agreement on what defines a rogue state, attempts to target China, India, or Russia or any other country where U.S. industry had a significant stake would create a tremendous rift in domestic politics. Without more universal criteria, moreover, this approach looked like another example of U.S. imperialism, where U.S. commercial interests drove a hypocritical policy devoid of a real interest in global or regional security. In a prescient observation, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce Paul Freedenberg declared that, given the divergent views, revising the EAA simply posed “a recipe for more stalemate.”35
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t h e p rom i s e o f c h a n g e Though many parties wanted to reform U.S. export control policy, key figures in Congress agreed to support a simple extension of the old EAA. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown wrote the House Foreign Affairs Committee to ask them to support HR 750, which would extend the old EAA and allow the administration and Congress to undertake an effort to conduct a “major refashioning” of the EAA.36 Under the bipartisan leadership of Sam Gejdenson and Toby Roth, the House voted 330–54 on February 16 to extend the EAA through the end of June 1994. The next day Senators D’Amato and Connie Mack (R-FL) asked the administration for a commitment to reform the interagency export licensing process in return for their support for an extension.37 Clinton asserted that a “thorough review of the export control system” would become a top priority for the administration.38 By March, President Clinton had created an interagency working group to formulate policy on proliferation, including export controls.39 On March 11, by voice vote, the Senate approved HR 750, which extended the EAA. President Clinton signed it into law on March 27, 1993. In April, the administration also began a thorough review of U.S. trade policy toward the Soviet Union. Through the review, President Clinton meant to reorient export controls to meet the needs of the post–Cold War era.40 On June 23, the National Association of Manufacturers released a detailed proposal for a new EAA.41 Their version put strict limits on the use of unilateral export controls and on attempts to control items available from foreign sources. It also called for dramatic cuts in the time allowed for license processing. In a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs International Trade Subcommittee, witnesses unleashed a torrid assault on U.S. export control policy. Industry representatives, including Jerry Jasinowski of the NAM, Gregory Hughes of AT&T, and John Gage of Sun Microsystems, told subcommittee Chair Sam Gejdenson of the toll U.S. export control policy levied on U.S. exporters. According to their testimony, export controls needed radical reform. Ben Flowe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies also testified to the inadequacies of U.S. policy, based on a study the center released in January 1993.42 Finally, John Steinbrunner of the Brookings Institution repeated the charge that export controls no longer made for an effective security strategy, and he proposed, among other things, abandoning current export controls for the global monitoring of a few key items by using physical markers. At the same time, nonproliferation entrepreneurs in the House, such as Tom Lantos (D-CA), believed the newly created House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
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on International Security and Nonproliferation could serve as a watchdog for nonproliferation objectives. The staff director for the new subcommittee, Kenneth Timmerman, clearly defined their role: “If the draft EAA does not address issues of nonproliferation to our satisfaction, it will have a hard time getting through the House.”43 In the Senate, nonproliferation entrepreneurs undertook several actions aimed at precipitating tighter export controls. In June, Senator McCain introduced the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Amendment to extend controls outlined in the National Defense Authorization Act (which he had co-sponsored with Senator Gore) to Iran. The act imposed sanctions on companies or countries that helped Iran or Iraq get weapons of mass destruction, advanced chemical weapons, or associated technologies.44 For companies engaged in such behavior, the bill mandated that government deny contracts and trade licenses (and advised limiting the use of U.S. financial institutions and transactions). Toward offending countries, the United States could deny most-favored-nation status, downgrade diplomatic relations, suspend special trade privileges, suspend trade agreements, revoke licenses for nuclear transfers, and limit airline landing rights. Members of the Senate also used the GAO to blast the executive branch on nonproliferation export controls. Senators McCain and Bingaman, for example, requested State Department Inspector General Funk to investigate whether State had failed to comply properly to the provisions of the MTCR regarding sanctions.45 On August 5, 1993, Secretary of Commerce Brown finally testified before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on trade and the environment regarding the EAA. Brown characterized the current system as too “unwieldy and bureaucratic,” as pro-trade reformers argued.46 Brown hesitated to offer an administration draft of the EAA, however, until the government completed several studies, including that of an interagency working group on export controls and of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee. Frustrated by the slow pace of reform, a special industry group, the Computer Systems Policy Project, consisting of U.S. computer manufacturers such as Unisys, Cray, Sun Microsystems, Digital, Compaq, and AT&T, pressed President Clinton to ease controls on the export of computers. Under an agreement with its COCOM partners, the United States restricted exports to the former Soviet Republics, China, and Eastern Europe of computers above a composite theoretical performance (CTP) of 12.5 Mtops. This CTP roughly corresponds with the computing power of a 4086 machine running at 33 megahertz. Reportedly, the computer manufacturers wanted the administration to raise the level to 110 Mtops.47 Buttressing their position, an Office of Foreign Availability determination indicated that computers made in Taiwan and South Korea, countries without stringent controls on computer exports, could perform with a CTP of up to
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67 Mtops (equivalent to a computer with a Pentium processor running at 66 megahertz), and that neither country had stringent export control systems.48 According to one report, President Clinton had dinner in Silicon Valley with about two dozen industry executives at this time.49 Hearing lots of complaints about export controls, Clinton apparently took copious notes and promised to give the industry some relief. In September 1993, to the shock and joy of U.S. computer manufacturers, President Clinton announced that the United States would immediately remove controls on exports of computers with CTPs of up to 194 and propose a 500 Mtops level in negotiations with COCOM partners (a level that would eliminate licensing requirements for all but 2 percent of computer exports in 1993).50 In addition, the administration intended to raise the CTP threshold for defining a supercomputer from 195 to 2,000 Mtops.51 The proposal came as the key part of a package of reform proposals released by the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, a group representing nineteen federal agencies.52 The package bound the Clinton administration to pursue even more liberalization, particularly streamlining the licensing and license referral process.53 That month, President Clinton wrote the CEO of Silicon Graphics, Edward McCracken, that “[o]ne reason I ran was to tailor export controls to the realities of the post-cold-war world.”54 Clinton also issued Presidential Decision Directive 13 to outline presidential nonproliferation export control policy. In the first major speech reflecting the administration approach, President Clinton told the UN General Assembly that the United States would “weave it [nonproliferation] more deeply into the fabric of all our relations with all the world’s nations and institutions.”55 In practice, the directive linked U.S. commitment to nonproliferation policies to their capacity to rouse multilateral adherence and coordination. Most important, the dramatic relaxation of controls on computers revealed how strongly the Clinton administration believed the balance between power and plenty had swayed too far toward a limited notion of military security. Many Clinton officials accepted the industry argument that technological diffusion made computers and computer-related technologies too difficult to control. As important, they saw such controls as harmful to U.S. high-technology industries, which they saw as a source of both economic prosperity and military security in the next century. President Clinton embellished this theme in a speech at the opening of the United Nations in September 1993. After highlighting proliferation of the “deadliest weapons” as the most important global and national priority, Clinton said, At the same time we stop deadly technologies from falling into the wrong hands, we will work with our partners to remove outdated con-
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trols that unfairly burden legitimate commerce and unduly restrain growth and opportunity all over the world.56
In the report by the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, the administration made specific commitments to increase consideration of U.S. economic interests in export control decisions. They wanted to increase the availability of rigorous economic analysis to decision-makers and ensure that policy and licensing decisions included the views of the Labor Department, the Council of Economic Advisors, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.57 The administration also committed itself to eliminating most unilateral controls by the end of the year.58 That autumn saw the administration take two more acts in that emphasized this new direction in policy. The United States had imposed stricter controls on exports to China after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989. President Bush waived these and other export controls several times, however, to allow satellite exports to China.59 Although the Bush administration agreed to lift these sanctions, concerns arose that China continued to transfer M-11 missiles to Pakistan. Based on these fears, the Clinton administration imposed sanctions on eleven Chinese entities allegedly involved in the transfers (along with the sanctions on the Pakistani Ministry of Defense) in August 1993. Accusing China of violating the restrictions on MTCR Category I items, however, would require the administration to deny all exports of controlled items to China. Instead, administration officials chose to determine the transfers a violation of MTCR Category II, a finding which incurs less severe penalties under U.S. law, mainly restricting the export of missile-related items. Almost immediately, the White House felt industry pressure to make an exception for Chinese launches of U.S. commercial satellites. Since the 1980s, when the Reagan administration decided not to extend support to the U.S. launch vehicle industry, U.S. commercial satellite producers had to find alternative launchers to meet the growing demand for their products. The Chinese offered a relatively low-cost solution to this problem. For the Chinese, launching U.S. commercial satellites meant hard-currency earnings. Eventually, as the Chinese pushed their producers to have less dependence on the state, launching U.S. commercial satellites became a key source of income for entities such as the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The most obvious example of pressure arose when thirty members of the California Congressional delegation wrote Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher in October 1993, urging the State Department to issue a waiver to prevent the loss of jobs in their state.60 In November 1993, the administration
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made a commitment to Chinese officials that the United States would approve the export of three U.S. commercial satellites for Chinese launches.61 In January 1994, the administration also argued that only those satellites requiring a munitions license from State, not those subject to only to Commerce dual-use controls, fell under the purview of the MTCR sanctions law.62 By July 1994, the president had signed the waiver that fulfilled their commitment to three commercial satellite launches on Chinese rockets.63 After the Chinese also agreed to control the transfer of missiles with the inherent capability to exceed MTCR guidelines, the Clinton administration lifted its sanctions in October 1994. To emphasize its new direction in export control policy, the administration also approved the sale of a Cray supercomputer to China. Officials portrayed approval of the machine, with a CTP of 958 Mtops, as a “humanitarian” measure, since China had designated weather forecasting as its end use. This only served as a precursor for further decontrol of computers.
non p rol i f e r at i on i n i t i at i v e s i n a m u lt i l at e r a l c on t e x t While the administration slowly moved to prepare a draft EAA, it pressed forward in establishing a new vision of multilateral export controls. When the president announced the April 1993 review of U.S. export control policies, the administration specifically labeled COCOM a relic of the Cold War.64 Industry groups urged the administration to encapsulate the various nonproliferation export control arrangements (i.e., the Australia Group, the MTCR, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group) into COCOM or some new umbrella organization. ICOTT, for example, issued a position paper in the spring of 1993 urging that a new COCOM have a short list of target countries and a single list of controlled items for non-proliferation purposes.65 In contrast, most nonproliferation advocates argued that consolidation not only would prove impractical, but would carry the unacceptable political cost of turning into the very cartel-like structure that many emerging suppliers already feared.66 In the summer of 1993, the Clinton administration called for a new arrangement to replace COCOM. At the Vancouver summit with Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, President Clinton promised to phase out the system of export controls on trade with Russia. In place of COCOM, Clinton offered Yeltsin a new partnership on restricting strategic trade in pursuit of nonproliferation objectives. Instead of using the nascent COCOM Cooperation Forum developed in the Bush administration as a framework, the Clinton administration proposed a new mechanism, an arrangement that would include the states of the former Soviet Union.67
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Also in the summer of 1993, Dr. Lynn Davis, undersecretary for international security affairs at the State Department, held high-level talks in a few West European capitals about a new body that would control the proliferation of military and dual-use items. While COCOM members maintained controls to communist states on a list of munitions items, Davis proposed that the new arrangement involve controls and information sharing on nearly all sales of major weapon systems. This marked a major shift in U.S. policy, and the United States faced a difficult time persuading France, England, and other major arms exporters to join such an arrangement. Presidential Decision Directive-13, issued in September, also tied administration policy to reforms in the multilateral export control arrangements. The administration made several new proposals for relaxing COCOM controls. Based on the recommendations of the Trade Policy Coordinating Committee, liberalizing the export of computers and telecommunications devices especially interested the administration. COCOM members agreed to adjust controls on these items in November 1993.68 More important, at the November plenary session, COCOM partners agreed to dissolve COCOM by March 31, 1994. The members vowed to create a new organization, with more members, that would target rogue states of proliferation concern. While based on the list of munitions and dual-use items controlled under COCOM, the new arrangement would control fewer dual-use items but grant notifications regarding arms sales to nonmember countries. In a critical shift in procedures, no country would hold a veto over license decisions taken by other members. Throughout the life of COCOM, the United States had used its veto (and the threat of a veto) to preserve a more restrictive stance toward EastWest trade than other COCOM members generally preferred.69 While committed to denying “outlaw” states access to sensitive military technologies, administration officials seemed eager to focus on more vigorous diplomatic and military measures to control proliferation. In speeches in East Asia that summer, for example, President Clinton argued that diplomacy and economic incentives could steer North Korea and the People’s Republic of China toward compliance with nonproliferation norms.70 The administration attached significant value to completing or modifying nonproliferation treaty regimes. It clearly touted extending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely at the 1995 review conference as its most important nonproliferation objective. It also began to campaign for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, and for the completion of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Clinton and National Security Advisor Anthony Lake also warned that the United States must ready itself “to strike back decisively and unilaterally” to thwart aggression by “backlash” states.71 More important, the Department of
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Defense increasingly institutionalized nonproliferation objectives into its mission. Among his first acts, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin had initiated the “BottomUp Review,” a sweeping assessment of Defense Department programs and practices. The review, released in September 1993, concluded that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction constituted the foremost threat facing the United States and its allies.72 As important, the review adopted a “two-war” strategy, where U.S. military forces could fight and win two major regional conflicts simultaneously. Almost all the scenarios used to develop this military strategy pitted the United States against two rogue states, usually Iraq and North Korea, giving tacit support for the rogue state nonproliferation strategy.73 Based on the Bottom-Up Review, the Department of Defense gathered its resources to develop a “counterproliferation” policy, unveiled as the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative in December 1993.74 At the core of the initiative, the Defense Department would create new military capabilities to help deter WMD acquisition, reverse WMD programs by diplomatic action, protect U.S. “interests, forces, and allies” from the use or threat of WMD, or defeat an opponent equipped with WMD. In practice, these capabilities included improved intelligence support, new technologies to detect WMD, new capacities to operate in contaminated areas, better detection of cruise missiles, new nonnuclear weapons to defeat hard targets, and more vaccines against biological weapons.75 This also involved remaking the Strategic Defense Initiative into a body concentrating on regional missile threats, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.76 Finally, Defense invested funds to support completion of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to assist in the control or safe disposition of foreign fissile and WMD-related material.77 Some nonproliferation advocates saw this as a dangerous experiment that degraded the efficacy of diplomacy and other nonmilitary approaches to nonproliferation. At the same time, critics within the military services worked to reduce the scope of the program to the conduct of military operations in a WMD environment, instead of functions not unique to the Defense Department. Officials at the State Department saw the initiative as impinging on their diplomatic functions, and on the role of the National Security Council to define overall nonproliferation policy (as its language obscured the difference between the two concepts).78
t h e l i m i t s o f c ou n t e r p rol i f e r at i on : t h e nort h kor e a n n u c l e a r p ro g r a m A scenario soon evolved to test these new nonproliferation policies. A member of the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1974, North Korea signed the
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Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in December 1985, at least in part to ease the transfer of nuclear plants from the Soviet Union. By the early 1990s, North Korea operated a 5-MW(e) research reactor and a plutonium reprocessing plant in Yongbyon, and sought to construct two much larger reactors.79 North Korea, however, refused to sign a Nuclear Safeguards Agreement with the international agency unless the United States withdrew its nuclear weapons from South Korea and the United States and South Korean ended the annual large-scale military exercise known as Team Spirit. By January 1992, the United States and South Korea had met these conditions. In late 1991, the United States removed all its nuclear weapons from South Korea, and North and South Korea signed the “Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In the Joint Declaration, both governments agreed that they would not maintain nuclear reprocessing or enrichment plants, would renounce nuclear weapons, and would accept the principle of mutual inspections. In early 1992, North Korea signed a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and supplied a list of its nuclear materials. It reported that it had 90 grams of plutonium subject to agency inspection, which came from reprocessing defective fuel rods in 1989.80 Agency inspections in May and July 1992, however, revealed inconsistencies between the North Korean declaration and the data. It appeared that North Korea had produced much more weapons-grade plutonium from reprocessed spent fuel in 1989 and that it had repeated the process at least three times.81 Informally, the International Atomic Energy Agency asked to inspect two undeclared sites during late 1992, both at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, but North Korea allowed only a visual inspection of one site. Having learned from the Iraq case, the agency had developed a new procedure for special inspections of undeclared sites. In February 1993, the agency formally asked to conduct a special inspection on two alleged waste dumps in North Korea that intelligence experts believed might reveal unaccounted stockpiles of plutonium or highly enriched uranium. North Korea fueled these suspicions further when it called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to withdraw the request, and, when the agency refused, refuted its right to conduct the inspection. The United States, at a board meeting of the agency, unveiled evidence from aerial surveillance and chemical analysis from the inspections. Apparently, the presentation convinced board members that a waste dump existed (which North Korea denied) and that in the North Korean declaration was seriously flawed.82 The International Atomic Energy Agency gave North Korea one month to accept the special inspection. On March 12, 1993, North Korea declared its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Months of negotiations followed, after which North Korea agreed to suspend its withdrawal and once again to accept general inspections of its declared seven sites, but not of the two alleged waste dumps. A pattern of agreement, obstruction, suspension of negotiations, threats, and new agreements emerged over the next year. Moreover, every inspection revealed new questions and concerns. Most important, in January 1994 the director of the Central Intelligence Agency indicated that North Korea could have one or two nuclear weapons, based on estimates that North Korea had about 12 kilograms of plutonium. Other intelligence agencies provided even higher estimates, up to 24 kilograms.83 In March 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned North Korea to abandon its nascent nuclear weapons program or face “progressively stronger measures.”84 The Clinton administration began to seek multilateral support for broad economic sanctions against North Korea. Even a complete embargo, however, seemed unlikely to achieve results in the near term. Despite recent interest in expanding its global economic contacts, North Korea in fact had few substantial economic links with the other countries, so additional restrictions would merely irritate rather than deal a mortal blow. Some observers called for a preemptive military strike against North Korean nuclear assets.85 Such attacks might not have rendered the alleged arsenal harmless, and seemed likely to provoke a military response that would threaten thousands of U.S. and South Korea civilians and military personnel. Nonetheless, the affair quickly blossomed into a militarized dispute, with threat and counterthreat. As early as January 1994, for example, the Clinton administration stated it would deploy more Patriot missile batteries, Apache helicopters, and other advanced military equipment to South Korea. Secretary of Defense Perry flatly declared that the United States would stop North Korea from building a significant nuclear arsenal, even if it had to use military means.86 South Korea put its forces on a higher state of alert, and the United States increased its troop presence in the peninsula. Nonetheless, by June North Korea had removed 6,200 of the fuel rods from the research reactor, mixing them to make reconstructing their history impossible (North Korea would eventually remove around 8,000). Consequently, the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to deny North Korea technical assistance. Another cycle of move and countermove intensified the conflict. Promptly after the vote, North Korea quit the agency again. The United States then declared it would seek economic sanctions if North Korea did not comply with inspection requests. In response, North Korea announced it would treat such sanctions as an act of war. Intervention by public nonproliferation entrepreneurs outside the government, particularly the visit to North Korea by former president Jimmy Carter,
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calmed the storm. During that visit, Kim Il Sung proposed to freeze the North Korean nuclear program if high-level talks between the United States and North Korea resumed. An official dialogue developed between North Korea and the United States, which eventually produced the “Agreed Framework” in October 1994. The framework outlined a phased quid pro quo. North Korea would freeze, then dismantle, its nuclear projects of proliferation concern, safely dispose of its plutonium, and remain a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In return, the United States, with assistance from other countries, would supply North Korea with two light water pressure reactors (and energy until those facilities came on-line). In addition, both sides would “move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.”87 By March 1995, the United States, along with South Korea and Japan, had established the Korean Energy Development Organization to finance two light water 1,000 MW(e) reactors at Sinpo. The Korea Electric Power Corporation, partially owned by South Korea, became the prime contractor for the two reactors, based on U.S. designs and technology, in 1996. At the same time, Australia, Canada, Chile, Finland, Indonesia, and New Zealand pledged financial support and observers expected Argentina, Britain, France, and others would contribute soon. In response, North Korea kept its fuel rods in storage, did not restart the research reactor, stopped construction of the two graphite reactors, sealed the reprocessing plant, stationed International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors permanently at Yongbyon with access to Taechon, and allowed a U.S. inspection team to survey the spent fuel.88 The Korean crisis revealed some constraints to the doctrine of counterproliferation. It seemed that the Clinton administration nearly started or provoked a “major regional conflict” over limits on inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. As the difficulty of preemptive strikes and other forms of military action became apparent, the administration emphasized the need to apply other means to settle the dispute. Although minor compared to the damage a war would impose on the region, the prospective costs of implementing the proposed settlement, including raising the more than $4 billion for the reactors, remain significant. While the Agreed Framework gets high marks for identifying a process that will reduce the threat from nuclear proliferation in Korea (and East Asia), the framework clearly rewards North Korean for not complying with its nonproliferation commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.89 This discomforting fact was not lost on many outside observers. Leaders in Belarus and Ukraine, for instance, wondered if they should have tried to extort such assistance as the price for their nonnuclear status. The framework also failed to resolve the issue of hidden nuclear facilities, which would become more of an issue in 1998.
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As often as members of the Clinton administration dismissed export controls as a necessary evil, export controls began to look more attractive when compared with real policy alternatives. The human, material, and financial costs of military action in Korea alone, for example, dwarf the price of export controls. The economic and diplomatic incentives under the Agreed Framework cost enough to prompt several funding crises. Moreover, if the Framework encourages other states to pursue a rogue nuclear program in hopes of gaining similar economic or political benefits, then it will have merely transferred much of its true cost to another time and place. Again, the creator of the Agreed Framework, Robert Galucci, has calculated that export controls on sensitive items are effective and efficient when compared with most diplomatic, military, and economic alternatives.90 More important, the Clinton administration generated little multilateral interest for military intervention as a tool for resolving nonproliferation crises. In January 1994, NATO created two working groups and one joint committee on proliferation issues at the behest of the White House.91 At its meeting in Istanbul that June, NATO adopted the “Alliance Policy Framework on Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which committed NATO to support and complement current nonproliferation efforts of its members. Under the Framework NATO members agreed to assess the risks from proliferation and prepare appropriate defensive measures. The Framework, however, does not envisage a role for NATO in enforcing nonproliferation norms.92 When met with the concrete instance of the use or threat of force against targets in North Korea, U.S. allies balked. The Japanese and South Koreans particularly feared that the United States would provoke a military conflict over which they would have little control and in which they would suffer the most damage.93 Japan also moved slowly in evaluating its options regarding a theater or ballistic missile defense, despite efforts by Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) to tout such systems as the top U.S. defense priority, as with their sponsorship of the “Defend America Act” in March 1996. In the long term, the North Korean experience helped narrow the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative. By the time the Defense Department released the report Proliferation: Threat and Response in April 1996, the Office of the Secretary would describe counterproliferation activities almost completely in terms of military planning, operations, counterforce and acquisition programs, and international military cooperation.94 At the same time, the report reiterates that proliferation prevention took precedence over nonproliferation objectives. Instead of purely military activities, these prevention operations include the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, export controls, and support for treaty and regime compliance activities.95
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m or e p r e s s u r e f or r e f or m The coherence that the administration showed in backing the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee report and COCOM reform belied the degree of differences that existed between protrade and nonproliferation forces in the executive branch. A September 1993 report on export licensing by the Inspector Generals of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State illustrated the depth of the division. The report, which criticized many elements in the licensing process within and between each department, had a particularly telling comment on the debate about which licenses Commerce should refer to other Departments and agencies: Until this issue is resolved, the agencies will not have adequate assurance that the license review process is working as efficiently and effectively as it should. . . . [T]he underlying problem is the unclear and apparently conflicting guidance given to the process by legislative mandates and Presidential directives [emphasis in the original]. . . [and] there is no ongoing process to resolve the differing views on what to refer.96
At a briefing by the Arms Control Association, one critic cited the UN speech and the trade policy group recommendations as indicative of the lack of “appreciation for the magnitude of the dilemma that sometimes forces an uncomfortable choice between non-proliferation and profits.”97 These internal divisions manifested themselves in many ways. The administration generally did not meet the optimistic deadlines proposed for adopting or executing many of the trade policy recommendations. Similarly, Secretary Brown repeatedly delayed presenting a draft EAA to Gejdenson. Eventually, administration officials even declined to participate in the last scheduled 1993 subcommittee hearing on the act. To keep pressure on the administration, Roth introduced a draft act resembling one proposed by the National Association of Manufacturers in 1993. Representative Cantwell also introduced a new measure that would end most controls on mass-market encryption software. At the same time, Representative Mazullo submitted a proposal calling on the administration to abandon unilateral export controls altogether. Industry groups continued to add their voices in favor of reform. In November 1993, for example, the President’s Export Council sent a letter to Clinton that called for strict limits on the use of nonproliferation export controls.98 At about the same time, the Computer Systems Policy Project formulated a proposal for a three-tier export control system. The strictest controls would affect only Tier I items, which were “choke points” for
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proliferation end users and end uses, or Tier II items, if the controls were pursuant to multilateral agreements or against states supporting terrorism.99 All other items (Tier III) would be unrestricted. The Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee reforms had removed much of the immediate pressure on the administration to resolve the differences between the supporters of the various approaches. This reduced the salience of fundamental reform. Reforms also slowed because of management issues. In particular, the Clinton administration filled key vacancies in Commerce and elsewhere very slowly. President Clinton did not find someone for the post of undersecretary of commerce for export administration, for example, until the nomination of William Reinsch in January 1994. That same January, President Clinton appointed Martha Harris to be deputy assistant secretary of state for export controls, a position that had gone unoccupied since the State Department reorganized early in 1993. With the last Democratic administration out of power for more than a decade, coupled with attempts to attain greater ethnic, racial, and gender diversity in the executive branch, finding appropriate individuals for policy positions (i.e., virtually any job at the deputy assistant secretary level or above) proved exceedingly difficult. Even when Clinton made an early choice, the Senate, which vets these decisions, often received it without enthusiasm. These circumstances led to an abundance of “acting” unit directors. Generally, this temporary status discouraged reforms that might die with the advent of new leadership. It even led to the unusual step where President Clinton elevated Daniel Poneman, a Bush National Security Council staffer, to special assistant to the president in charge of export controls and nonproliferation policy. Lacking a full complement of political management, many bureaucrats felt constrained by a lack of immediate policy leadership.100 At the time, Ian Baird, acting assistant secretary of export administration, noted that Commerce officials “can’t make recommendations to the new administration because there is no administration.”101 While many of its interagency proposals seemed to strengthen the hand of the export enhancement advocates, within the key departments the administration fostered bureaucratic reform that served to promote nonproliferation interests. Over the years, for example, the State Department developed very fragmented responsibilities for export controls and nonproliferation activities. The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs coordinated most dual-use licenses. The Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, however, managed licenses for nuclear items, while dual-use licenses related to MTCR fell under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs. At the same time, munitions license applications, where the State Department had primary responsibility, declined only slightly in the early 1990s, which strained the shrinking resources available to the department. Consequently, in early 1993, the Department concen-
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trated the responsibilities for export controls in the Political-Military Bureau under Assistant Secretary Robert Galucci. Most authority rested in the new Office of Export Control Policy and the Office of Defense Trade Controls. By late 1995, State would further consolidate its arms transfer, munitions licensing, and dual-use export control functions into the Office of Arms Transfer and Export Control Policy.102 Improving its capacity to prevent WMD and missile proliferation lay at the core of proposals to reorganize export administration functions within the Department of Commerce. As its load of dual-use export license cases declined precipitously from more than 100,000 in 1987 to fewer than 30,000 in 1992, Commerce faced increasing attacks on its export control budget. The administration, for example, initially proposed cutting the budget of the BXA from $42 million to $36 million, along with cutting 150 of 450 BXA jobs.103 The license cases that remained, however, tended toward the complex and troublesome, requiring more interagency cooperation and increased concentration on nonproliferation concerns. To better handle its nonproliferation objectives, Commerce began to shift its licensing and technical staff into three nonproliferation units: the Office of Nuclear and Missile Nonproliferation; the Office of Chemical and Biological Nonproliferation; and the Office of Conventional Arms Nonproliferation and Unilateral Controls by the summer of 1994.104 The Department of Energy already had focused its contribution to the export licensing process on nonproliferation in its Office of Nonproliferation Technology Support. The Clinton administration, however, enhanced the resources available to export controls. Energy also took more of a leading role in both executing and promoting export controls. The department reorganized to reflect this new status, putting the responsibility for export licensing and export controls into a new Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Similarly, the Clinton defense team attempted to make proliferation concerns an integral (and routine) part of the Defense Department planning, training, and acquisitions. Regarding export controls, the department brought the Defense Technology Security Agency, with its responsibilities in munitions and dual-use licensing, together with other units involved in proliferation matters under a new command, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterproliferation policy. In addition, Congress directed the establishment of an interagency Non-Proliferation Program Review Committee in 1994. The committee identified areas where the U.S. government, especially the Department of Defense, needed to prevent and protect against proliferation of WMD. This led to a Counterproliferation Support Program, funded by Congress, to address areas where the government might make improvements, and an interagency Counterproliferation Pro-
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gram Review Committee to coordinate a “national investment strategy for counterproliferation.”105 These reforms and others, coupled with the creation of the Nonproliferation Center in the CIA in the Bush administration, gave greater substance to nonproliferation concerns in the day-to-day operations of the government at the very time the administration focused on relaxing export controls.
t h e l i g h t at t h e e n d o f t h e t u n n e l wa s j u s t a not h e r t r a i n Having failed to pass a revised Export Administration Act in 1993, the next round of the legislative process began in earnest in January 1994. Divisions between Commerce, Defense, and State continued to stall the development of an administration bill. As a result, Representatives Roth and James Oberstar (DMN) took the initiative and introduced a bill that paralleled the National Association of Manufacturers proposals, as Roth had done at the end of the last session. The Senate Banking Committee also scheduled hearings for representatives of industry, independent experts, and the administration for early February 1994. Frustrated by the sluggish pace of administrative action, Subcommittee Chair Gejdenson vowed to conduct a mark-up session for a bill that would amalgamate the legislation introduced by Representatives Roth, Oberstar, Cantwell, and Manzullo. At the same time, the newly created Coalition for Export Control Reform, representing a common program by twenty-two industry associations, sent a letter urging National Economic Council Chair Barry Rubin to support industry efforts in revamping export controls.106 The administration finally agreed on its legislative proposal in mid-February, though the deeply divided bureaucracy reportedly could not settle its disputes short of elevating the issues to President Clinton.107 The administration revealed its proposals on February 23, 1994. At a press conference on the next day, industry representatives expressed their dismay at the bill, especially the sections on unilateral controls and on the licensing process.108 Dave Calabrese of the Electronic Industry Association, for example, said that the Clinton proposals “contrast sharply with the positive, pro-competitiveness measures featured in House and Senate legislation,” while Willard Workman concluded that to describe their feelings as disappointment was “an understatement.”109 On the same day, in testimony before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Affairs, high-ranking BXA officials claimed that those contentious proposals on unilateral controls and license processing proved that the administration had found the right balance between national security and economic competitiveness.110 Senator James Sasser (D-
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TN), chair of the subcommittee, expressed appreciation and cautious support for the bill.111 While the administration bill did fall far short of industry wishes, it would reform the basis of the export control process in the United States. The bill ensconced nonproliferation as the primary security rationale for export controls on dual-use items. It harmonized sanctions across a variety of U.S. export control laws, and it codified additional streamlining in the interagency licensing process. Gejdenson promised to develop a bill that would address both administration and industry concerns. Besides the common commitment to shift export controls from a Cold War containment strategy to a post–Cold War nonproliferation rationale, however, the chasm between the two views looked too wide to bridge. In the subcommittee mark-up, it became clear that the bill would follow a proposal made by Ron Wyden (D-OR) for decontrol of telecommunications items and a proposal made by Cantwell for decontrol of mass-market encryption software. While some members of the committee warned that Clinton would veto the bill, in March Gejdenson introduced a revised EAA that favored the industry position on virtually every controversial issue.112 Over April and May 1994, while the Senate crafted its version of the act, the House and the administration staked out their positions ever more firmly. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Sue Eckert sent a sixteen-page letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Lee Hamilton (D-IN) detailing the administration’s opposition to the Gejdenson legislation item by item.113 On April 18, the Council for Export Control Reform delivered another letter to NEC Chair Rubin, again describing the administration bill as “very disappointing.”114 On May 18, the House Foreign Affairs Committee finished its mark-up session. With only a few substantive amendments by Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) and Howard Berman (D-CA), the bill embodied many industry proposals (see HR 3937, the Omnibus EAA of 1994).115 In late May the Senate Banking Committee considered SR 1902, which was based on the administration initiative. The Senate bill already tilted away from both industry and administration interests. It included a measure sponsored by Senator D’Amato, for example, that would not only authorize the Defense Department (along with the Departments of Energy and State and ACDA) to review any license that went to Commerce, but grant the Defense Department the right to deny any license for exports controlled for reasons of national security.116 In at least one attempt at compromise, the committee accepted by voice vote an amendment by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) requiring the President to report on the economic impact of controls on encryption software sales and the competitiveness of the U.S. computer industry. Even so, both Murray and Sena-
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tor Barbara Boxer (D-CA) indicated their belief that only complete elimination of such controls would relieve the burden on U.S. software companies.117 The series of delays in generating an administration position left industry, and the members of Congress most closely tied to business, free to define the terms of the export control debate. This may have led both the administration and industry analysts to believe that nonproliferation policy and political entrepreneurs were out of the debate and no longer relevant players. This proved inaccurate. Instead, the chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Lee Hamilton, granted referral to the Armed Services and Intelligence committees on portions of the bill relevant to their jurisdiction.118 Nonproliferation entrepreneurs in Congress kept raising uncomfortable issues for the administration. In April 1994, at the behest of Senator Glenn, the GAO released a report that harshly criticized the processing of nuclear-related dual-use export licenses, which showed that 1,508 licenses of such items went to suspected end users in countries of proliferation concern from 1988 to 1992, that Commerce approved licenses without appropriate referral to Energy, that Energy had approved licenses without referral to the interagency Subgroup on Nuclear Export Control, and that prelicense checks and postshipment verifications were handled poorly.119 The report prompted a hearing of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which Glenn chaired. In June, another GAO report alleged inadequate screening of end users for dual-use items in the export licensing process, this time by both the Commerce and State departments. The report provoked another hearing, this time by a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Affairs. In it, Senator David Pryor (D-AR) lambasted export licensing procedures, though administration officials put up a sharp defense.120 As during the 1991 effort to rewrite the EAA, members of the House Armed Services Committee sought to increase the role of the Defense Department in the process. In June 1994, they approved thirty-two amendments to HR 3937, most of which increased the influence of the Defense or otherwise gutted the reform provisions favored by industry.121 The chair of the House Armed Service Committee, Ron Dellums (D-CA) reportedly believed that the act, as proposed, would take Defense too far out of the licensing process.122 Similarly, the House Select Committee on Intelligence found itself under intense pressure from the National Security Agency to scuttle the Cantwell provision that would decontrol mass-market encryption software. On June 16, the committee voted unanimously to eliminate the provision, supporting the administration position. Industry lobbyists tried to raise more support for the reform effort by organizing an intense campaign to begin on the week of July 11, when they anticipated floor action on the bill. The industry initiative, however, had lost its steam,
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and lobbyists could not attract CEOs from major high-tech companies to participate. The House delayed floor action, as Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) instead urged Hamilton to produce a compromise bill. Subsequently, Hamilton and the committee staff met with industry representatives seeking to identify which reforms had the highest priority. Beyond limiting the influence of the Defense Department and thwarting the creation of an interagency committee that would involve even more agencies and departments in the process, industry representatives focused their concern on the “commodity jurisdiction” issue. Under current practice, some commodities with inherently commercial uses, such as encryption software for ATMs, appeared on the U.S. Munitions List, not the Commerce Control List. As prescribed by the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the items on the munitions list fall under the jurisdiction of the State Department, rather than the more industry-responsive Commerce Department. Industry lobbyists believed that the executive branch could use a loose standard of commodity jurisdiction to maintain controls on dual-use items even after removing the items from the Commerce list, which would undermine the entire reform effort. On July 25, the two committees crafted a compromise bill. Reportedly, Armed Services Chair Dellums insisted on preserving the more restrictive language on commodity jurisdiction proposed by his committee, so the compromise represented another blow to industry efforts at reform.123 On August 9, industry representatives sent a letter to Hamilton that covered their objections to the compromise bill. About a week later, desperate, they held a press conference calling on the Clinton administration to intervene to preserve industry objectives, as most of their legislative advocates had abandoned them. The outlook for industry success became even bleaker when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed more than a dozen substantive amendments that would move the Senate bill even further away from industry initiatives, including supporting the use of unilateral controls, employing less restrictive language on when the executive could limit dual-use items under munitions controls, and removing the de minimis rule that allowed U.S. companies a re-export licensing exemption for foreign-made products with less than percent U.S.origin contents (on foreign products with percent or more U.S.-origin content, the foreign producer must get a U.S. export license to export that item). While the Banking Committee would not accept all the proposed amendments, it still seemed likely that even more compromises would occur before the bill reached the Senate floor. Responding to industry concerns, the administration offered alternative language for the bill in mid-September, but Armed Services Committee members
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said that they had already reached a compromise, so it warranted no further action. Speaker Foley, reportedly at the behest of Gejdenson, the sponsor of the original bill, suggested that the House would take no action on the floor unless they reached a compromise that would satisfy industry.124 Though many saw the Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee, particularly John Kyl (R-AZ), John Kasich (R-OH), and Duncan Hunter (R-CA), as the most obvious opponents to compromise with the Democratic administration, industry received no clear support from the Democrats on Armed Services either, and the House reached no accord. After a long campaign to which business associations had devoted considerable resources, industry advocates found themselves facing House and Senate versions of an Export Administration Act that increased the influence of those more willing to use export controls to pursue nonproliferation and other national security and foreign policy objectives. Though industry had not sought to oppose the nonproliferation premise of a new act, their efforts to achieve reform not only fell short, but attracted new political entrepreneurs, such as the Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, to this policy arena. In light of this stalemate, President Clinton declared a national economic emergency with Executive Order No. 12924 of August 19, 1994, under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. This allowed the administration to implement current nonproliferation export controls. With some sense of irony, U.S. officials continued to emphasize to officials in postcommunist states and elsewhere that an effective system of export controls depended on a strong export control law at its foundation.
t h e r e pu b l i c a n m ajor i t y Even before the 1994 general election, the politics of export controls seemed likely to change. After the stalemate on the EAA, officials assured industry representatives that the administration would review various proposals to see how many provisions they could carry out without resorting to legislation, especially in streamlining the licensing process.125 To those wearied and bruised by their experience with the EAA reforms, this promised some solace. After all, the administration had eased the burden on industry already by implementing some recommendations of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee. The leading industry advocate, Sam Gejdenson, faced a highly contested race in Connecticut. Gejdenson understood U.S. export control law as well as anyone in the House, which meant that neither lobbyists nor export control officials had to invest much time in educating him about even the more arcane aspects of
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the control system. Finally, as a close ally of Speaker Foley, Gejdenson had kept the issue of ultimate compromise open for the next Congress to consider. Gejdenson won reelection by twenty-one votes, among the closest House races in U.S. history.126 Other Democrats proved less fortunate. The overwhelming victory by the Republican Party in the 1994 midterm elections, which brought the first Republican majority in both houses of Congress since the 1950s, caught industry advocates by surprise. The victory promised to transform the politics of export controls. Whether this would alter the existing policy outcome — stalemate — appeared much less certain. Despite the traditional Republican commitment to freer trade and the promotion of business interests, many analysts cautioned that the 104th Congress would prove itself less amenable to industry views on export controls. Toby Roth did become the new chair of the House International Economic Policy and Trade Subcommittee. As ranking minority member, Roth worked closely with Gejdenson and had advocated industry views on export controls. The new leadership of most other key committees and subcommittees, however, shifted in favor of the nonproliferation political entrepreneurs, particularly in the Senate. Instead of Jim Sasser, who as chair of the Senate Banking Committee had supported administration proposals, the new chair was Senator D’Amato, a bitter foe of President Clinton and an advocate of using export controls as sanctions (even against allies that might disagree with the U.S. assessment on who is a rogue state). While one proliferation entrepreneur, Claiborne Pell (D-RI), lost his post as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his replacement, Jesse Helms, had often criticized the administration and had an interest in raising nonproliferation issues regarding China and other countries. In the House Armed Services Committee, even though Floyd Spence (R-SC) replaced Ron Dellums and Republican Jon Kyl had left for the Senate, John Kasich and Duncan Hunter remained. Kasich, moreover, as a rising star in the Republican Party and chair of the House Budget Committee, had more influence than ever. Together, it seemed unlikely that industry views would frame the debate as they had in the first two years of the Clinton administration. To consider their strategy in view of the Republican victory, many industry lobbyists who had served in the now-dead Coalition for Export Control Reform met in December 1994. Chris Padilla of AT&T, for example, suggested three options for industry support: another extension of the now-expired EAA; crafting a bill with limited reforms; and another try at developing a comprehensive reform.127 With Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee so closely tied with the EAA stalemate in the 103rd Congress, however, other industry lobbyists considered a more radical tactic — opposing any action by Congress and seeking reform solely through executive action. The Industry Coalition on Tech-
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nology Transfer outlined such an approach with a November 21 position paper it supplied to Secretary of Commerce Brown, which detailed reforms in eight export control issues that the administration could adopt without the need for new legislation.128 As the substantial push made by industry coalitions to achieve legislative reform had not borne fruit, in retrospect some industry advocates wondered if they would have accomplished more by getting Commerce “to eliminate its annual limit on the use of General License GLV,” or other similarly obscure regulations that had an impact on bottom lines.129 In the end, industry lobbyists postponed development of a common strategy until Republican leadership choices became clearer.130 At roughly the same time, however, President Clinton indicated in a series of conversations with Secretary Brown that Commerce had not done enough to streamline export controls.131 President Clinton reportedly called on Brown to build a consensus among key members of the executive branch to ease controls on computers and transfer jurisdiction over commercial satellites, “hot-section” engine technology, and encryption items from the Munitions List to the Commerce Control List.132 Industry lobbyists also had a lot to do. With the dramatic turnover in Congress, they believed that many new lawmakers knew little or nothing about export controls, and that industry had an opportunity to inculcate the freshman class with its views. Convinced that many opponents of the industry position simply did not understand the issues, the National Foreign Trade Council, along with the Electronic Industry Association (EIA), sponsored a briefing for new legislators that highlighted the barriers facing exporters of high-tech items. As Dave Calabrese of the EIA noted, the briefing also allowed industry “to get a feel for the temper of the new Congress.”133
e x e c u t i v e ac t i on Stymied in building a consensus for export control legislation, the Clinton administration decided to take steps to reform nonproliferation export control policy through executive action. On a purely bureaucratic level, Commerce followed the State and Defense departments in reorganizing its export control offices to formalize the predominance of nonproliferation objectives in the export control process. At the same time, the administration identified BXA as a “reform laboratory” for reinventing government initiatives (i.e., using fewer staff to carry out innovative policy objectives). As part of this process, BXA announced plans to transform its Export Administration Division into five offices in July 1994. Under the plan, the Office of Exporter Services and the Office of Economic Security would ensure “that export controls are comprehensively ex-
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amined to determine the potential economic consequences for individual companies, industrial sectors, and the entire nation.”134 The reorganization placed the bulk of licensing and policy experts in three offices with specific responsibilities to review licenses for compliance with nonproliferation objectives: Nuclear and Missile Nonproliferation Controls; Chemical and Biological Nonproliferation Controls; and Conventional Arms Nonproliferation and Unilateral Controls. While the reorganization reflected administration interest in enhancing the importance of economic factors in the licensing and policy process, the reform also institutionalized nonproliferation as the rationale for export controls. As part of this effort to broaden the nonproliferation debate, the administration organized a forum on science and technology in national security and global stability in March 1995, inviting hundreds of individuals interested in science and technology policy generally. At one discussion section, administration officials presented a white paper that again identified the proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery and production as “one of the most serious threats” to national security.135 The paper, however, now insisted that the United States based its policy on three pillars, the first of which included strengthening multilateral and national export controls.136 Given the general nature of the forum, it is not surprising that some of those attending expressed disappointment with the outcome regarding proliferation, citing the lack of new ideas in the white paper and the superficiality that characterized discussion. As promised, the administration tried to streamline the export control system through executive action. As mandated by the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, BXA began a massive overhaul of the more than 1,500 pages of the Export Administration Regulations. Cecil Hunt, the Chief Council for the BXA, led the rewrite task force. After six months of intense effort, Hunt revealed its outline of reforms in August 1994, followed by two discussion papers in September and November, and further discussion at the April 1995 annual export control update conference in Washington. The new Export Administration Regulations promised to be more user friendly, including clearer definitions for which circumstances require an exporter to seek a validated license and an easy to read table that permits exporters to match their products with licensing requirements on a country-by-country basis. Ironically, the thoroughness of the reforms caused some consternation among industry representatives. In July 1995, for example, the Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee, consisting of industry executives that formally advise BXA, asked the new leader of the Export Administration Regulations task force, Larry Christiansen, to slow the process so that industry would have more time to absorb the changes and make substantive comments.137 Despite this progress, the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee mandate lim-
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ited the Export Administration Regulations rewrite to what could be done without changing the underlying export control policies. Enforcement activities of all types, moreover, from prelicense and postshipment checks to the number of denial orders to cases investigated, met or exceeded pre–Gulf War levels throughout the first Clinton term. Most important, the nature of the enforcement effort changed. As late as fiscal year 1991, most criminal convictions associated with violations of controls on dual-use exports dealt with communist or formerly communist countries. By 1995, most criminal convictions related to dual-use items targeted proliferation concerns.138 New outreach efforts, both domestic and foreign, also added to the work of the Commerce Department. To keep the business community informed at home, BXA increased its number of domestic seminars from around two dozen in 1991 to 471 in 1995. The sheer number of consultations with foreign governments related to export controls, fifty-seven in 1995 alone, exacted a considerable physical toll on officials from Commerce, State, Energy, Defense, and Customs, as well as a toll on department budgets. If anything, BXA officials anticipated greater domestic and foreign demand for their export control services in the future, without a commensurate increase in budget or personnel. Improved electronic licensing, product classification, and referral systems, such as ELAIN or ERIC, promised to ease some of the burden. In October 1995, the administration changed the nature of the debate on export controls. Despite apparent opposition from the State Department and elsewhere, the administration adopted “the most sweeping liberalization of computer export licensing requirements in the history of export controls.”139 The new policy eliminated controls on computer exports to Australia, Canada, Japan, Western Europe, and New Zealand. The new rules also provided for a general license for computers with a composite theoretical performance of up to 10,000 Mtops (after which the government required individual license) exported to South America, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. For exports to the former Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, North Africa, Vietnam, and European states not in the previous categories, a general license sufficed for computers with a composite theoretical performance of 2,000 Mtops, with an individual license required up to the 7,000 Mtops level for military and proliferationsensitive end users, an individual license for all end users for exports with a CTP of more than 7000 Mtops, and safeguards for all end users of exports with a CTP above 10,000 Mtops.140 Computer exports to Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea, of course, remained subject to broader restrictions. In essence, the administration abandoned any pretense of controlling most computers, especially those available on the mass market. Dan Poneman, the
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Table 6.2 * ★ U.S. Dual-Use Export License Applications, 1993–1996 Year
Applications Received
Approvals
Denied or Suspended
RWA†
1993
26,126
NA
NA
2,610
1994
12,609
11,038
290
3,038
1995
9,982
8,479
110
1,446
1996
8,075
7,102
256
1,337
Source: BXA annual reports, various issues. * The numbers of approvals, denials, and RWA do not equal the number of applications received as that number does not include pending applications. †
Returned without action. In most cases, either insufficient information exists to make a license determination or the applicant withdraws the license.
special assistant to the president and senior director of nonproliferation and export controls at the National Security Council, stated that the administration believed that U.S. export controls on computers below 7,000 Mtops could not be effective “from a military or proliferation standpoint.”141 At the same time, carrying out this proposal would reduce the pressures on computer manufacturers as the pace of technological change now challenged the limits of what had, in only September 1993, appeared to be at the edges of the technological frontier. Essentially, the October 1995 decontrol freed U.S. manufacturers of high-performance computers (HPCs in bureaucratic language, but also known as supercomputers) from the necessity of getting an individual validated export license. Silicon Graphics, Digital, and other companies could now ship high-performance computers to several new markets without a license, so long as they abided by the MTOP and end-user requirements. Export control liberalization already had an impact on license applications, dropping by about percent from 1993 to 1994, a pattern that would persist throughout the first four years of the Clinton administration (see table 6.2). The decline in license applications clearly reflected the relaxation in controls on the exportation of computer, telecommunication and other items in 1993, as well as decreasing concern with the military threat posed by the former Soviet Union.
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According to the Commerce Department, the number of license applications for computers and telecommunications transmission equipment declined by about 80 percent during fiscal year 1994 alone.142
tac k i n g ag a i n s t t h e t r a d e w i n d s : f ron t- l oa d i n g During most of 1995, however, the Clinton administration wanted to “frontload” the policy process with ideas from as many quarters as possible, hoping this would result in an acceptable EAA. Through Undersecretary of Commerce for Export Administration William Reinsch, the Clinton administration indicated that it would hold a dialogue with all the groups interested in reforming export controls.143 In the last session, neither the administration nor industry had prepared to face the extensive opposition from nonproliferation entrepreneurs, public and political, in no small part because the administration had isolated the policy-making process from these parties. Toby Roth, now chair of the key House subcommittee, reopened the legislative agenda in January 1995 by again advancing an EAA based on the National Association of Manufacturers draft bill. Instead of a debate dominated by export enhancement initiatives, however, the introduction of two measures by Senator D’Amato, one to impose a total U.S. trade embargo on Iran and another that would impose sanctions on foreign companies that traded with Iran, signaled that nonproliferation and political entrepreneurs would try to tap the potential of export controls as an issue. In May 1995, the GAO also raised concerns over the transfer of stealth-related technologies to China.144 Instead of presenting its own proposals, the Clinton administration chose to await House action, serving as a consultant during the process.145 Potentially, this had the advantage of avoiding a partisan debate about administration policies, while preserving administration bargaining leverage for the legislative endgame. Without establishing additional common ground between the various interests, however, the “big tent” strategy also offered the potential of more legislative gridlock. Consequently, by the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration found itself in closed discussions, exchanging position papers and draft legislation, with representatives of the House International Relations and National Security Committees. Reportedly, they considered more than a dozen serious issues, most of which had divided the parties in 1994.146 In the Washington Times, Frank Gaffney, the director of the Center for Security Policy and former assistant secretary of defense for international security for President Reagan, attacked the administration for abandoning COCOM in favor
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of the Wassenaar Arrangement, for approving the sale of supercomputers to China, and for making licensing decisions based on export promotion objectives.147 Gaffney, who also served on the staff of the Armed Services Committee and for the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA, although some would say D-Boeing was more appropriate), appealed to Congress to put the authority for “running a restructured security-minded interagency export licensing process . . . where it belongs: in the Defense Department.”148 This view paralleled a Senate bill sponsored by Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and co-sponsored by Senators Dole and Gramm that would put BXA in the Defense Department.149 For industry reformers, this threatened disaster. Despite the tilt of the Defense Department toward industry under the direction of Secretary Perry, many Defense Department officials still opposed industry initiatives. If BXA moved to Defense, it seemed likely that national security interests would far outweigh national economic interests, let alone the interests of specific groups of exporters. If an administration much less inclined toward the export enhancement approach came to power, the concentration of licensing power in Defense threatened to impose on domestic companies controls much stricter than those facing their international competitors. Similarly, if BXA became part of the State Department, many feared that diplomatic interests would dominate the debate. According to this view, a string of unilateral, “light-switch” controls (i.e., unilateral controls that State would turn on and off to signal U.S. interests) would soon litter the regulatory landscape. In addition, industry experience with the munitions controls, which State conducted, suggested that the State Department would not fight for adequate resources for a revamped BXA and did not have a bureaucratic culture for working closely with business.150 After all, countries, not companies, were the traditional constituents of the State Department. Although the effort to dismantle the Commerce Department stalled on other issues, the administration moved to assuage concerns about the central role played by Commerce in determining which licenses went out for interagency review. Concerns about the interagency review process continued to plague the system. The number of difficult licensing cases, such as those referred to the four interagency committees or escalated to the Advisory Committee on Export Policy, had declined from seventy-eight in 1993 to twenty in 1995. In addition, no disputed cases went to the EARB or the president during the first three years of the administration, something that had often led to considerable problems in previous administrations.151 As a ratio of total applications, however, interagency referrals nearly doubled from 1993 to 1995. Part of this stems from a sharp increase in chemical and biological cases going to Shield (see table 6.3). Although nuclear and Industrial List (the old COCOM) cases plunged, with a
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Table 6.3 ★ Interagency Review of Dual-Use Export License Applications, 1993–1995 Interagency Group
1993
1994
1995
SNEC (nuclear)
738
231
141
MTEC (missile)
251
140
181
Shield (chemical)
107
543
526
Operating Committee (COCOM related)
436
281
161
1,532
1,195
1,009
Total
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
less precipitous decline in the number of missile cases, administration officials implied that decontrols had merely drained the swamp, only to reveal the detritus of the toughest cases more clearly. Processing times differed sharply for those cases referred to other agencies than those BXA could handle in-house, which caused considerable consternation for industry. At the same time, congressional complaints often charged Commerce with not seeking appropriate comments from other agencies, especially the Defense Department. While, after months of negotiations, the House International Relations Subcommittee on Trade had conducted a mark-up session on a new EAA in November 1995, the process seemed stalled (although a full committee mark-up would take place on March 29, 1996). Consequently, President Clinton created something of a compromise with Executive Order 12981 in December 1995. Under that order, State, Defense, Energy, and ACDA had the “authority to review any export license application submitted to the Department of Commerce.”152 Upon receipt of the application, the departments or agencies involved had only thirty days to make a recommendation. Commerce could treat failure to make a recommendation as equivalent to no objection. All license disputes now went first to the Operating Committee, with the Subgroup on Nuclear Export Controls, the Missile Technology Export Control Group, and the chemical
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items group known as Shield functioning as consultative interagency working groups (see table 6.4). With exceptions for time needed to conduct prelicense checks, government-to-government assurances, multilateral reviews, and a few other matters, however, the bureaucracy had ninety days to resolve the license application. This would result in an increase in the number of disputed cases going to the Operating Committee (which already had original jurisdiction for national security and some foreign policy controls).
Table 6.4 ★ Dual-Use Licensing Authority, 1996 Level of Decision
Unit of Decision
Cabinet Secretary
Export Administration Review Board (EARB) Chair: Commerce Voting Members: State; Defense; Energy; ACDA Director Nonvoting Members: Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Central Intelligence Director; others as invited
Assistant Secretary
Advisory Committee on Export Policy (ACEP) Chair: Commerce Executive Secretary: Chair of OC (see below) Voting Members: State; Defense; Energy; ACDA Nonvoting Members: Joint Chiefs of Staff; Nonproliferation Center/Central Intelligence Agency; others as invited
Operational
Operating Committee (OC) Chair: Commerce Voting Members: State; Defense; Energy; ACDA (right to review any license); FBI (authority to review encryption licenses). Nonvoting Members: Joint Chiefs of Staff; Nonproliferation Center/Central Intelligence Agency; Others as invited SNEC, MTEC, SHIELD serve as consultative interagency organizations
Department
Commerce, Bureau of Export Administration
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It was then that the House International Relations Committee sent the Export Administration Act, designated HR 361, to the House floor. Passed by voice vote, the effort to “front-load” the legislative procedure had created a “no-load” bill—it ignored many of the most contentious issues, from trade with China to encryption software. Committee members even removed relatively less controversial portions of the bill favored by industry, such as a provision to facilitate industry requests to loosen controls on items widely available from foreign sources, which the committee defeated by a vote of 19–16.153 The bill next journeyed to the House Ways and Means Committee, which delayed reporting the EAA until the House International Relations Committee compromised on the Iran and Libya Sanctions bill.154 Not until June 26 did Ways and Means report the bill, allowing floor action on July 16, 1996, where HR 361 passed by voice vote. At the same time, nonproliferation advocates increased their pressure on the Clinton administration to sanction China for alleged violations of multilateral export control norms. Throughout 1995, the State Department resisted attempts to transfer more items from the Munitions List to the Commerce Control List, in part related to exports to China. First, several officials expressed concern that one sale of an APSTAR satellite apparently took place without the exporter either checking or revealing the military connections of the end user to the Chinese military. Secretary Christopher reportedly also objected to the transfer of more commercial satellite technology to the dual-use list, in part because Hughes allegedly exported two commercial satellites (not to China) without getting the appropriate license from State for encryption technology in the satellites.155 The concerns about China took more substantive shape when, on February 15, 1996, a Chinese Long March 3B launch vehicle exploded carrying a $200 million Loral Space & Communications satellite, killing hundreds at the launch site. The satellite apparently had two circuit boards encoded with sensitive technology (out of roughly 100 circuit boards), however, and several members of Congress and others expressed concern that this technology fell into the hands of the Chinese military when they were not recovered at the crash site (an investigation later concluded the explosion and crash had destroyed the boards).156 Reports by Loral and Hughes Electronics to the Chinese about this crash, moreover, would lead the U.S. government to investigate both companies. In early February 1996, the commander of U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf, Vice Admiral Scott Redd, also revealed that Iran had test fired Chinese C-802 advanced antiship cruise missiles. This prompted Senators Pressler, D’Amato, Mack, and Arlen Specter (R-PA) to ask President Clinton to enforce sanctions or seek a waiver under the Iran-Iraq Nonproliferation Act (one of the sponsors of the act, Senator John McCain [R-AZ], also wrote Undersecretary Lynn Davis about the transfer).
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On February 7, Senator Pressler also wrote a letter calling on President Clinton to determine whether Pakistan had received weapons-grade uranium enrichment equipment from China. According to reports, U.S. intelligence analysts believed that Chinese defense trading companies had sold 5,000 ring magnets for use in gas centrifuges, probably produced by the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation, to the Abdul Qadeer Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, Pakistan, during 1995.157 If the administration agreed with Pressler, chapter 10 of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act, required the president either to impose severe sanctions or issue a waiver. In addition to penalties for the individual entities, the potential sanctions included an end to all U.S. civilian and military assistance to each country. These threatened significant U.S. commercial ventures in China, as it could mean an end to Export-Import Bank assistance. In 1995, Congress also repealed portions of the Pressler amendment to make a onetime transfer of $370 million in U.S. military equipment to Pakistan. A determination of culpability would also dampen prospects for additional military sales to Pakistan based on that precedent. The administration resolved the issue without imposing sanctions. Although Chinese (and Pakistani) officials denied knowledge of the transfer at first (although the entities involved are government owned and operated), they agreed to a compromise. To earn a determination that the transfer did not constitute an event that would prompt U.S. sanctions, Chinese officials pledged not to transfer nuclear technology, including ring magnets, to unsafeguarded facilities, and to engage in consultations on national export control policies.158 At about the same time, the Clinton administration considered making Export-Import Bank guarantees for the export of nuclear items to the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation to assist in completion of a nuclear power plant. Many administration officials argue that the ring magnet case, where the United States presented their Chinese counterparts with an impeccable train of evidence, convinced the Chinese government that cooperation on nuclear and other high-tech trade would not improve without China adopting tighter export controls. Though the compromise pacified some critics, the pattern and practice of Chinese exports continued to confound administration efforts to reform U.S. export controls. Later, the day after a four-hour hearing on allegations of human rights violations in China, Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis faced sharp questioning about a pattern of kowtowing to the People’s Republic on proliferation matters as well. Committee Chair Gilman labeled China as the “world’s number one proliferator,” and called the decision not to impose sanctions “shocking.”159 In his opening remarks, Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) affirmed that “[w]e should not stand by as egregious violations of U.S. non-proliferation laws occur.”160 Clearly
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dismayed by the two days of testimony, Lee H. Hamilton (D-IN) expressed deep concern about administration strategy: “I find it unbelievable that we will accept their [the Chinese] word when their word has not been worth much in the past.”161 In response, Undersecretary Davis emphasized that the administration believed that China now fulfilled its public commitment to abide by the MTCR and would abide by its latest public commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities.162 In June 1996, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-FL), chair of the Military Procurement Subcommittee on Military Research and Development of the House National Security Committee, held hearings to blast the response of the administration to the ring magnet and other proliferation cases. Weldon charged that administration officials “willfully disregarded clear and convincing evidence of proliferant behavior” and that its explanations for inaction, especially in the case of China, were simply a legal charade to circumvent the will of Congress.163 Although the sponsors tried to reduce problems with the bill by, in essence, ignoring some important concerns (including allegations of Chinese proliferation activity), the tactic proved unsuccessful. The bill moved to the Senate, where leaders referred it to the Subcommittee on International Finance for consideration. The subcommittee concluded hearings on July 31, 1996. Throughout August, Senators Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) worked to combine multiple changes to the bill into a single managers’ amendment. While the package reportedly included industry incentives, such as allowing the Commerce Department to decontrol items based on projections of future foreign availability and a right to petition for relief from unfair impact of export controls, industry opposition to HR 361 mounted.164 Oddly, the negotiations to front-load the bill had excluded many industry opinions. Not surprisingly, therefore, industry opposition to the bill became more pronounced at each step in the legislative process. First, the American Electronics Association issued a letter to Representative Roth on April 18, 1996, condemning the bill.165 Similarly, the president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Ed Black, proclaimed that his organization opposed the bill.166 By the time HR 361 reached the Senate, many industry leaders already believed that significant improvements in administering and liberalizing export controls could take place through executive action, undermining the necessity for an EAA. When President Clinton renewed the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act on August 14, 1996, it foreshadowed another failed attempt to produce a new EAA. The election-year timing almost assured that, except for opportunities to exploit licensing issues as scandals, export control reform would not be high on the political agenda. Without enthusiastic sup-
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port from industry, a Congress and president distracted by the election campaign simply let HR 361 fade into oblivion.
bu i l d i n g a n e w s ys t e m : t h e wa s s e na a r a r r a n g e m e n t On the international front, after two years of negotiations representatives of twenty-eight countries agreed in September 1995 to establish the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, a new multilateral system to control both conventional arms and related dual-use items.167 In their fourth high-level meeting in Wassenaar, a suburb of the Hague, the participants redirected the COCOM system to “prevent the acquisition of armaments and sensitive dual-use items for military enduses, if the behavior of a state is, or becomes, a cause for serious concern of the participants.”168 By July 1996, the participants agreed that four states had caused “serious concern: Iran; Iraq; Libya; and North Korea.”169 At the same time, the text adopted at the July plenary session notes that the “arrangement will not be directed against any state or group of states,” nor would impair “the rights of states to acquire legitimate means” to self-defense.170 Apparently, not all end users in the four countries automatically faced license denials. The Wassenaar Arrangement differs from COCOM in many significant ways. Its membership is much more diverse, including most of the former targets of COCOM, the European neutrals and others. It has more universal membership criteria. Prospective members must adhere to the MTCR, the Australia Group, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convents, and START I (if applicable). They must also implement an effective export control system and adopt appropriate national policies. The members even shifted the setting of its secretariat from Paris to the more neutral environment of Vienna. Its substantive procedures differ from COCOM’s as well. While negotiators constructed its control lists from the old COCOM Munitions and Core Lists, they attempted to “complement and reinforce, without duplication,” items listed by other arrangements.171 This produced an arms list, a Tier 1 list of basic dualuse items, and a Tier 2 list of sensitive items (and the Tier 2 subset of very sensitive items). Wassenaar also added a different goal, namely to promote transparency and responsibility regarding the transfer of arms and sensitive dual-use items. In a significant procedural change, participants no longer circulated license applications to other members for review and unanimous approval (i.e., no one nation could veto transfers of controlled items by another). Instead, the
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participants decided to notify each other on transfers and denials. Although there is not a clear “no undercut” rule, the participants will notify each other within no more than sixty days if they approve a license which another party has denied. How, and when, to share information on any arms deals delayed creation of the arrangement. Russia, in particular, balked at providing information on the transfer of nuclear items and at providing information before it completed its arms deal.172 These delays did not stop Argentina, South Korea, and Romania from enrolling in the arrangement in April, and Bulgaria and Ukraine from enlisting in July. Although many export control officials questioned the utility of an arrangement based on the “national discretion” of the export control systems of its members, the administration hoped that greater transparency would move governments to maintain effective, vigorously enforced, export control systems. Simply creating lists of arms and dual-use items was a major step in arms control. True, the United States has to work harder at consensus building in this arrangement than it did in COCOM, since it has no licensing veto. At the same time, the new procedures remove the basis for claims that governments used their veto power in COCOM for their commercial advantage, which may attract more cooperation from emerging supplier states.
qu i e t p ro g r e s s Getting more than thirty countries to agree to monitor and exchange information on arms and dual-use transfers was a monumental achievement. With much less fanfare, the remaining supply-side regimes also seemed to grow stronger during the mid-1990s. Membership in the Australia Group continued to increase during the first Clinton administration (see table 6.5 for membership in all four arrangements). Argentina, Hungary, and Iceland attended the June 1993 plenary as new members. By the end of 1996, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and South Korea had joined the group. Members also expressed support for seminars that were held in an effort to increase participation by states in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, and among French-speaking countries. In substantive reforms, the Australia Group members also developed a “no undercut” policy in June 1993, restricting similar sales by any member if one member denies a license. During the following years, with the support of the Clinton administration, members also sought ways to harmonize and streamline export controls for trade among group members. Members also agreed on a common approach to control mixtures containing chemical precursors.
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Table 6.5 ★ Membership in Multilateral Export Control Regimes, 1996 NSG Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada Czech Republic Denmark European Union* Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Slovak Republic South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Ukraine United Kingdom United States * Observer.
AG
MTCR
Argentina Australia Austria Belgium
Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil
Canada Czech Republic Denmark European Union* Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Romania
Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway Portugal Russia
Slovak Republic
Wassenaar Agreement Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Bulgaria Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Slovak Republic
South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland
United Kingdom United States
Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom United States
South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States
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Australia Group members also repeatedly affirmed their commitment to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the consistency between it and their activities. This reflected the notion that group rules and procedures nested within a broader, and a higher priority, regime that the convention defines. At the October 1996 plenary meeting, for example, members outlined changes in their national policies that improved conformity with their impending obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The June 1993 meeting also marked the broadening of the Australia Group mandate to include biological weapons issues. The members agreed on a package of controls for biological weapons agents and related dual-use equipment. In subsequent meetings, they would affirm their commitment to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and to export controls as a means of implementing their obligations under the convention. Additional revelations about the extent of the Iraqi biological weapons program would also prompt members to revise the control lists appropriately. Finally, at the meetings in the fall of 1995 and 1996, the members increasingly addressed the potential use of biological (and chemical) weapons by terrorists. Of all the export control arrangements, the MTCR proved the most nettlesome. Despite increasing apprehension about missile proliferation, such as evidence of advances in the North Korean missile program, Iraqi efforts to adopt its missiles to deliver biological agents, Chinese delivery of advanced cruise missiles to Iran, and renewed support for antimissile systems, many officials viewed the MTCR as poorly drawn and ineffective. Efforts to develop alternative approaches, such as a global version of the INF treaty, nonetheless, met with failure. Still, administration officials could point to some progress in missile export controls. Acceptance of a norm of nonproliferation grew. By the end of 1996, for example, compliance with the MTCR had increased, with the addition of Argentina, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and South Korea as members, and China, Ukraine, and Israel having agreed to adhere to MTCR norms and rules. In addition, the United States made its acceptance of new members contingent on abstaining from developing Category I missile systems (with exceptions for Russia and China). Hungary, South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil agreed to this condition. In the case of Brazil, however, this represented a departure from prior practice, as Brazil joined without giving up a modified version of its space launch program, which MTCR members opposed for reasons of proliferation. Similarly, South Korea entered the regime with a view to gaining access to missile technology that might affect its capacity to initiate a Category I program. Although the momentum for reform slowed, the Nuclear Suppliers Group also made an important change in its principles in 1994. For the first time, members set out a principle of nonproliferation in a new introduction section to their
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guidelines. Specifically, members agreed to the general rule not to transfer controlled items if they might contribute to nuclear proliferation.173 The Joint Information Exchange, in which members share sensitive intelligence information on projects and end users of nuclear items, became more institutionalized during 1995 and 1996, and members experimented with an electronic exchange of denial information. The Clinton administration also supported the membership of Argentina, South Africa, and South Korea in the NSG, greatly increasing the geographic and economic diversity of the arrangement. Adopting guidelines on membership and observer status was more difficult. Members agreed to observer status for the European Union, for example, but not for the International Atomic Agency. The Working Group on Conditions of Supply did not achieve a consensus on how to move much beyond the full-scope safeguards requirements. Beyond the Wassenaar Arrangement, however, the United States has focused more attention on promoting nonproliferation export controls through bilateral, minilateral, or treaty programs than through initiatives in the supplier groups. In particular, the United States used bilaterals as a precursor to membership in multilateral regimes, a practice the Clinton administration continued. Bilaterals with Russia, South Africa, and Ukraine on missile export controls led to U.S. support for Russian and South African membership in the MTCR. An early Memorandum of Understanding on export controls created the background for U.S. support for South Korean participation in the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. By the end of 1995, the United States and North Korea already agreed in principal to discuss missile proliferation issues, although this process did not bear fruit during the first term of the Clinton administration. The administration also identified issues related to an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty among its highest foreign policy priorities. During the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, Iran, Indonesia, and Malaysia expressed the most vocal opposition to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and U.S. export controls and to efforts to have signatories adopt trigger-list controls. In the end, Main Committee III rejected calls to make the International Atomic Energy Agency the sole arbiter of treaty violations (which would have restricted several countries, mainly the United States, in using national technical means of detection as a basis for sanctions or controls). The committee also agreed to call on recipient states to reaffirm their commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons items and to accept the standard of full-scope safeguards. The disputes proved so intractable, however, that the participants adopted no final declaration. More important, China omitted reference to full-scope safeguards as condition of supply in its closing statements.174 In the end, NPT signatories in-
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serted new language in paragraph seventeen of their Principles and Objectives, suggesting that members should promote transparency in export controls through improved dialogue and cooperation. The administration also warmed to the Nunn-Lugar initiative. By the time the Clinton administration took office, Congress had expanded the Nunn-Lugar mandate to include assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and efforts to reduce the threat associated with the disintegration of the vast Soviet military complex. Congress elevated the status of these programs in passing the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993, which provided new authority (rather than a transfer of defense funds) of $400 million to the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Policy management and program implementation advanced significantly under the Clinton administration. With expedited funding procedures and clear support from Secretary of Defense Perry, by 1996 Cooperative Threat Reduction became the highlight of Defense efforts to combat proliferation. The $1.5 billion spent on the program had helped pay for the removal of 3,800 nuclear warheads from service, the dismantling of 900 missiles, and the transfer of 600 kg of highly enriched uranium out of an unsafe location in Kazakhstan (i.e. Project Sapphire). Congress also established the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund pursuant to Section 504 of the Freedom Support Act. The fund supplemented U.S. diplomatic efforts to stem proliferation of WMD, missiles, and related technology and enable dismantling of existing weapons. Small by comparison to Cooperative Threat Reduction, the $10 million allocated to Nonproliferation and Disarmement Fund in 1994, however, contributed to critical nonproliferation and export control projects, including support for Project Sapphire, destruction of missiles in South Africa, purchasing of IAEA safeguard equipment, monitoring in Iraq, combating nuclear smuggling in the former Soviet Union, export control training sessions for twelve Central and East European states and Argentina, export enforcement support in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltics, and a portable export control licensing system in Poland among other items. Interest in supporting the Cooperative Threat Reduction program began to wane in the 104th Congress. Funding for it dropped to $298 million with the Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1996. Many Republicans balked at securing U.S. interests through international cooperation, as they preferred more unilateral options. In particular, Republicans touted funding for ballistic missile defenses more highly than Nunn-Lugar endeavors. Consequently, Senators Nunn and Lugar tried a new tactic: tying Cooperative Threat Reduction funding to increasing U.S. domestic preparedness to respond to proliferation threats. This approach proved successful. NunnLugar II became part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 along with continued funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.
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The United States also began to cosponsor more regional export control meetings. The most developed in this effort was the Asian Export Control Seminar, which the United States cosponsored with Australia and Japan. Open to most East Asian governments, this seminar eventually attracted delegations from more than a dozen economic entities in the region, including the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. Officials in the Commerce and State Departments also markedly increased the pace of their bilateral and multilateral export control consultations, training sessions, and other exchanges, particularly to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.
e x p ort c on t rol s i n c y b e r s pac e By late 1996, the debate about encryption technology exports had advanced well beyond concerns about DES algorithms raised in the first year of the administration. The startling development of the Internet brought the issue of export controls on encryption technology into homes and offices around the globe. In August 1995, the White House proposed to decontrol encryption with up to 64-bit code keys. This would have eliminated controls on the encryption software in Lotus Notes™ and Norton Utilities™, among others. In return, the administration called on industry to maintain a “key escrow” for code keys of 40 bits or greater for the government to use under procedures similar to obtaining a wiretap. Though arguments continued for months about the details of the key escrow, this proposal was the first real move toward compromise in many months of negotiations. It also set the direction for the issue through 1996. A major change came during the summer of 1996, when the State Department and the National Security Agency approved Internet distribution of 128bit encryption software by Netscape. Under the Netscape solution, users could download the software if they certify they are an eligible U.S. or Canadian national. Allegedly, Netscape screens potential recipients as well, although the effectiveness of this system remains uncertain.175 Shortly after the election in November 1996, President Clinton released Executive Order 13026, which gave the Department of Commerce jurisdiction over commercial encryption items.176 The administration offered companies an expedited review under a general license for 56-bit code key length products for as long as two years to each company that committed itself to “help build and support the global key management infrastructure.”177 Under these plans, appropriate government agents could access copies of encryption keys (held in escrow by a third entity) under explicit conditions. Key escrow systems have some commercial attractions, such as providing a fail-safe for lost keys, ensuring multiparty data sharing, or privacy protection. As an extra incentive, however,
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Commerce could issue an initial license for six months based on a review of the product and key recovery plan to participants in the scheme.178 Simply putting encryption software on the Internet would constitute an export, however, unless safeguards were in place to prohibit unauthorized access (as in the Netscape solution). In January 1997, IBM became the first major software producer to agree to this solution. IBM gave the National Security Agency 24 bits of its 64-bit key to Lotus Notes™.179 Possibly the most critical development is that another bureaucracy is now involved in export licensing. The executive order gave the Department of Justice (in practice, the FBI) authority to review licenses to export encryption items. In part because companies had failed to compromise and embrace earlier versions of the EAA, the law no longer specifically limited the agencies that had the right to review export control licenses. Adding another bureaucratic voice generally opposed to industry interests, and an inexperienced one at that, to the licensing process promised even greater problems for industry in the future. The order also indicated that even if a comparable product was available from foreign sources, Commerce would not eliminate the controls. The rapid spread of Internet access around the globe and the pace of technological change forced the administration to make a high-profile stab at multilateral support for U.S. encryption standards, or it risked losing what little support it had from the software industry. Consequently, the White House made Ambassador David L. Aaron the special envoy for cryptography a few days after issuing the order. Already the Permanent Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the administration now charged Ambassador Aaron with promoting cooperation and fostering international coordination on encryption issues. In its next term, the Clinton administration would become the reluctant champion of multilateral encryption controls, while slowly expanding the scope of end users for 128-bit encryption.
c on c l u s i on Export control reform peaked as an issue with the actions taken by the Clinton administration from September 1993 through October 1995. Why did an issue that attracted the attention of the captains of industry in 1993 fail to muster similar enthusiasm only one year later? Industry lobbyists saw the EAA as an opportunity to build on industry momentum and to enshrine reforms in legislation, addressing a long-term problem for many high-technology firms. The reforms set up by the administration, nonetheless, removed the immediate pressure from export controls on industry sales, especially through the relaxation of controls on computers and commercial satellites. In turn, this lowered the salience of ex-
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port control reform. This view, however, does not explain how or why the influence of nonproliferation advocates strengthened overtime. Whether purposeful or not, the Clinton administration consistently underestimated how hard it would be to develop a consensus on the direction of U.S. export control policy. Forging a new policy meant not only finding compromise positions, but occasionally making tough choices between what might be competing national interests — military security and economic prosperity. Virtually everyone agreed that the United States should transform its old export control system, but the disagreement about what to do and how to do it ran very deep. By concentrating most of its efforts on securing the fruits of treaty diplomacy, Clinton administration officials, purposefully or not, downplayed this disagreement. This could not suffice in the long run, if only because national obligations under these treaties often imply implementation of effective national and multilateral export control mechanisms. Not only did the administration fail to develop a compelling rationale for its new export control policy, it eventually abandoned the legislative battlefield to Congress. In that arena, despite the strength and organization of industry interests, political entrepreneurs favoring tight nonproliferation export controls could limit the wholesale reforms desired by the administration. The subsequent failure of the Congress to deliver a new EAA had few immediate consequences for the day-today operation of U.S. export controls. Without it, the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) could not raise the administrative penalties for export control violations, and its enforcement agents must receive their authority from other agencies. The longer-term consequences, however, are less benign. It undercut the U.S. view that an appropriate legal framework is the basis for “comparable in practice” export control systems. It also demonstrated irresolution regarding the priority attached nonproliferation export controls, undermining U.S. leadership. The administration also had a mixed response to industry pressure for liberalizing export controls. It read the last rites for the old Cold War export control system, especially COCOM, and created the Wassenaar Arrangement to integrate many postcommunist states into the multilateral system of export controls. Commerce, Defense, and State reoriented their export control offices in a way that put nonproliferation norms at the pinnacle of the export control agenda and helped streamline the decision-making process within each Department. Commerce not only rewrote the Export Administration Regulations to make it more user friendly, the new regulations clearly made nonproliferation norms the regulatory foundation for licensing and enforcement practices. Administration officials also made far fewer reforms regarding encryption items than industry desired, generally opposing industry (and congressional) pressure for radical decontrol of encryption items. Finally, the administration also reformed the interagency review process to allow the Defense Department the
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right to review all dual-use export license applications, a reform supported by many nonproliferation entrepreneurs. At the same time, nonproliferation advocates had trouble advancing their agenda as well. The Presidential Advisory Board on Arms Proliferation Policy (also know as the Nolan Commission), for example, pinpointed at least part of the problem, in finding “reason to be concerned that due regard may not be given to nonproliferation issues, absent a clear voice representing that perspective at all levels, including the Oval Office.”180 The dissolution of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the next administration has exacerbated this problem, removing from the licensing process the only voice without a potential conflict of interests on nonproliferation. Outside of the legislative arena, the Clinton administration blunted most opposition to liberalizing export controls. By taking executive action, the administration reduced controls on high-performance computers, commercial satellites, “hot-section” engine technology and other items. Lifting controls on a variety of dual-use items was consistent with the general direction of administration grand strategy, making it difficult to attack the specifics of export control policies and individual licensing decisions, without questioning the strategy as a whole. Redefining the balance of economic and military objectives in its grand strategy, however, did not find a firm base of support in Congress. While President Clinton may have seen export enhancement as a broad-based national interest, many of its congressional advocates were responding to legitimate export interests in their district rather than an abstract principle (indeed, the Clinton administration may have seen support for computer and satellite decontrols as being in its electoral interest). By freeing most computer exports, the administration circumscribed the current costs of controls on high-technology exports or on exports to projects of proliferation concern to a much more select group of enterprises and districts. Simultaneously, the presence of an established community of policy entrepreneurs kept security discussions focused on the issue of nonproliferation, a position the administration also endorsed. Nonproliferation entrepreneurs had the most impact when they could tie U.S. trading partners, especially China, with progress in programs of proliferation concern, especially WMD programs in rogue states. The most damaging security implications of liberalization of export controls would also not become certain until later, while the United States would feel the economic benefits almost immediately. With each statement that proliferation was the primary military threat facing the United States and other liberal democratic countries, however, the administration raised the political benefits, no matter how diffuse, of maintaining strict nonproliferation export controls in the long run, something that political entrepreneurs would use to great effect in the second term of the Clinton administration.
seven
c on c l u s i on Reluctant Champions
★ ★ ★
no tool s f or s c a n da l hortly before the 1996 general election, reports surfaced that six sensitive machine tools had gone from McDonnell Douglas Corporation to the Nanchang Aircraft Company, which produces fighters and cruise missiles for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, in direct violation of U.S. export controls.1 The chair of the House National Security Committee, Floyd Spence (R-SC), requested reports on this and other sales of sensitive equipment to China. Several members of Congress quickly used this case to tar Clinton export control policy. Despite the flurry of charges, these accusations had little resonance in the campaign. Where previous administrations had proved vulnerable, the Clinton administration seemed impervious to these tactics. In part this came from the substance of the case itself. Under a 1992 contract, McDonnell Douglas and the China National AeroTechnology Import and Export Company (CATIC) agreed to co-produce forty MD-80 and MD-90 commercial aircraft for use in flying major air routes in China. Later, within the context of that agreement, McDonnell Douglas sought
S
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to sell CATIC surplus machine tools from a plant owned by the U.S. government in Columbus, Ohio.2 Plant officials had used the tools, including five- and three-axis milling machines, five- and four-axis profilers, five-axis numerical control centers, three-axis coordinate measuring devices, and a hydraulic stress press, to build parts for the B-1 bomber, the C-17 transport, and the Peacekeeper missile programs. To support their application, McDonnell Douglas asserted that these items had a low risk of diversion for military purposes: the coproduction arrangement meant that company personnel could monitor the use of the equipment; the machines fit the anticipated production requirements; the machine tools represented older technology, with more capable machines available from foreign sources; and the items would stay in the CATIC Machine Center for at least four years. The Department of Commerce approved the license applications in September 1994, but attached fourteen conditions. These conditions addressed interagency concerns about the capabilities of the tools, issues of production capacity, and the fact that the CATIC Machine Center was not yet under construction.3 In violation of the license conditions and its own assurances on end use, CATIC shipped the machine tools to three locations, including the Nanchang Aircraft Company. As do many major Chinese companies, Nanchang Aircraft produces both commercial and military items. In the 1980s, the central government pushed the People’s Liberation Army industries to “make money” and convert more of their production to civilian use. As a result, the ratio of military of civilian production at defense enterprises had gone from more than 80 percent in the 1980s to less than 20 percent by the early 1990s.4 The reforms had some largely unforeseen consequences. Chinese defense enterprises, for example, began to increase production for export, the most notorious being the development of the M-11 missile system. It also complicated efforts to assure the civilian end use of imported items, since enterprises apparently often produced military items in the same factory, even parallel production lines. Chinese objections to postshipment verification checks by U.S. government officials in China only exacerbated this problem. In conducting an inventory in accord with the export license conditions, McDonnell Douglas officials discovered and reported the diversion of items to Nanchang Aircraft and two sites in Tianjin in March 1995, but noted that the equipment was not operational.5 These serious breaches of the license conditions prompted Commerce to suspend four licenses for unshipped items and to ask McDonnell Douglas to put all the machine tools in one storage facility in Tianjin. In August 1995, the company submitted new license applications for the six machine tools already at Nanchang Aircraft to remain at the site for commercial production. With the exception of one application returned without action, Commerce denied the licenses.6
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A few months later, McDonnell Douglas applied to transfer all the items to the Shanghai Aviation Industrial Corporation, where CATIC had scheduled the final assembly of the aircraft. Commerce approved these applications, with conditions, and by early 1996 all the items except the stretch press were in more than one hundred crates in Shanghai. Apparently, Shanghai Aviation indicated it already had two stretch presses and did not need a third. In contrast to detractors, officials at Commerce and Defense noted the conditions attached to the license resulted in detection and rectification of the diversion. The coproduction program, moreover, could continue. As the partners had modified the project to have half the aircraft built in the United States, this promised major economic benefits for McDonnell Douglas. From this perspective, the case represented a success for Clinton export control policy, not a failure. The case also reflected one of the dilemmas of liberalizing export controls. If these items had not required a Commerce license, the diversion might have gone undetected because the exporter might not know about the military or WMD connections of the end user and might not feel compelled to report the change to the U.S. government. In the second term of the Clinton presidency, the result of highly publicized cases involving China and Russia (especially when U.S. highperformance computers (which had turned up in Russian nuclear weapons facilities) led Congress to amend the National Defense Authorization Act to require that the Commerce Department report to Congress on the end use of each export of such a computer to “Tier 3” countries, such as China, India, and Russia, and to conduct a postshipment verification procedure in each case. Concerns about the transfer of satellite technology related to the Loral case moved Congress to enact legislation returning commercial satellites to the Munitions List administered by the Office of Defense Trade Controls in the State Department. In 1999, the Cox Committee investigating technology transfers to China and the Deutsch Commission considering how to reorganize the U.S. government both delivered reports that raised concerns about current U.S. export control policy. Although opposed by the administration, President Clinton declined to veto the National Defense Authorization Act regarding the export of high-performance computers or commercial satellites. Administration officials tried to reach new levels of cooperation on export control issues in countries where they had proved problematic in the past, such as China, to address the concerns of Congress. One of the highlights of the June 1998 Beijing summit, for example, was the announcement of a new Sino-U.S. methodology for conducting postshipment verification checks. Similarly, the administration began to take even more active measures to assist many countries in developing complementary export control systems. Commerce, in particular, radically increased the number of its technical exchanges with states from the former Soviet Union and South Central Eu-
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rope in 1997.7 New funds also went to support efforts by State, Energy, Customs and others to improve cooperation on export controls with other countries, particularly in the former Soviet Union.
e b b t i d e f or t r a d i t i ona l e x p ort c on t rol s ? The McDonnell Douglas case illustrates the fundamental difference between export controls enacted for purposes of nonproliferation and those enacted in the service of anticommunism. Under the aegis of containing communism, Western officials had proscribed whole countries as destinations for exports. They assumed that the Soviet Union or Communist China would divert dual-use items for military applications. Officials in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, moreover, defined the conflict as one that addressed entire social, moral, economic, and political systems. Anticommunism, as a rationale for export control policy entailed the presumption that all communist states were deadly and committed adversaries. Nonproliferation requires no such presumption. Certainly, adversaries exist; witness the vilification of the rogue states (i.e., Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Iran). At the same time, the United States threatened and, at times, imposed sanctions and restricted trade with India, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, and China to express its nonproliferation concerns. Unlike the rogue states, however, neither President Bush nor President Clinton really identified these states as adversaries. Both administrations, moreover, refrained from imposing sanctions on other members of the emerging liberal security community, such as France or Israel, for suspected or known violations of nonproliferation norms.8 Trade, by its very nature, generates mutual economic benefit. Trade in dualuse items also has the potential to create both commercial and military benefits for the recipient. For most of its history, restrictions on dual-use exports rarely fit U.S. grand strategy. Before the First World War, as a belligerent the United States government applied a permissive definition to “conditional” (dual-use) contraband, but it reverted to a less indulgent meaning when it was at peace. During the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, public and political entrepreneurs engaged in a high-profile struggle to control U.S. arms exports. The debate did not focus on the export of dual-use items, such as aviation fuel, until shortly before the world was engulfed in war. Until 1947, the United States appeared set to revert to its traditional policy. Instead, a combination of anticommunist advocates and powerful members of Congress helped impose controls on dual-use exports. In hindsight, the 1950s Congressional testimony about the control of pig bristle exports to China or similar scenes may seem surreal, but there were very real political consequences.
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Both Truman and Eisenhower felt their effects. Although the tightness of U.S. export controls generally correlated with the degree of tension in the overall U.S.Soviet or U.S.-Chinese relations over time, the anticommunist rationale did not come completely undone until the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. By identifying proliferation as the principal security threat facing the United States, Presidents Bush and Clinton targeted U.S. export control policy more toward the specific end use and end user than toward the country of destination. This is not a return to the notion of conditional contraband, which addressed relations between belligerents and neutrals. Instead, it is compliance with nonproliferation norms that matter. Aiming export controls toward China, among other states, becomes much more complex under the nonproliferation rationale. As with anticommunism, the rationale itself only creates the foundation for a system of export controls. It does not determine the exact composition of policies and practices that constitute such a system.
p r e s i d e n t i a l p ol i c y f or t h e t w e n t y- f i r s t c e n t u ry: p l e n t y t ru m p s p ow e r ? A few policy advocates and members of Congress contend that the United States should “contain” China, and adopt export control policies consistent with that strategy.9 In hearings on U.S. competitiveness in November 1995, for example, advocates of a more permissive export control policy dominated the debate. Representative Toby Roth (R-WI) set the tone: “In today’s world — and tomorrow’s — our national security depends more on our economic strength than our military might.”10 Similarly, Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-IL) decried that “a small cadre of administration officials — outside of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee — possessed with little or no business experience — have hijacked our nation’s trade promotion agenda.” Manzullo specifically referred to a memo from a National Security Council working group informing the Ex-Im Bank that government financial assistance should not go to companies trying to export items related to the Three Gorges Dam project in China. Testimony from industry leaders concurred with this assessment: export controls hurt U.S. companies, yet failed to restrict the appropriate technologies. Again, they relied on U.S. policy toward China to illustrate their contention. Michael Armstrong, the CEO of Hughes Electronic Corporation, claimed that U.S. sanctions had prompted China to transfer a multibillion-dollar order for commercial communications satellites from Hughes to a German competitor.11 Similarly, Michael Jordan, CEO of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, argued that the U.S. embargo on the sale of commercial nuclear power items to the Peo-
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ple’s Republic of China kept the United States out of a booming Chinese market, leaving the Canadians, French, and Russians to compete for $55 billion in business over the next quarter-century.12 Witnesses also raised the global environmental benefits that would accrue from assisting China in developing safer sources of nuclear energy to reduce Chinese reliance on brown-coal-fired power stations. Not all the members found this theme persuasive. In particular, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said: I don’t believe exports in and of themselves are the Holy Grail—and I think that a lot of people . . . have gotten their values screwed up in this whole debate. . . . No one would have . . . suggested that we build Hitler’s freeways for him . . .and that would have made Hitler any less of a Nazi . . . even though by building freeways for Hitler . . . and his infrastructure . . . would have permitted him to spend more money on Stukas. I happen to believe in free trade between free people. . . . But when you come to a situation . . . when we are dealing with dictators. . . . I think that we need to put other things in perspective—other than just the amount of money flowing into the pockets of our corporations.13
Representative Rohrabacher would later become a highly vocal critic of U.S. export control policy, even launching an investigation on the impact of U.S. satellite exports to China. This was not the first time he had addressed the issue of trade with China. In 1993 Representative Rohrabacher had been one of the thirty California legislators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Christopher urging the deapartment to ease restrictions on the export of a Hughes Electronics satellite to China.14 Why did the critics of Clinton administration China policy seem unable to exploit export control issues between China and the United States to their advantage in the first term? One plausible explanation is that economic interests come to exceed security concerns in the post–Cold War era. In one of the first major policy speeches of the second Clinton administration, National Security Assistant Samuel R. Berger put “the effects of economic integration” at the forefront of the powerful forces that will shape international affairs in the next century.15 Berger shared the explicit conviction that U.S. values of “democracy, liberty, and free enterprise” will dominate the process of integration.16 In contrast, Berger refers to proliferation concerns only in passing. From this perspective, in addition to their intrinsic value, arms control treaties and other international agreements help demarcate the community of nations from outlier states. This faith in the power of common economic interests has shaped Clinton administration policy toward China. Despite repeated confrontations over human rights, nonproliferation, Taiwan, and other issues, the administration succeeded in
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sequestering trade policy (and, to a lesser extent, investment policy) from these concerns. As China slowly turned away from central economic planning toward a market-oriented economy, its vast size and rapid rate of growth made its markets the great new prize for U.S. multinationals. In 1996, for example, the value of U.S. exports to China approached $12 billion. With the subsequent slowdown in economic growth in the rest of Asia, promoting U.S. exports to China became even more important. The export of most low-level computers and telecommunications equipment to China now proceeds with a presumption of approval and minimal government review. From this perspective, export controls would disrupt the flow of goods and services that made U.S. companies more globally competitive. Although attractive, this explanation remains insufficient. Despite these pressures, since the events at Tiananmen Square, the U.S. government has imposed close scrutiny on dual-use export license applications to China and generally denied the export of items on the Munitions List. Even during 1995, at the high tide of export control liberalization, the United States denied, returned without action, or suspended dual-use export license applications to China at a much higher rate than to other destinations, even the remaining proscribed countries (see table 7.1).17 By 1998, the ratio of approved to total license applications for
Table 7.1 ★ U.S. Dual-Use Export License Processing in Fiscal Year 1995 Destination
Applications Processed
Approved
Denied
Free World or Multiple Free World
6,924
5,966
61
844
3
13.1
Former COCOM
1,930
1,642
2
286
0
14.9
Proscribed
562
448
14
100
0
20.2
China
622
423
33
166
0
31.2
10,038
8,749
110
1,446
3
15.5
Total
Source: BXA, Annual Report, 1995.
Returned Suspended Denied, Without RWA, or Action (RWA) Suspended as a Percent of Processed
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China still remained below the average for all applications, although Cuba, India, and Pakistan had lower approval ratios.18 The Clinton administration also worked very hard to bring China into the nonproliferation community. In response, China has adopted a much more “complementary in practice” set of export controls on WMD-related items since 1993, especially since 1995. Although China had begun to cooperate on export controls with the Reagan and Bush administrations, its steps largely pertained to the old COCOM system. As part of its campaign, the Clinton administration, however reluctantly, has imposed sanctions on China for its proliferation activities. In August 1993, it imposed MTCR Category II sanctions to express its concern with the export of Chinese M-11 missile technology to Pakistan. While the administration waived those sanctions in October 1994, it did so only in return for a Chinese commitment to abide by a version of the MTCR annex.19 China also agreed not to transfer certain nuclear items to unsafeguarded facilities and other export limits under an implicit threat of sanctions after allegations over the transfer of ring magnets to Pakistan. President Clinton also has imposed sanctions on several enterprises for concerns over their involvement in the proliferation of chemical weapons. Although criticized by Senator Helms, Gary Milhollin, and others for trying to avoid sanctions whenever possible, the administration has imposed penalties that have in fact gotten the attention of the Chinese.
p ro c e s s t r ac i n g a n d t h e i m p l i c at i on s f or u. s. f or e i g n p ol i c y m a k i n g Tracing the decision processes in the four cases reaffirms the need to open the “black box” of domestic politics to explain U.S. foreign policy behavior, even for cases of national security policies. From afar, U.S. export control policy might appear to support both the precepts of realism and rational institutionalism. Certainly, U.S. export controls appeared to tighten and relax in concert with the waxing and waning of external threats. The Truman administration adopted domestic export controls and built a multilateral arrangement to thwart Soviet capacity to accumulate strategic goods from the West. The domestic and the multilateral system tightened with the onset of the Korean War, particularly after the Chinese intervention. The Eisenhower administration eased the control regime partially after it concluded that war was not likely in the immediate future, but that the Soviet Union represented a long-term threat to U.S. interests. Similarly, the threat that Iraq would develop nuclear weapons or use chemical or biological weapons to preserve its anschluss of Kuwait prompted the Bush administration to adopt the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative and to invig-
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orate the nascent multilateral nonproliferation regimes. As that threat receded, and the resurrection of the threat of Soviet communism seemed less and less likely, the Clinton administration made deep cuts in U.S. export controls, disbanded COCOM, and focused its efforts on enforcing the remaining controls and on making transfers of arms and dual-use items more transparent. Realists have long invoked parsimony to defeat rival explanations. But parsimony may prove a pernicious illusion, hiding rather than revealing. In these cases, political elites interpreted the same external stimuli “in different ways to build support for policies they favor,” a point made more broadly by Matthew Evangelista about the Soviet Union.20 In these cases, the evidence confirms that the presidents and many senior officials had little confidence that export controls held any utility regarding the threat at hand, but they created or preserved new export control systems anyway. If export control policy simply responded to changes in the external threat environment or to new calculations of costs and benefits to the United States, how could Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Bush, and Clinton uniformly oppose such policies? The evidence from these case studies suggests that as each administration developed and pursued its grand strategy, domestic political concerns played an important, even crucial, role in defining the exact mix of programs in presidential export control policy. This goes beyond arguing that domestic politics influences foreign policy through a two-level game process in a subtle, even marginal, fashion.21 From that perspective, national leaders restrict the interests of domestic nonstate actors in favor of flexibility and international agreement, and limit the impact of domestic political actors to implementation issues, not grand strategy. Moving more deeply into the black box of domestic politics, however, the evidence supports more counterintuitive claims of Primat der Innenpolitik in explaining specific foreign policies (see table 7.2). As expected, public entrepreneurs appear associated with the development of U.S. anticommunist and nonproliferation export control policies. During the Truman administration, a core of public figures, such as Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and special interests, including religious, labor, and refugee groups raised societal fears over the spread of communism, both domestically and overseas. A cadre of political entrepreneurs, such as Joseph McCarthy, Karl Mundt, and Richard Nixon, played on these fears to build a base of political power. By the time President Eisenhower took office, the expression of individual or organizational opposition to communism permeated the fabric of national life. In contrast to expectations derived from the exploratory framework for this study, it looks as if political entrepreneurs may have conceived of the ideas that led to changes in presidential export control policy independent of specific actions by public entrepreneurs, other than their
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Table 7.2 ★ Explaining U.S. Export Control Policy in Four Administrations Factor
Truman
Eisenhower
Bush
Clinton
Advocates
Public
Public Bureaucratic
Established Bureaucratic
Established
Entrepreneurs
Emerging
Powerful
Powerful
Powerful
Policy Sequence
Internal then External
External then Internal
Internal then External
External then Internal
Core Policies
NATO and Marshall Plan
Trade, not Aid then Trade and Aid
Defend Kuwait Attack Iraq
Engagement and Trade Expansion
Relaxed Export Controls and Core Policies
Inconsistent
Consistent, then Inconsistent
Inconsistent
Consistent
Threat Perception
High, Immediate
High, Long-Term
High, Immediate
Moderate, Long-Term
general opposition to trade with communists. Certainly politicians look to public entrepreneurs for ideas, but this suggests that further study may reveal a process at least as interactive as it is symbiotic. A community of nonproliferation advocates, both in and out of government, clearly existed in the first years of the Bush administration. Some groups, such as the Arms Control Association and the supporters of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, predated the nuclear freeze movement of the early 1980s, while others became more interested in nonproliferation as the Cold War slowly came to an end. By the first year of the Bush administration, a diverse group of politicians, from Senators Helms to Lieberman, had expressed interest in aspects of presidential export control policies. Subsequently, the Clinton administration identified WMD proliferation as the gravest threat to the military security of the United States. Though sparking less rabid debate than anticommunism, nonproliferation issues even became intertwined with domestic terrorism issues by 1995 with the bombings in Oklahoma and New York, as well as the Sarin gas attack in Tokyo. Again, the two-step process suggested in the exploratory framework does not have clear support. Ideas connecting export controls and nonpro-
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liferation seem to percolate among public and political entrepreneurs almost simultaneously, although further study might disentangle this relationship. Both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations developed grand strategies and made public commitments to counter the global advance of communism. Even without the extremes that some public entrepreneurs and political advocates reached in their opposition to communism, both presidents probably would have developed anticommunist grand strategies. Under Truman, revolutionary plans for U.S. military assistance and a U.S.-led military alliance dominated the grand strategy of containment. Though the Eisenhower administration modified this approach, it kept the basic thrust of containment and the associated international commitments. Similarly, the Bush and Clinton administrations formulated grand strategies and made public commitments that replaced anticommunism with WMD proliferation as the primary threat to U.S. security. The formidable difficulty of responding to the collapse of the old Cold War order dominated U.S. foreign policy agenda when Bush took office in January 1989. The end of the Cold War bore little similarity to the end of the Second World War. By 1945, the United States and its allies (i.e., the United Nations) had spent years developing elaborate plans for life after the war. In contrast, the rapid (and relatively peaceful) demise of Soviet communism and the end of the Cold War surprised almost everyone.22 This left the Bush administration in the unenviable position of managing the unanticipated end of the old order while planning and creating its replacement.23 Not until shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which demonstrated to the international community the constraints of Cold War security structures, did President Bush articulate a grand strategy to replace containment — the “new world order.” As much the creation of Secretary of State James Baker as of President Bush, the new world order emphasized the need for democratic, free market nations to take multilateral action to deter or roll-back aggression by nondemocratic states. The new world order promised to bind postcommunist states, eventually including Russia, into a new system that would support human rights and oppose the use of force to settle disputes. More than any other development, WMD proliferation would threaten the capacity of democratic states to deter or otherwise resist aggression. The Bush administration began to place nonproliferation near the top of its foreign policy agenda. While the new world order brought Russia and the United States into a tenuous partnership, this strategy proved less compelling after the victory by coalition forces in the Persian Gulf. Armed conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, the Transcaucusus, and elsewhere raised questions about the willingness and capacity of the democratic states to intervene effectively in civil conflicts. As with contain-
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ment, it also gave few clues as how democratic states might function proactively, putting authoritarian states on the path to democracy. The Clinton administration built on the notion that free peoples should work together to build a secure and prosperous community of democratic nations. Under the strategy of enlargement and engagement, administration officials tried to find ways to help democracy flourish around the world, while using a host of diplomatic, economic, and other policy tools to engage nondemocratic states. Engaging states such as China and North Korea; creating or maintaining a dialogue among senior officials; devising means for the peaceful settlement of disputes; and fostering adherence to international standards of conduct in international trade, the environment, human rights, and other issue areas were all important strategies. The Clinton administration also elevated the importance of curtailing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In addition, they expressed greater concern about the spread of advanced conventional weapons, a subject that had been taboo for most of the Cold War. As anticipated through the preliminary evidence, all four of the administrations opposed an extensive export control system. Truman administration officials demonstrated little enthusiasm for designing a system of export controls, even to stifle trade with communists. The administration was in the midst of removing wartime controls on the U.S. economy, and renewed export controls ran contrary to that trend. In addition, Truman administration officials believed that imposing export controls on reluctant partners would sever the trade with markets in the European Soviet bloc on which Western European prosperity (and Western Europe’s capacity to oppose communism) might depend. If anything, President Eisenhower was more skeptical about the value of export controls. The philosophy of free trade and international cooperation that dominated the formulation of the “trade, not aid” approach in the first years of the administration directly contradicted tight controls on trade. Even in the face of reports to the contrary, Eisenhower often seemed preoccupied with the notion that the West could achieve a “net advantage” in trading with the Soviets, and that export controls foreclosed this opportunity. The Bush administration inherited an export control policy with only a secondary focus on proliferation. Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Pakistan, and other countries of proliferation concern had access to a variety of sensitive dual-use, even nuclear dual-use, technologies. The Bush administration expanded the transfer of dual-use and military technologies to the People’s Republic of China, a policy seemingly inconsistent with both anticommunist and nonproliferation objectives. The dramatic decontrol of dual-use items to the postcommunist states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the early summer of 1990 took place with little regard for the implications for proliferation.24 More
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important, as late as the spring of 1990, administration officials approved, even encouraged, the export of a variety of sensitive dual-use items to Iraq, a destination of proliferation concern of the first order. The Clinton administration also put exports and economic competitiveness at the top of its foreign policy agenda. President Clinton targeted export controls, particularly those seen as remnants of the Cold War, for relaxation or elimination in order to promote exports. Using the recommendations of the Trade Policy Promotion Committee as a base, in September 1993 President Clinton announced the most dramatic relaxation in export controls in at least twenty years, followed by two years of reforms aimed at streamlining and liberalizing the U.S. and multilateral systems. Administration officials emphasized that changes in the global economy and the diffusion of technology meant that export controls had become less effective and more costly. Not only did the administration significantly reduce controls on computers and other dual-use items, it took the risky strategy of terminating COCOM, even when negotiations to create another arrangement to replace COCOM had not finished. This tactic may have opened several windows of opportunity for proliferators. Many COCOM members legally based their national nonproliferation control systems on their formal international obligations, including those made in COCOM, and members did not agree to create a new arrangement until late 1995.25 In particular, defense industries among prospective partners in the arrangement, such as Russia, benefited from the decontrol, but were not yet bound by the new system.26 Instead of an emphasis on export controls, Clinton administration officials stressed the use of alternative policies, from agreements to stop the production of fissile materials to improved military capabilities. With the North Korean experience, the limits of a program that entailed a much more aggressive role for the military in preventing the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction in the developing world became more apparent. In addition, implementing diplomatic efforts, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, called for sophisticated (and intrusive) export control and trade monitoring systems. Certainly, in modern democracies members of political parties and policy advocates will support policies designed to gain collective goods, including military security, because this enhances their reputation with the majority of the electorate. Consequently, at least some public and political entrepreneurs were likely to censure each administration for failing to align presidential export control policy with those collective goods. This took many forms, including Congressional hearings and investigations; GAO reports; scandalous magazine, newspaper, radio, and television stories and editorials; reports by research institutions; and bureaucratic actions.
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Some of these critics, such as Secretary of Defense Wilson in the Eisenhower administration, simply believed in the necessity of a strong export control system. Others saw an effective and efficient export control policy as peripheral to their personal or partisan political goals. Some, such as Senator Mundt, fall into both categories. Political opponents of each administration (and its grand strategy) exploited the cognitive inconsistency between vilifying the Soviets or the Iranians and conducting or condoning relatively normal trade relations with those states. At the same time, many policy advocates had a genuine interest in making U.S. and multilateral export control systems more effective and efficient. The notable internal divisions and bureaucratic wrangling in the Eisenhower, Bush, and Clinton administrations over export controls indicates that at least some of the struggle comes from reasoned differences of opinion rather than from a cynical manipulation of political symbols. In some sense, creating a bipartisan appeal for an effective system of export controls may have kept the fate of export controls from becoming too closely attached to a few politicians and falling victim to the whims of election cycles. Tracing the decision processes bolsters the contention of Kjell Goldman that the failure to resolve cognitive inconsistency is the primary domestic factor in the destabilization or reappraisal of U.S. foreign policy generally.27 These findings, however, demonstrate that simple charges of inconsistency or inadequacy will prove insufficient to compel an administration to modify its initial reluctance to create or preserve an extensive export control program. In cases of the Truman, Eisenhower, and Bush administrations, policy modifications (or the postponement of changes) took place only when officials feared opponents would use charges of inconsistency to defeat another policy initiative (i.e., foreign military and economic assistance programs or the authority to use military force) closer to the core of their grand strategy. On a somewhat different path, the Clinton administration took a slightly more restrictive position on nonproliferation export controls after repeated interagency reviews revealed the proliferation implications of radical liberalization of export controls. In addition, after failing to get support for its conservative draft legislation (and after the rise of the Republican majority in Congress), the administration essentially left Congress unimpeded to decide the direction of the new Export Administration Act. This tactic guaranteed that the legislative basis for nonproliferation export controls would remain much more restrictive than many Clinton administration officials originally intended. Still, as long as the administration kept requests for congressional action to support core elements of its grand strategy at a minimum, including various forms of assistance for Russia, engagement of China, funding for the Korean Economic Development Organization, and support for U.S. troops in Bosnia (and kept those re-
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quests consistent with nonproliferation norms), it could continue to ease the scope of export controls through administrative means without much opposition. The reliance on executive action had severe consequences for the administration. As concerns emerged that U.S. high-performance computers, commercial satellites, and other items had found their way into WMD programs in China, Russia, and India, or that sensitive items from U.S. trading partners, especially China and Russia, were going to WMD programs in India, Iran, North Korea, or Pakistan, the administration could count on little support in Congress for its policy choices. Perceived links between campaign contributions and a pattern of export control liberalization also damaged the credibility of the administration in this issue area, and became the focus of several official investigations. The nuclear and missile tests in South Asia, the launch of a North Korean missile over Japan, and other incidents in 1998 heightened public concern about Clinton nonproliferation policy, including export controls. The lack of consensus behind that policy made it that much more vulnerable. Institutional and policy history also played an important role in shaping export control policy in the four administrations. The Truman and Bush administrations relied on bureaucratic forms, control lists, licensing practices, and other elements of recent applications of export controls by the United States and the international community in constructing new domestic and multilateral export control structures. At the same time, a striking lack of institutional memory often meant that officials immersed themselves in debates over defining control lists, referring license applications to other agencies, emphasizing end use over proscribed countries, making public the names of prohibited end users, and other issues, without reference to solutions identified a generation or more before. By redirecting bureaucratic resources, the policy initiatives in the Truman and Bush administrations also institutionalized support for using export controls to combat communism and proliferation, respectively. Peter Cowhey notes that institutional innovations often spawn (1) new bureaucracies to advocate and safeguard each policy innovation in return for advocates accepting less initially; (2) institutional “fire alarms” (devices making it easy for the disgruntled to get information and complain): (3) “trip wires” (requirements for explicit authorization of certain uses of authority); (4) “time limits” on authority to force executors of the policy to pay attention to critics; and (5) “stacking the decision process” to make sure that all key interests are represented.28
Not surprisingly, all of these appear in the legislative or regulatory context of export controls. Above all, these innovations encourage bureaucrats to become
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policy advocates, if for no other reason than it becomes part of their assignment. This also makes these bureaucrats focal points for public and political entrepreneurs, particularly for an exchange of relevant information and views. Again, the evidence suggests that advocates exploited inconsistencies between the broader grand strategy of an administration and its liberalization of export controls. The prospects for building a successful coalition to move each administration to adopt tighter export controls, however, seem to depend on at least two antecedent conditions: • the perceived consistency between presidential export control policy and administration grand strategy; • the strength of the coalition in favor of the core programs of administration grand strategy. In the Truman, Eisenhower, and Bush cases, political opponents of the administration used inconsistencies between grand strategy and presidential export control policy to attack core administration foreign policy programs. When the political coalition in support of that core program was weak, the administration altered its export control policies to redress the inconsistency. This helps explain why critics of Clinton administration export control policy made so little headway in the first term. The core of Clinton grand strategy is engagement. While no concrete definition of engagement exists, it emphasizes the expansion of economic ties between countries such as China and the United States. It certainly is not a policy of containment or isolation, rationales that are much more consistent with broad controls on dual-use exports. This pattern implies that the tactics of grassroots community building in favor of a specific prohibition norm or policy (e.g., freedom from government violation of human rights, or prohibiting states or companies from degrading the environment), an approach supported by many U.S. foundations and advocacy groups, while important, will not prove sufficient to alter U.S. foreign policy behavior. Even if the community of policy advocates attracts the support of political entrepreneurs in key legislative and bureaucratic bodies, such as the Senate or the Department of Defense, this alone will not suffice to alter U.S. policy. Without sharp inconsistencies between its grand strategy and its specific policies, an administration seems unlikely to alter its policies to address concerns raised by either public or political entrepreneurs. In the study of public policy, timing is everything. Policy advocates can prepare for those times when an administration needs to keep or get a few votes in Congress to support a core program that would be inconsistent with opposition to (and violations of) the norm or policy the advocates promote. They can also
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prepare for those times when conditions will favor their opponents. Public entrepreneurs might limit the potential damage to their position by inculcating a broad community with the rectitude of their position. They might also attempt to transform the framework of the policy debate. In this case, they could, for example, focus on the economic benefits of export controls (such as the creation of a stable security environment that enables economic expansion).
i m p l i c at i on s f or t h e p ro c e s s o f p rom ot i n g i n t e r nat i ona l nor m s a n d r e g i m e bu i l d i n g Each administration tried to balance U.S. and multilateral export control liberalization by institutionalizing improvement in enforcement of the remaining controls. Michael Mastanduno contends that these tactics of “higher fences, fewer goods” almost always had strategic and diplomatic merit.29 Domestically, such tactics help reduce the costs of controls (though the costs remain concentrated) and guarantee real benefits from the controls (though the benefits remain diffused). This may reduce contrary political pressures for export control reform. The Eisenhower and Clinton administrations also appeared to embrace a version of gaiatsu, or the tactics of bowing to foreign pressure. In a Japanese context, officials at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or other parts of government may use foreign pressure to explain the need for policy adjustments to various domestic constituencies and to other ministries. Sometimes these officials actually support the proposed changes, and rely on external pressure to deflect internal criticism directed at the sponsoring ministry.30 Though not “gradual and moderate,” for example, the 1954 COCOM negotiations did prompt a change in U.S. export controls policy in the direction preferred by President Eisenhower. Officials in the Eisenhower administration could blame free-market economic forces and the need for strong economies among U.S. allies for the shifts in multilateral policies and, subsequently, U.S. policies. Similarly, in the decisions to abandon the COCOM Cooperation Forum format and embark on the creation of the Wassenaar Arrangement, Clinton administration officials claimed that friendly countries would soon cease cooperation altogether if the United States tried to maintain COCOM. Although probably an accurate forecast, it coincided with the belief among senior officials that the utility of export controls had diminished significantly. The actual initiatives to create, enhance, reduce, or destroy these export control systems did come from the chief of government, as other studies of foreign policy concluded.31 Contrary to the implications of previous findings, however, all four administrations pursued their respective efforts to promote or preserve
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U.S. and multilateral export controls quite reluctantly. The cases presented here indicate that — unlike the framework presented by proponents of the two-level game approach — these policy initiatives evolved as a response to charges of inconsistency by domestic policy advocates and members of Congress that threatened to undermine support for core administration foreign policy programs. They did not reflect the initial preferences of the presidents, nor changes in presidential preferences related to foreign stimuli. Evidence on how and when transnational coalitions of nonstate actors can have an impact, as found in the work of Thomas Risse-Kappen or Audie Klontz, fits well into this framework. Policy advocates can help create communities that support specific prohibition norms and policies in other key countries. While it may be easier to build these communities in democratic states, Matthew Evangelista and others demonstrate that policy advocates can promote “new thinking” in a variety of political settings. This community can then gain access to political entrepreneurs in institutions central to the policy-making process, and await a time when the chief executive needs support for a program at the core of its grand strategy that also is linked to support for a strong prohibition norm or policy. Transnational links could help this expanded community prepare for such a time through moral or material support, providing technical or organizational skills, or simply by example. There is no evidence that policy advocates adopted this approach in the early years of the Cold War. In contrast, U.S. government and nongovernment initiatives have helped nurture transnational relations among bureaucrats and scholars working on nonproliferation export controls. These efforts, however, do not focus on improving access and influence in policy-making circles. All of this requires leadership by the policy advocates working within and between nations. The particular solutions associated with these general tactics will vary from situation to situation, and leaders must identify appropriate actions that will rally other policy advocates, political entrepreneurs, and the public to that approach. It also requires leadership from the heads of government of key states. Obviously, these leaders must attract support from other governments to establish the norm or policy on a multilateral basis. As many suggest, a chief of government must also formulate national policy so it responds sufficiently to domestic pressures while placing minimal constraints on the opportunities for building international support. Once a chief of government commits to a prohibition norm or policy, domestic policy advocates and political entrepreneurs can impose heavy political costs if the chief of government retracts that support. This prescription faces many caveats. The Primat der Innenpolitik revealed here, for instance, may not apply more broadly to other states that champion prohibition norms. Certainly, the work of Thomas Risse-Kappen and Claus Hofhansel
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raise doubts that this framework would apply in the case of Germany. More broadly, Peter Cowhey argues that variations in electoral systems, the structure of governing systems, and the degree of transparency all contribute to the credibility of foreign policy promises and threats made by leaders of great power democracies.32 At least for the United States, the institutional innovations associated with policy initiatives also increase the credibility of commitments made by presidents in pursuit of multilateral cooperation. In addition, private political benefits from supporting a policy that enhances the collective good, in this instance military security, accrue to many individuals and companies. This further enhances the credibility of U.S. multilateral commitments. In states where structures, ideas, and relationships generally undermine commitment to multilateral commitments, however, creating transnational communities of policy advocates will have little impact in the near term.
i m p l i c at i on s f or p r e s i d e n t i a l p ol i c y a n d g r a n d s t r at e g y Newly elected presidents have reason not to advocate stringent export control policies. In the United States, as in most democratic states, the president must build domestic political coalitions, as well as international coalitions, to support particular policies and administration grand strategy. Trade restrictions, with their concentrated costs, will almost certainly mobilize dissent, both foreign and domestic. Moreover, policies that alienate large commercial interests appear illsuited as the core of a grand strategy, compared to policies that promote immediate military, economic, and diplomatic benefits and that have diffuse costs. Export controls, however, sit at the nexus of military, economic, and diplomatic policy, and will quickly expose inconsistencies in policies across those objectives. The benefits to commercial interests from core elements of a grand strategy, however, may be sufficient to persuade those interests to accept a measure of concentrated costs of prohibition policies, including export controls. More important, the current debate about the proper balance between military security and economic competitiveness may misspecify the relationship. Traditionally, government officials tend to see export controls as a balancing act: too permissive, and they compromise military security; too strict, and they compromise economic prosperity. In the 1980s, for example, the Reagan administration argued that the West should strengthen export controls toward the Soviet Union, even if this imposed a greater burden on commercial interests. More recent claims that export controls are ineffective and only stifle the economic
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prosperity upon which U.S. military security depends also echo contentions made by public and political entrepreneurs in the 1950s. Opponents of export controls always denote the economic costs; proponents always focus on the security benefits. Only rarely do participants in the debate recognize that armed forces provide the infrastructure of military stability that sustains wealth-creating commerce and that the military depends on that wealth to supply its needs. If the study of export controls reveals anything, it is the need to see the relationship between power and plenty not as competitive and in constant need of balance, but as symbiotic and in perpetual need of nurturing. Export controls help create the security infrastructure that facilitates good commercial relations and regional prosperity. How competitive are companies when they lose assets and personnel, and find their markets destroyed by war? It is important to recall that until the autumn of 1914, many observers believed that the economic prosperity and growing commercial ties between Germany and other European powers made war impossible. More recently, the Scott report condemned British policy on the licensing of dual-use and military items to Iraq during the 1980s as a shortsighted measure to preserve commercial interests.33 How competitive are companies that must sell to end users in marginal markets, such as Russia in the 1990s, to survive? In the lead article for the first issue of World Politics in 1948, Jacob Viner argued that more common ground existed between mercantilists and practitioners of laissez-faire than observers generally give credit. Viner writes that almost all mercantilists, without regard to country or era, would agree that (1) wealth is an absolutely essential means to power, whether for security or aggression; (2) power is essential or valuable as a means to the acquisition or retention of wealth; (3) wealth and power are each proper ultimate ends of national policy; (4) there is long-run harmony between these ends, although in particular circumstances it may be necessary for a time to make economic sacrifices in the interest of military security and therefore of long-run prosperity.34
Instead of balancing competing objectives, formulating a grand strategy for the next century must transcend this short-term divergence. In pursuing the nonproliferation norm, export controls buy time and slow the pace of WMD and missile proliferation. From virtually every perspective in the study of international relations, rapid shifts in military power appear the most destabilizing. In a region where most states have no WMD, the acquisition of such weapons by one state (even without the means to deliver it) suddenly alters the local and regional military balance, perhaps more so than any other single event.
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The South Asian nuclear tests bear witness to the proliferation pressures this creates. U.S. officials have long feared that if North Korea obtained a nuclear weapon, for example, it would place great pressure on South Korea and Japan to develop nuclear weapons, which would prompt China to reevaluate its current nuclear deterrent, thus affecting South Asia, Russia, and the United States. An increase in tensions in the Asian Pacific would certainly have a negative impact on foreign investment, trade, and economic growth, if only by increasing uncertainty, if not actual risk, facing companies in the region. The use of even a single weapon against Singapore or another trading state would have at the very least the immediate impact of the Kobe earthquake on regional trade flows. From this view, stringent nonproliferation export controls can help preserve a good regional business climate. In addition, ideas matter. Real people create and transmit those ideas, not political artifacts. How those ideas become policy remains largely uncharted water. As Thomas Risse-Kappen contends, in the United States, advocates of particular policy ideas have easy access to policy makers, but face great obstacles in constructing the political coalition necessary to turn those ideas into public policy.35 Indeed, the liberal arms control community in the United States met with some success only after it obtained strong support in Congress.36 The evidence in these cases supports a similar story, that “ideas do not float freely,” but depend on specific human channels for transmission. These cases, moreover, show that explaining the success of policy advocates and their ideas depends at least in part on understanding the domestic political context. How these ideas connect with other key political ideas and current political relationships is especially important. Surely, the focus on the United States and on export controls might make these patterns unique. That a broadly accepted theoretical framework — public choice models — guided this study suggests otherwise. Although the specific patterns may differ, international norms and transnational coalitions exist. Political entrepreneurs are active in most if not all countries, and national leaders create explicit or implicit grand strategies and policies to implement those strategies. Most important, the black box of domestic politics is not the Pandora’s box of mythology: cracking its lid does not necessarily lead to anarchy. It may actually lead to understanding.
not e s ★ ★ ★
i n t rodu c t i on 1. Vladimir Orlov and William C. Potter, “The Mystery of the Sunken Gyros,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54, 6 (November/December 1998): 34. 2. Remarks made by Rolf Ekeus on February 12, 1996, at the Carnegie Conference on Nuclear Nonproliferation, Washington, D.C. 3. Douglas Jehl, “Who Armed Iraq? Answers the West Didn’t Want to Hear,” New York Times, July 18, 1993, p. E5. 4. Ibid. 5. Valerie Kuklenski, “Western Firms Supplied Iraq With Chemical Weapons,” United Press International, October 2, 1990, in Lexis/Nexis. 6. Ibid. 7. The Right Honourable Sir Richard Scott, Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions, House of Commons Papers 115, London: HMSO, 1996. 8. Ironically, this appeared in the Memorandum of Disapproval outlining the reasons why President Bush exercised a pocket veto over HR 4653, the proposed Export Administration Act. 9. See, for example, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy, Washington, DC: GPO, 1994. 10. U.S. Congress, House Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1991, pp. 38–39. 11. See a copy of the unclassified version of NSD 26 in Alan Friedman, Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq, New York: Bantam Books, 1993, p. 321. 12. U.S. Congress, House Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, pp. 336–338. 13. Ibid. 14. William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, pp. 193–199. 15. See William F. Finan, “Estimate of Direct Economic Costs Associated with U.S. National Security Controls,” pp. 254–277 in National Academy of Sciences, Balancing the National Interest: U.S. National Security Controls and Global Economic Competition, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987; and J. David Richardson, Sizing Up U.S. Export Disincentives, Washington, D.C.: Institute of International Economics, 1993. 16. J. David Richardson, Sizing Up U.S. Export Disincentives. 17. Peter B. Evans, “Building an Integrative Approach to International and Domestic Politics: Reflections and Projections,” pp. 397–430 in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, p. 400. 231
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18. R. Jeffrey Smith, “Long-Term Crackdown on Iraq Faces Obstacles; Experts See Political, Economic Problems in Averting Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Washington Post, September 20, 1990, final edition, in Nexus/Lexis. 19. Ibid. 20. Philip J. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988, p. 32. 21. See, for example, Hendrik Roodbeen, Trading the Jewel of Great Value: The Participation of The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria in the Western Strategic Embargo, The Hague: CIP-Gegevens Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1992; or Angela Stent Yergin, East-West Technology Transfer: European Perspectives, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1980. 22. To this end, COCOM remained secret until a 1952 story in the New York Times named the organization. Even within government circles it was not widely discussed. The Dutch government, to give but one example, did not even inform legislators in closed sessions about COCOM. 23. For a review of the role of export controls and COCOM, see Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, Western Economic Warfare, 1947–1967, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1968; Beverly Crawford and Stephanie Lenway, “Decision Modes and International Regime Change: Western Collaboration and East-West Trade,” World Politics 37 (April 1985): 375–402; John R. McIntyre and Richard Cupitt, “East-West Strategic Trade Control: Crumbling Consensus?” Survey 25 (Spring 1980): 81–108; and Michael Mastanduno, Economic Containment: CoCom and the Politics of East–West Trade, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. 24. U.S. Department of Commerce, The Revision of Strategic Trade Controls, 5th Report to Congress on the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1954, p. 4. 25. U.S. Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, A Message for Growth in a Global Economy: U.S. Exports = U.S. Jobs, Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 1993. 26. “Comparison of Industry and Administration EAA Proposals —Key Provisions,” Export Control News 8, 2 (February 28, 1994): 5. 27. Peter B. Evans et al., Double-Edged Diplomacy; Oran R. Young, “The Politics of International Regime Formation,” International Organization 43, 3 (Summer 1989): 349–375. 28. Robert Axelrod, “An Evolutionary Approach to Norms”; Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society,” International Organization 44, 4 (Autumn 1990): 479–526. 29. Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methodology for Students of Political Science, Cambridge, MA: Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, MIT, 1997, p. 9. 30. Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power, Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1989, pp. 77–78. 31. Susan Strange, “Cave! Hic Dragones: A Critique of Regime Analysis,” pp. 337–354 in Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. 32. See, for example, Peter Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States,” International Organization 47 (1993): 299–326; Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993; Peter Alexis Gourevitch, “Domestic Sources of International Cooperation,” International Organization 50, 2 (Spring 1996): 349–373; Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989; and Beth A. Simmons,Who Adjusts: Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
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33. Matthew Evangelista, “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy: The Soviet Case,” pp. 154–178 in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; and Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, “Internatioanl Regime Formation,” pp. 255–256 in Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, eds., Polar Politics: Creating International Environmental Regimes, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. 34. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, “The U.S. Embargo: Inefficient and Counterproductive,” Aussenwirtschaft 2 (1980): 170–187. 35. Makio Miyagawa, Do Economic Sanctions Work? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992, p. 187. 36. The White House, A National Security Strategy for a New Century, Washington, D.C.: GPO, October 1998. 37. Albert O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade, Berkeley: University of California Press, expanded edition, 1980. 38. Jacob Viner, “Power Versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” World Politics 1, 1 (1948): 1–29. 39. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, New York: Random House, 1987. 40. David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. 41. David Mitrany, The Problem of International Sanctions, New York: Oxford University Press, 1925. 42. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy, 2nd ed., Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990, p. 16. 43. Margaret Doxey, “International Sanctions: A Framework for Analysis with Special Reference to the U.N. and Southern Africa,” International Organization 26 (Summer 1972): 525–550; Johan Galtung, “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions: With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia,” World Politics 19 (April 1967): 378–416; and Robin Renwick, Foreign Economic Sanctions, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1981. 44. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, p. 93. 45. Ibid., derived from Table 1.1, pp. 16–27. 46. Ibid., p. 108. 47. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 661, 713, 733, 748, 757, and 787. 48. Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions Reconsidered. 49. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft. 50. Robert Gallucci, “Limiting U.S. Policy Options to Prevent Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: The Relevance of Minimum Deterrence,” pp. 103–117 in Charles Gaston, ed., Grand Strategy and the Decisionmaking Process (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1992), p. 104. 51. George Tsebelis, “Are Sanctions Effective? A Game-Theoretic Analysis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 34, 1 (March 1990): 3–28. Tsebelis also rightly observes that studies of sanctions suffer from selection bias against including the most successful cases, where the threat of sanctions deters even the possibility of noncompliant behavior. 52. Ibid. 53. Lisa Martin, Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. 54. Ibid. 55. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered. 56. Ibid., pp. 83–90, especially tables 4.3–4.7.
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57. Gunnar Adler-Karlsson, Western Economic Warfare, p. 9; Hufbauer,Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered; Douglas E. McDaniel, United States Technology Export Control: An Assessment, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. 58. See the three volumes in the Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development series by Anthony Sutton. 59. Anthony Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 1945–1965, Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1973. 60. See the discussion in Soviet Acquisition of Militarily Significant Western Technology: An Update, anonymous (presumed to be U.S. Central Intelligence Agency), September 1995. 61. Ibid.
chapter 1 1. Gerald J. Bryan, “Joseph McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and the Greek Shipping Crisis: A Study of Foreign Policy Rhetoric,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 24, 1 (Winter 1994): 95. 2. Ibid. Also see David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, New York: The Free Press, 1983, pp. 293–294. 3. Drew Pearson, “Washington-Merry-Go-Round,” Washington Post, April 7, 1953. 4. Bryan, “Joseph McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and the Greek Shipping Crisis,” p. 96. 5. U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations, Control of Trade with the Soviet Bloc, Hearings, Parts I and II, 83rd Congress, 1st Session, Washington, D.C.: GPO (August 1953), pp. 130–131. Also see “Trade With Reds,” Congressional Quarterly Almanac, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly News Features, 1953, pp. 247–248. 6. Ibid., pp. 18–21. 7. Richard Rose, The Postmodern President: George Bush Meets the World, Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993; also see The Federalist Papers, No. 75. 8. Peter B. Evans, “Building an Integrative Approach to International and Domestic Politics: Reflections and Projections,” pp. 397–430 in Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, p. 403. 99. Michael J. Gilligan and W. Ben Hunt, “The Domestic and International Sources of Foreign Policy: Alliance Formation in the Middle East, 1948–78,” pp. 143–168 in Randolph M. Siverson, ed., Strategic Politicians, Institutions, and Foreign Policy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998, p. 143. 10. Vinod K. Aggarwal and Pierre Allan, “The Origin of Games: A Theory of the Formation of Ordinal Preferences and Games,” pp. 299–325 in Michael D. Intriligator and Urs Luterbacher, eds., Cooperative Models in International Relations Research, Boston: Kluwer, 1994, p. 307. 11. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Randolph M. Siverson, “War and the Survival of Political Leaders,” American Political Science Review 89, 4 (December, 1995): 841–855. 12. Aggarwal and Allan, “The Origin of Games,” pp. 307–315. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., p. 315. 15. Ibid.
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16. Peter F. Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States,” International Organization 47, 2 (Spring 1993): 308. 17. Stephen P. Magee, William A. Brock, and Leslie Young provide an excellent review of the public choice literature on trade policies in developing a probabilistic model of voting behavior on tariffs in Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 18. See, for example, Bruno S. Frey, “The Public Choice View of International Political Economy,” International Organization 38 (1984): 199–223; or Helen Milner, “International Theories of Cooperation Among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses,” World Politics 39, 1 (October 1986): 466–496. 19. Stephen D. Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28 (1976), pp. 317–347; Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Realignments, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory,” World Politics 15, 3 (1964): 677–715. 20. Helen V. Milner, Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. 21. See William H. Kaempfer and Anton D. Lowenberg, “Analyzing Economic Sanctions: Toward a Public Choice Framework,” pp. 173–192 in John Odell, ed., International Trade Policies: Gains From Exchange Between Economics and Political Science, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. 22. See Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982, p. 31. 23. Evans, “Building an Integrative Approach to International and Domestic Politics,” p. 400. 24. Ibid. 25. James Q. Wilson, “The Politics of Regulation,” in James Q. Wilson, ed., The Politics of Regulation, New York: Basic Books, 1980, pp. 357–394. 26. Statement by Undersecretary Davis before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy, February 24, 1994, Washington, D.C., mimeo, p.1. 27. In both time periods, some saw the potential costs as quite high. Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, for example, saw the Soviet Union as a vast untapped market for U.S. goods after World War II. In the 1990s, a number of industry associations, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer argued that stringent nonproliferation export controls placed even more of a burden on exporters than traditional containment-based export controls. 28. J. David Richardson, Sizing Up U.S. Export Disincentives, Washington, D.C.: Institute of International Economics, 1993, p. 97. 29. Wilson, “The Politics of Regulation.” 30. Joseph P. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942, pp. 132–142. 31. Joseph P. Schumpeter, “Change and the Entrepreneur,” reprinted in Richard V. Clemence, ed., Essays by Joseph P. Schumpeter, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989, p. 259. 32. Ibid., p. 258.
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33. See, for example, Jameson W. Doig and Erwin C. Hargrove, eds., Leadership and Innovation: A Biographical Perspective on Entrepreneurs in Government, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987; Barbara Freeman and Martin A. Levin, “Dilemmas of Innovation and Accountability: Entrepreneurs and Chief Executives,” Policy Studies Review 7, 1 (Autumn 1987): 187–199; and David Price, “Professionals and ‘Entrepreneurs’: Staff Orientations and Policy Making on Three Senate Committees,” Journal of Politics 33, 2 (May 1971): 316–336; and Mark Schneider and Paul Teski, “Toward a Theory of the Political Entrepreneur: Evidence from Local Government,” American Political Science Review 86, 3 (September 1992): 737–747. 34. Cecilia Stiles Cornell and Melvyn P. Leffler, “James Forrestal: The Tragic End of a Successful Entrepreneur,” pp. 367–407 in Doig and Hargrove, Leadership and Innovation, p. 373. 35. Wilson, “The Politics of Regulation.” Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society” (International Organization 44, 4 [Autumn 1990]: 479–526) argues that moral entrepreneurs are not involved in the chase for public office, but it is not logically exclusive that they might not be elected or appointed anyway. 36. Martin Ricketts, The New Industrial Economics, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. 37. Eugene Lewis, Public Entrepreneurship: Toward a Theory of Bureaucratic Power, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, p. 238. 38. Roger W. Cobb and Charles D. Elder, Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda Building, 2nd edition, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. 39. See John Kingdon, Agenda, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Boston: Little, Brown, 1984; Jack L. Walker, “Setting the Agenda in the U.S. Senate: A Theory of Selection,” British Journal of Political Science 7, 4 (October 1977): 423–455; Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Knowledge, Policy Communities and Agenda Setting: The Relationship of Knowledge and Power,” pp. 75–96 in John E. Tropman, Milan J. Dluhy, and Roger M. Lind, eds., New Strategic Perspectives on Social Policy, New York: Pergamon, 1981. 40. Schumpeter, “Change and the Entrepreneur,” p. 260. 41. Nancy Roberts, for example, suggests that the greater the complexity of the issue, the greater the reliance on collective entrepreneurship, “Public Entrepreneurship and Innovation,” Policy Studies Review 11, 1 (Spring 1992): 65. 42. Ibid., p. 63. 43. This distinction is not always made. For example, Frolich, Oppenheimer, and Young, define a political entrepreneur as “an individual who seeks to make a profit by supplying collective goods.” See Norman Frohlich, Joe A. Oppenheimer, and Oran R. Young, Political Leadership and Collective Goods, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971, p. 57. 44. See, for example, Evans, Jacobsen, and Putnum, Double-Edged Diplomacy; or Oran R. Young,“The Politics of International Regime Formation,” International Organization 43, 3 (Summer 1989): 349–375. 45. Young, “The Politics of International Regime Formation,” p. 373. 46. Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, eds., Polar Politics: Creating International Environmental Regimes, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993. 47. Young, “The Politics of International Regime Formation,” p. 355. 48. Ibid., p. 373. 49. Ibid. 50. Robert Axelrod, “An Evolutionary Approach to Norms,” American Political Science Review 80, 4 (December 1986): 1110. 51. James Lee Ray, “The Abolition of Slavery and the End of International War,” International Organization 43, 3 (Summer 1989): 405–439. 52. Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes,” 484–486.
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53. The standard definitions are found in Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences,” pp. 1–21 in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes, p. 2, as follows: Principles are beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude. Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for action. Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for making and implementing collective choice. 54. Jock A. Finlayson and Mark W. Zacher, “The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barriers: Regime Dynamics and Functions,” pp. 273–314 in Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes, p. 305. 55. Andrew Hurrell, “International Society and the Study of Regimes: A Reflective Approach,” pp. 49–72 in Volker Rittberger, ed., Regime Theory and International Relations, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 57. 56. Ibid. The general concept of international regimes stems from concepts initially developed by John Gerard Ruggie, “International Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends.” International Organization 29, 3 (Summer 1975): 557–584. 57. Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–1822, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Sentry Edition, p. 221. 58. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes,” p. 485. 59. Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, “International Regime Formation: Findings, Research Priorities, and Applications,” pp. 223–261 in Young and Osherenko, Polar Politics, p. 235. 60. Joe D. Hagen, “Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy,” pp. 117–143 in Laura Neack, Jeanne A. K. Hey, and Patrick Jude Haney, eds., Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995. 61. Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, “Beyond Realism: The Study of Grand Strategy,” in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993, p. 4. For more discussion, see Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” in Paul Kennedy, ed., Grand Strategies in War and Peace, New Haven, CT: Yale, 1991, pp. 1–7. 62. Gregory D. Foster, “A Conceptual Foundation for the Development of Strategy,” in Gaston, Grand Strategy and the Decisionmaking Process, p. 60. 63. Yaacov V. I. Vertzberger, “Foreign Policy Decisionmakers as Practical-Intuitive Historians: Applied History and Its Shortcomings,” International Studies Quarterly 30, 2 (June 1986): 223–247. For a view on how the assumption of a national strategy relates to realism, see Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Boston: Little, Brown, 1971, pp. 10–14. 64. Kjell Goldman, “Change and Stability in Foreign Policy: Détente as a Problem of Stabilization,” World Politics 34, 2 (January 1982): 65. See Arthur A. Stein, Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 50–53; or Herbert Kaufman, Are Government Organizations Immortal?, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1976. 66. Tor Egil Førland, “ ‘Selling Firearms to the Indians’: Eisenhower’s Export Control Policy, 1953–54,” Diplomatic History 15, 2 (Spring 1991): 221–244. 67. Goldman, “Change and Stability in Foreign Policy,” 237. 68. Thomas E. Patterson, Out of Order, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 10–14. 69. Stein, Why Nations Cooperate, p. 52.
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70. Michael J. Gilligan and W. Ben Hunt, “The Domestic and International Sources of Foreign Policy: Alliance Formation in the Middle East, 1948–78,” pp. 143–168 in Randolph M. Siverson, ed., Strategic Politicians, Institutions, and Foreign Policy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998, p. 162. 71. Allegedly, the French delegation claimed they needed COCOM controls on computer-related items as a surrogate for separate nonproliferation controls on such items. 72. Peter F. Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States,” International Organization 47, 2 (Spring 1993): 307. 73. Edward Mead Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, Princeton, 1943, p. viii, quoted in Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace,” p. 2. 74. John A. Vasquez, The War Puzzle, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 75. Emerson M. S. Niou, and Peter C. Ordeshook , “Realism versus Neoliberalism: A Formulation.” American Journal of Political Science 35 (1991): 481–511. 76. Robert Axelrod, ed., Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. 77. Goldmann, “Change and Stability in Foreign Policy.” 78. Alexander George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980, pp. 25–53. 79. Ibid., p. 30. 80. For a discussion of politics and coalition size, see William H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962. 81. Etel Solingen, “The Domestic Sources of Regional Regimes: The Evolution of Nuclear Ambiguity in the Middle East,” International Studies Quarterly 38, 2 (June 1994), pp. 305–337. 82. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan, New York: Free Press, 1990. 83. Exceptions occur when national leaders also want to undermine those same commercial interests, as with efforts to stem the trade in illegal drugs. 84. John D. Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision: New Dimensions of Political Analysis, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univerity Press, 1974, pp. 103–109. 85. Goldman, “Change and Stability in Foreign Policy,” p. 252. 86. See, for example, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 2nd ed., Washington D.C.: Institute for Social Economics, 1990; or David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. There are exceptions. For a more formal game-theoretic approach see George Tsebelis, “Are Sanctions Effective? A Game Theoretic Analysis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 34, 1 (March, 1990): 3–28. 87. Roger K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994. 88. Donald A. Sylvan and Steve Chan, Foreign Policy Decision Making: Perception, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence. New York: Praeger, 1984. 89. Steven Van Evera, Guide to Methodology for Students of Political Science, Cambridge, MA: Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, MIT, date unknown but presumed to be 1996. 90. Ibid., p. 9. 91. David M. Ricci, “Methodological Disputes in the Study of Power,” pp. 155–178 in Political Power, Community and Democracy, Edward Keynes and David M. Ricci, eds., Chicago: Rand McNally, 1970.
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92. See Nancy C. Roberts, “Public Entrepreneurship and Innovation,” pp. 55–74; or Jack L. Walker, “Setting the Agenda in the U.S. Senate.” 93. See, for example, Keith Krehbiel,“Cosponsors and Wafflers from A to Z,” American Journal of Political Science 39, 4 (November 1995): 906–929, or James L. Regens, “Congressional Cosponsorship of Acid Rain Controls,” Social Science Quarterly 70, 2 (June 1989): 505–512. 94. James E. Campbell, “Cosponsoring Legislation in the U.S. Congress,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 7, 3 (August 1982): 414. 95. Ruth Lane, “Concrete Theory: An Emerging Political Method,” American Political Science Review 84, 3 (September 1990): 927–940. 96. Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed., New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. 97. T.V. Paul, Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 102.
chapter 2 1. For additional discussion of the incident between the Leopard and the Chesapeake, see Howard Jones, The Course of American Diplomacy, vol. 1, 2nd ed., Chicago: Dorsey Press; second edition, 1998; Julius W. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy, 2nd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965; and Dexter Perkins, The Evolution of American Foreign Policy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1948. 2. Jones, The Course of American Diplomacy. 3. Ibid.; Dexter Perkins, The Evolution of American Foreign Policy. 4. Perkins, The Evolution of American Foreign Policy. 5. The rules come from the enabling legislation, not specifically the Embargo Act itself. Ibid. 6. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy; Perkins, The Evolution of American Foreign Policy. 7. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy; Perkins, The Evolution of American Foreign Policy. 8. Jones, The Course of American Diplomacy; Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy. 9. Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy. 10. Jones, The Course of American Diplomacy; Pratt, A History of United States Foreign Policy. 11. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 2nd ed., Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990, pp. 4–5. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. 12. Carlo M. Cipolla, Between Two Cultures: An Introduction to Economic History, trans. Christopher Woodall, New York: W. W. Norton, 1991, p. 47; Keith Krause, Arms and the State: Patterns of Military Production and Trade, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 35. 13. Ibid. 14. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. iii, c. I, §5. 15. Krause, Arms and the State, pp. 26–32. 16. Quoted in footnote 2, p. 63, in Carlo M. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion 1400–1700, New York: Pantheon Books, 1965. The production and export of cannon had been restricted to state uses by order of Elizabeth I in 1574.
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17. Krause, Arms and the State, p. 45. 18. Ibid., p. 35. 19. See the discussion by Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750, New York: Academic Press, 1980, pp. 3–9. 20. As in Spain in 1570, France in 1572 and England in 1756 and 1793; Krause, Arms and the State, pp. 41, 45, 47. 21. U.S. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, vol. 1, 1776–1914, Publication 331, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1934, pp. 2–3. 22. Ibid., p. 58. 23. Under maritime law, a state can invoke a blockade only when it can actually implement it. 24. U.S. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, p. 65. 25. Ibid., p. 85. 26. Ibid., p. 87. 27. 1866, 5 Wallace, 28, 58. 28. Ibid., p. 101. 29. Ibid., pp. 106–107. 30. James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, vol. 1, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909, p. 710. 31. The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920, vol. 1, p. 172. 32. U.S. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, Vol. II, 1914–1918, Washington, D.C: GPO, 1934, p. 15. 33. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, Supplement 1, p. 804. 34. Ibid., p. 101. 35. Message from Secretary of State Lansing to President Wilson, April 19, 1917, The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920, vol. 2, pp. 10–11. 36. President Wilson to Secretary of State Lansing, April 20, 1917, in The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920, vol. 2, p. 11. 37. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 2, II, pp. 846–855. 38. Ibid., p. 90. 39. Ibid., p. 817. 40. Harold J. Berman and John R. Garson, “United States Export Controls —Past, Present, and Future,” Columbia Law Review 67, 5 (May 1967): 791–890. 41. Jeffrey J. Stafford, “Experiment in Containment: The United States Steel Embargo and Japan, 1917–1918,” Pacific Historical Review 39 (1970): 439–451, especially p. 441. 42. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, vol. 2, p. 91. 43. Official Bulletin 1, 40 (June 26, 1917): 1. 44. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, Supplement 2, II, pp. 945–946. 45. Foreign Relations of the United States, . 46. The Export Administration Board later became the War Trade Board. See Stafford, “Experiment in Containment,” pp. 445–446; Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, p. 114. 47. Stafford, “Experiment in Containment,” p. 440. 48. Ibid., pp. 440, 445–446. 49. Ibid. 50. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered.
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51. Stafford, “Experiment in Containment,” p. 447. 52. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, Supplement 2, Vol. II, pp. 963–970. The government entities in the War Trade Board were identical to those in the Export Administration Board. 53. Ibid., pp. 1007–1014. 54. Ibid. 55. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 2, vol. 2, pp. 846–855. 56. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, p. 133. 57. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 1, pp. 1042–1046. 58. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, p. 138. 59. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 1, pp. 1044–1045. 60. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, p. 605. 61. Ibid., p. 136. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., p. 141. 64. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, Supplement 2, vol. 2, pp. 928–930, pp. 1007–1014. 65. Department of State, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War, p. 104. This was similar to the existing blockade committee for Switzerland that sat in Paris, p. 746. 66. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, III, DOS, 1932, p. 104. Officially, Czar Nicholas did not abdicate the crown for Grand Duke Michael (who did not accept it) until March 2, but the government essentially collapsed in late February with strikes, street demonstrations, and new power to the duma. 67. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, p. 102. 68. Ibid., III, p. 104. 69. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, vol. 3, pp. 181–182. 70. Ibid., p. 124. 71. Foreign Relations of the United States, p. 165. 72. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 1, vol. 1, pp. 616–617. 73. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Russia, p. 161. 74. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1920, vol. 3, p. 715. 75. Ibid., p. 717. 76. The hearings were held in 1918. 77. Ernest H. Preeg, Traders and Diplomats, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1970. 78. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 79. U.S. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms, number 787, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1935, p. 1. 80. Thomas N. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism in the United States Senate from Versailles to Pearl Harbor, New York: Garlan Publishing, 1982. 81. Ibid.; U.S. Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941. 82. U.S. Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941, Washington D.C.: GPO, 1943, p. 24. There is some confusion on what happened next. Guinsberg (The Pursuit of Isolationism) writes on page 24 that it was passed but not enacted, but on page 148 he says it died in committee. 83. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism. 84. Ibid., p. 179. 85. Berman and Garson, “United States Export Controls,” p. 790; Department of State, International Traffic in Arms.
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86. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms. 87. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism, p. 183. 88. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms. 89. Ibid. 90. Department of State, Peace and War. 91. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms, 1936, p. 24. 92. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms, 1937, p. 1023. 93. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism, p. 193. 94. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms, 1937, p. 29. 95. Department of State, International Traffic in Arms, 1938, p. 1147. 96. Department of State, Peace and War, p. 89. 97. Ibid. 98. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism. 99. Ibid.; Department of State, Peace and War, p. 70. 100. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, II, p. 41. 101. Department of State, Peace and War, p. 97. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid., p. 98. 105. Chihiro Hosoya, “Miscalculations in Deterrent Policy: Japanese–U.S. Relations, 1938–1941,” Journal of Peace Research, V, 1968; Klaus Knorr, Power of Nations, Basic Books, New York, 1975, p. 155; David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 165, 174; and Henry Bienen and Robert Gilpin, “Economic Sanctions as a Response to Terrorism,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. III, May 1980. 106. Guinsberg, The Pursuit of Isolationism. 107. Foreign Relations of the United States. 108. Ibid. 109. “U.S. Department of State, Control of Exports From the United States of Munitions, Materials, and Machinery Essential to National Defense,” United States Department of State Bulletin, 3, 54 (July 6, 1940), p. 11. 110. Ibid., pp. 12–13. 111. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, I, p. 268; U.S. Department of State, The Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals, July 17, 1941. 112. Ibid., p. 278. 113. Ibid. 114. Ibid., pp. 308–310. 115. Ibid., p. 278. 116. Berman and Garson, “United States Export Controls,” p. 805. 117. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 1, pp. 310–312. 118. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, vol. 5, p. 300; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943, Vol.V, p. 316. 119. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, vol. 5, p. 294.
chapter 3 1. John D. Morris, “House Group Bars Appeasing Russia in Report on Tour,” New York Times, June 19, 1946, reprinted in the Congressional Record, June 27, 1946, p. 7749.
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2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Charles E. Egan, “Bloom and Mundt in Row on Report,” New York Times, June 20, 1946, reprinted in the Congressional Record, June 27, 1946, pp. 7748–7749. Representative Mundt denied the charge. 5. U.S. War Department, Our Red Army Ally, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1946. 6. Philip J. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988, pp. 12–25. 7. U.S. Department of Commerce, First Quarterly Report, Washington, D.C.: GPO, November 1947. 8. Deborah Welch Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 115–125. 9. Quoted from a telegram by Churchill to Truman in Arthur Krock, Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, p. 223. 10. John G. Stoessinger, Crusaders & Pragmatists: Movers of Modern American Foreign Policy, New York: W.W. Norton, 1979, p. 60. 11. Frank S. Adams, “Acheson, Pleading Urgent Matters, Won’t Speak at Churchill Dinner,” New York Times, March 15, 1946, pp. 1– 3. 12. “Speech “Shocking” to Wallace,” New York Times, March 8, 1946. 13. W. H. Lawrence, “Stassen Attacks Churchill’s Idea,” New York Times, March 15, 1946, p. 4. 14. Frank Kofsky, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p. 27. 15. Ibid., pp. 17–21. 16. Ibid., pp. 20–26. 17. Lewis Wood, “Wallace Reveals He Bade President Treat with Soviet,” New York Times, September 18, 1946, pp. 1–3. 18. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 25. 19. Ibid., pp. 24–25 20. The only alleged copy of the report American Relations with the Soviet Union appears in an Appendix in Arthur Krock, Memoirs, pp. 421–482. The quote appears on p. 480 in the Appendix. 21. Ibid., p. 474. 22. Ibid., p. 479. 23. The isolationist wing of the Republican Party, however, would not approve the more interventionist implications of this view. 24. Yoko Yasuhara, “The Myth of Free Trade: The Origins of COCOM 1945–1950,” Japanese Journal of American Studies 4 (1991): 129. 25. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Controls, Fifteenth Quarterly Report, May 31, 1951, p. 35. 26. Ibid. 27. Facts on File Yearbook, New York: Person’s Index, Facts on File, 1948, p. 75A. 28. Interim Report of the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Senate Report 1775, 80th, 2nd Session, 1948. 29. Ibid., p. 2. 30. U.S. Senate, The Administration of Export Controls, Report 1775, part 2, December 18, 1948, 80th Congress, 2d Session, p. 20. 31. The notorious accounts of Elizabeth Bentley especially fueled this case.
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32. Administration officials generally accepted the view that Western European companies saw Eastern Europe as a supplier and consumer of their goods. 33. Remarks on February 3, 1947, House, Congressional Record, 80th, 1st Session, 1947, p. 747. 34. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 31. 35. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, vol. 3, p. 257. 36. C. P. Trussell, “Rigid Rein on Foreign Relief Pledged to House by Clayton,” New York Times, February 26, 1947, pp. 1–17. 37. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, vol. 3, p. 259. 38. Ibid., p. 261. 39. Between $15 million and $40 million of the $350 million had to go to the Children’s Emergency Fund, which might go to other countries. See Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, III, p. 262. 40. Freeland, Truman Doctrine. 41. U.S. Congress, House, Congressional Record, 80th Congress, 1st Session, March 12, 1947, pp. 1999–2000. 42. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, vol. 3, p. 37. 43. Ibid., p. 248. 44. Ibid. 45. Remarks by John Taber before the U.S. House of Representatives on April 9, 1947, Congressional Record, House, 80th Congress, 1st Session, 1947, p. 3267. 46. Remarks on April 18, 1947, Congressional Record, Senate, 80th Congress, 1st Session, 1947, p. 3680. Senator John J. Williams of Delaware had apparently raised the point about UNRRA in the Record earlier in the week. 47. Ibid. 48. Memorandum by Mr. Durward V. Sandifer, Acting Legislative Consul in the Office of the Legal Advisor, Washington, April 16, 1947, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1947, 5, p. 676. 49. Remarks on April 18, Congressional Record, Senate, 80th Congress, 1st Session, 1947, p. 3702. 50. Ibid. 51. Recommendation 9. Restoration of Export Market. Congressional Record, Senate, 80th Congress, 1st Session, April 21, 1947, p. 3736. 52. Ibid., p. 3745. 53. Ibid. 54. “The Address of Secretary Marshall at Harvard,” New York Times, June 6, 1947, p. 2. 55. Felix Blair, Jr., “Truman Endorses Marshall Speech,” New York Times, June 27, 1947, p. 9. 56. U.S. News & World Report, May 1947. 57. Facts on File Yearbook, 1947, pp. 198–214. 58. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, vol. 3, p. 634. 59. Robert A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War 1945–50, New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, pp. 161–162. 60. Facts on File Yearbook, 1947, p. 334. 61. Ibid., p. 368. 62. Department of Commerce, Export Controls, Fifteenth Quarterly Report, May 31, 1951, p. 35. 63. The Gallup Poll, 1947, p. 692.
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64. Remarks on November 25, 1947, Congressional Record, House, 80th Congress, 1st Session, 93, part 9, 1947, p. 10879. 65. Ibid. 66. Remarks on November 20, 1947, ibid, p. 10678. 67. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10853. 68. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10876. 69. Ibid. 70. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10879. 71. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10880. 72. Ibid. 73. Remarks on December 2, 1947, ibid, p. 10996. 74. Remarks on December 5, 1947, ibid, p. 11075. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Remarks on December 8, 1947, ibid, p. 11183. 79. Remarks on November 25, 1947, U.S. Senate, ibid, p. 10835. 80. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10837. 81. Remarks on November 25, 1947, ibid, p. 10826. 82. Ibid., p. 10836. 83. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1947, vol. 3, p. 625. The first amendment was introduced by L. Mendel Rivers (D-SC), adopted 109–57 by teller vote, and the second by O. C. Fisher (D-TX), adopted by division vote, 78–37, on December 10. 84. Isolationist and anticommunist sentiment ran highest in rural America at the time. 85. Paper Prepared by the Policy Planning Staff, Washington, November 26, 1947, FRU.S., 1948, 4: 489–490. 86. Ibid., p. 501. 87. Ibid., p. 511. 88. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Controls and Allocation Power, July 30, 1948: 6. 89. Congressional Record, 80th, 2nd Session, vol. 94, part 2, Senate, 1948, pp. 1924–1925. 90. Trussell, “Rigid Rein,” p. 15 91. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1948, vol. 4, p. 177. 92. Congressional Record, 80th, 2nd Session, 94, part 2, U.S. Senate, March 2, 1948, p. 1961. 93. Ibid., pp. 2751–2752. 94. Ibid. 95. “Tools of War for Russia?” Newsweek, April 5, 1948, p. 20. 96. Ibid. 97. Facts on File Yearbook 1948, p. 97. 98. “The Text for Forrestal’s Plea for the Draft and UMT as Vital Moves for Averting War,” New York Times, March 26, 1948, p. 3. 99. Ibid. 100. “War Plane Engines Shipped to Russia, Truman Ban Near,” New York Times, March 25, 1948: 1. 101. H. Walton Cloke, “State, Justice Agencies Let Plane Engines Go to Russia,” New York Times, March 26, 1948: 1, 8.
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102. Cloke, State, Justice Agencies; also “Tools of War for Russia?” Newsweek, April 5, 1948, p. 21. 103. Facts on File Yearbook 1948, p. 97. 104. Yasuhara, “The Myth of Free Trade,” p. 131. 105. Ibid., pp. 131–132. 106. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1948, vol. 4, p. 185. 107. Report of the Conference on the Implementation of the Treaties of Peace, Rome, Italy, June 14–21, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 4, p. 357. 108. They could threaten to impose sanctions, but they had no legal authority to interdict trade. 109. Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Perkins), Washington, October 13, 1949, FRU.S., 1949, 1, p. 566. 110. Memorandum Prepared in the Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., March 9, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 4, pp. 524 and 564. 111. Michael Mastanduno, Economic Containment—CoCom and the Politics of East–West Trade, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. 69–70. 112. The Secretary of State to the Embassy in France, Washington, D.C., August 27, 1948, FRUS, 1948, 4, p. 567, and Current Economic Development, Washington, D.C., November 22, 1948, FRUS, 4, p. 587. 113. The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Acting Secretary of State, Paris, January 19, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 69. 114. Ibid. 115. The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State, Paris, February 3, 1949, ibid., p. 77. 116. Ibid. 117. The Deputy Chief of Economic Cooperation Administration Mission in the United Kingdom (Siegbert) to the Embassy in France, London, January 24, 1949, ibid., p. 71. 118. FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 150. 119. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Controls, 10th Quarterly Report, February 1950. 120. Ibid. 121. The Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration (Harriman) to the Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration (Hoffman), Paris, March 19, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 99. 122. Mastanduno, Economic Containment. 123. U.S. Senate, “The Administration of Export Controls,” 80th Congress, 2nd Session, Report 1775, Part 2, p. 1. 124. Harold J. Berman and John R. Garson, “United States Export Controls —Past, Present, and Future,” Columbia Law Review (May 1967): 798. 125. Ibid., p. 792. 126. The Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Offices, Washington, May 11, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 110. 127. Mastanduno, Economic Containmen, p. 79. 128. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 45. 129. The Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration (Harriman) to the Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administrator (Hoffman), Paris, March 19, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 99. 130. Ibid. 131. Ibid.
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132. The Deputy Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration (Foster) to the Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration (Hoffman), Paris, March 12, 1949, ibid., p. 113. 133. Yasuhara, “The Myth of Free Trade,” p. 137. 134. The Deputy Administrator for the Economic Cooperation Administration (Bruce) to the Embassy in France, Washington, March 24, 1949, FRUS, 1949, 5, p. 101. 135. Yasuhara, “The Myth of Free Trade,” pp. 137–139. 136. This stands in contrast to the concern over contacts with the Nazis at the outset of World War II. 137. The Deputy Special Representative in Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration (Katz) to the Administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration (Hoffman), Paris, November 25, 1949, FRU.S., 1949, 5, p. 174. 138. A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (Lay), Washington, April 14, 1950, FRU.S., 1950, 1, p. 288. 139. Ibid., p. 289. 140. Ibid., p. 293. 141. Ibid., p. 290. 142. Paul Nitze, “The Grand Strategy of NSC 68,” in James C. Gaston, ed., Grand Strategy and the Decisionmaking Process, Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1992, pp. 30–31. 143. Yoko Yasuhara, “Japan, Communist China, and Export Controls in Asia, 1948–1952,” Diplomatic History 10, 1 (Winter 1986): 79. 144. Ibid., pp. 79–80. 145. Ibid., p. 81. 146. Ibid., p. 83. 147. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 48. 148. Ibid., pp. 47–48. 149. The Telegram from the Acting Secretary of State to the Legation in Syria, FRUS, 1950, 5, p. 1012. 150. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Controls, Twelfth Quarterly Report, August 15, 1950. The United States revoked all outstanding licenses July 20, 1950. 151. Ibid., p. 2. 152. Memorandum by Secretary of State and the Director of Mutual Security (Harriman) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay), FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 839. 153. Yasuhara, “Japan, Communist China, and Export Controls in Asia, 1948–1952,” p. 86. 154. Special Estimates, Washington, March 9, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 14, p. 151. 155. Ibid. 156. Ibid., p. 152. 157. This became the basis for the Battle Act, named after its sponsor, Representative Battle. 158. Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1951, VII, p. 154. 159. Ibid., p. 157. 160. Ibid. 161. John McIntyre and Richard Cupitt, “COCOM” and Strategic Trade Controls: Crumbling Consensus?” Survey 25, 2 (1980): 92. 162. Memorandum by Secretary of State and the Director of Mutual Security (Harriman) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay), Washington, September 22, 1952, FRUS, 1952–1954, 1, p. 886.
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163. Ibid. 164. Ibid., p. 894. 165. Letter from the Secretary of State to the Chairman of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Connally), Washington, June 9, 1952, ibid., p. 848. 166. Ibid. 167. Ibid. 168. Rep. Laurie C. Battle to the Director of Mutual Security (Harriman), Washington, September 29, 1952, ibid., p. 896. 169. Ibid., p. 899. 170. Ibid., p. 896. 171. Ibid., p. 900. 172. Ibid. 173. The Acting Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic and Consular Offices, Washington, August 4, 1952, ibid., p. 864. 174. Ibid., p. 865. 175. Ibid. 176. Memorandum by Secretary of State and the Director of Mutual Security (Harriman) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Lay), Washington, April 23, 1952, ibid, p. 845. 177. The Charge in France (Achilles) to the Department of State, Paris, June 26, 1952, ibid, pp. 859–862. 178. Ibid. 179. Ibid., p. 859. 180. Larson, Origins of Containment, pp. 316–319. 181. Stoessinger, Crusaders & Pragmatists,” p. 58.
chapter 4 1. Philip J. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, Chapel Hill: Unversity of North Carolina Press, 1988, p. 76. 2. Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956, pp. 10–11. 3. Funigello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 77. 4. Tor Egil Førland, “Selling Firearms to the Indians: Eisenhower’s Export Control Policy, 1953–54,” Diplomatic History 15, 2 (Spring 1991): 221. 5. Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Linder) to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant), Washington, D.C., February 16, 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRU.S.), 1952–54, 1, p. 936. 6. Ibid., p. 938. 7. Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981, p. 1. 8. U.S. Department of State, “East-West Trade Controls: Statement by the Director of Mutual Security, March 3, 1953,” Bulletin, 28, 717, pp. 435–436. 9. Memorandum by the Secretary of State and the Director of Mutual Security (Harriman) to the Executive Secretary of the NSC (Lay), Washington, April 23, 1952, FRUS,
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1952–1954, 1, p. 836; also see December 6–7, 1951, aide memoir, Department of State, First Battle Act Report, p. 37. 10. Ibid. 11. U.S. Congress, Senate, Interim Report of the Committee on Government Operations Made by Its Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Control of Trade with the Soviet Bloc, Interim Report, Senate Report 606, July 21, 83rd, 1st Session, 1953, pp. 18–21. 12. Senator McCarthy already had acquired a dubious reputation as more of a cipher than a senator. 13. Gerald Bryan, “Joseph McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and the Greek Shipping Crisis: A Study of Foreign Policy Rhetoric,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, 24, 1 (Winter 1994): 101. 14. Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948, pp. 12–14. 15. Robert L. Branyan and Lawrence H. Larsen, The Eisenhower Administration 1953–1961: A Documentary History, vol. 1, New York: Random House, 1971, p. 30. 16. Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower, pp. 298–303. 17. Eisenhower quoted in Harold Stassen and Marshall Houts, Eisenhower: Turning the World Toward Peace, St. Paul, MN: Merrill/Magnus Publishing, 1970, p. 106. 18. Burton I. Kaufman, Trade and Aid: Eisenhower’s Foreign Economic Policy 1953–1961, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982, p. 3. 19. Donald B. Johnson, National Party Platforms, vol. 1, rev. ed., 1840–1956, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. 20. Memorandum of Discussion at the 131st Meeting of the National Security Council, February 11, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, pp. 236–237. 21. Memorandum of Discussion at the 138th Meeting of the National Security Council, March 25, 1953, ibid., pp. 258–263. 22. Memorandum of Discussion at a Special Meeting of the National Security Council, March 31, 1953, ibid., pp. 264–281. 23. Basic National Security Policies and Programs in Relation to Their Costs, April 28, 1953, ibid., pp. 307–316, and Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary, NSC 153/1, ibid., pp. 378–386. 24. Told to Bernard Baruch, quoted from diary entries in March 1956 in Burton I. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, p. 63. 25. Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower, p. 131. 26. Memorandum of Discussion at the 137th Meeting of the NSC on Wednesday, March 18, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 940. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., p. 941. 29. Ibid., p. 942. 30. Report to the NSC by the NSC Planning Board, Washington, May 25, 1953, ibid, pp. 968–981. 31. Ibid., p. 969. 32. Ibid., pp. 976–977. 33. Ibid., pp. 969–970. 34. Ibid., p. 981. 35. Minutes of the 155th Meeting of the NSC, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, pp. 394–396, 399–440.
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36. Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Culter), July 31, 1953, ibid., pp. 440–441. 37. Memorandum by the President to the Secretary of State, Denver, September 8, 1953, ibid, pp. 460–463. 38. Notes Taken at the First Plenary Session of Project Solarium, Washington, D.C., June 26, 1953, ibid., p. 389. 39. Ibid., p. 391. 40. Ibid., p. 392. 41. Memorandum to the NSC by the Executive Secretary (Lay), Washington, D.C., July 22, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, p. 409. 42. Ibid., p. 419. 43. Ibid., p. 421. 44. Ibid., p. 425. 45. Report to the Natonal Security Council by the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, Washington, D.C., July 31, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 1009. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., p. 1010. 49. Ibid., p. 1011. 50. Ibid., p. 1014. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. In terms of the license reviews, however, it had little impact. According to the McClellan Report, only about four or five ever went to the ACEP as Defense rarely appealed when the Joint Committee overruled its views. This holds true for the modern era as well. 54. Report to the National Security Council by the Secretary of State and the Director of Foreign Operations (Stassen), Washington, August 30, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 1241. 55. Ibid. 56. Remarks on March 7, 1953, House, Congressional Record, 83rd, 1st, Vol. 99, part 4, 1953, p. 4706. 57. Remarks on March 9, 1953, Senate, ibid., part 9, p. 1739. 58. Remarks on July 20, 1953, Senate, ibid., part 7, p. 9191. 59. George Gallup, The Gallup Poll, p. 1172. 60. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, pp. 18–21. 61. U.S. Commission on Foreign Economic Policy, Report to the President and the Congress, Washington, D.C., January 23, 1954, pp. 66–67. 62. Commission on Foreign Economic Policy, Staff Papers, Washington D.C., February 1954, p. 445. 63. Daniel A. Reed and Richard M. Simpson, Minority Report, Commission on Foreign Economic Policy, Washington, D.C., January 30, 1954, p. 7. 64. Ibid., pp. 1243–1244. 65. Memorandum by the Director of Foreign Operations (Stassen) to the Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., December 9, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 1065. 66. Report to the National Security Council by the Secretary of State and the Director of Foreign Operations (Stassen), Washington, D.C., August 30, 1954, ibid, p. 1243. 67. U.S. Department of Commerce, The Revision of Strategic Trade Controls, 5th Report to Congress on the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1954, p. 4.
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68. U.S. Congress, House, East–West Trade, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, February 16, 83rd, 2nd, Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 1954. 69. Department of Commerce, The Revision of Strategic Trade Controls, p. 6. 70. Ibid., p. 7. 71. Ibid., pp. 8–11. 72. David Wightman, “Growing Pressure for East–West Trade,” The Nation 178, 12, March 20, 1954, p. 239. 73. Report to the National Security Council by the Secretary of State and the Director of Foreign Operations, Washington, August 30, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 1, p. 1242. 74. President Eisenhower to Prime Minister Churchill, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1954, ibid., pp. 1119–1120. 75. Ibid., p. 1244. Also see note 73, above. 76. National Intelligence Estimate, Washington, D.C., March 23, 1954, ibid., pp. 1121–1132. 77. Ibid. 78. Department of Commerce, The Revision of Strategic Trade Controls, p. 13. 79. Ibid., pp. 13–14. 80. Ibid., p. 14. 81. Ibid., p. 15. Stassen gave a press conference on April 1, made an appearance on TV on April 7, and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 9. 82. Ibid., p. 16. 83. In the McClellan Committee Report, the number of items is 450. Several stories in the New York Times (July, 12 and 23, 1954), however, refer to 475 items. The 475 number appears to exceed the total number of items on the three lists, even if one adds about a dozen nuclear items to list 1, so one should consider it an approximation. 84. The Acting United States Special Representative in Europe (Martin) to the Department of State, Paris, June 17, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, p. 1205. 85. Memorandum of Discussion at the 198th Meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, May 20, 1954, ibid., p. 1168. 86. Ibid., p. 1169. 87. The Secretary of Commerce to the Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., May 21, 1954, ibid., pp. 1170–1171. 88. Memorandum of Discussion at the 202d Meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, June 17, 1954, ibid, p. 1201. 89. Ibid., p. 1200. 90. Ibid., pp. 1200–1201. 91. Ibid., p. 1202. 92. Ibid., p. 17. 93. Report to the National Security Council by the Secretary of State and the Director of Foreign Operations (Stassen), December 3, 1954, ibid., p. 1255. 94. Washington Post, April 2, 1954. 95. New York Times, August 30, 1954. 96. Ibid. 97. U.S. Department of Commerce, The Revision of Strategic Trade Controls, pp. 22–23. 98. Report to the National Security Council by the Secretary of State and the Director of Foreign Operations (Stassen), December 3, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 2, p. 1255. 99. Ibid.
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100. Førland, “Selling Firearms to the Indians,” p. 242. 101. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, “Survey of U.S. Aid Since 1945,” 1956, 12, p. 434. 102. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1954, 10, p. 270. 103. Newsweek, “Will U.S. Help to Arm Russia?” October 8, 1954, pp. 24–26. 104. New York Times, November 28, 1954. 105. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C., January 7, 1955, FRUS,1955–57, 10, p. 204. 106. Gallop, The Gallup Poll, p. 1347. 107. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, p. 64. 108. Ibid. 109. Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower, p. 301. 110. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, p. 49. 111. W. W. Rostow, The Diffusion of Power:An Essay in Recent History, New York: Macmillan, 1972. 112. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1956, 7, p. 435. 113. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 87. 114. Ibid. 115. New York Times, January 19–20, 1955. 116. Ibid. 117. FRUS, 1955–57, 10, pp. 214–227. 118. Report by the Steering Committee of the Council on the Foreign Economic Policy, Washington, D.C., March 24, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, pp. 230–231. 119. Ibid., p. 230. 120. Ibid., p. 232. 121. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 89. 122. Memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Kalijarvi) to the Undersecretary of State (Hoover), Washington, D.C., July 12, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, p. 244. 123. Memorandum of Discussion at the 254th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, July 7, 1955, ibid., p. 240. 124. Ibid. 125. Ibid., p. 241. 126. Ibid., p. 242. See note 121. 127. Funigiello, American-Soviet Trade in the Cold War, p. 90. 128. See the letter from Undersecretary of State Hoover to Secretary of Commerce Weeks, December 3, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, pp. 270–272. 129. Letter from the Secretary of State to the President, Washington, D.C., December 8, 1955, ibid, p. 276. 130. Ibid. 131. Memorandum from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Radford) to the Secretary of Defense (Wilson), Washington, D.C., December 12, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 10: 281. 132. Ibid., pp. 281–282. 133. Ibid., p. 282. 134. Minutes of the 36th Meeting of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy, Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C., January, 12, 1956, ibid., p. 287. 135. Ibid. 136. Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, D.C., January 31, 1956, ibid., p. 312.
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137. Memorandum from the Chairman of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy (Dodge) to the Staff Assistant to the President (Goodpaster), Washington, D.C., January 31, 1956, ibid., p. 314. 138. Ibid. 139. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1956, 7, pp. 733–734. 140. Memorandum from the Chairman of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy (Dodge) to the Deputy Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs (Prochnow), Washington, D.C., February 29, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, p. 318. 141. Memorandum from the Under Secretary of State (Hoover) to the Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., April 2, 1956, ibid., p. 324. 142. Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far East Affairs (Roberston) to the Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., April 30, 1956, ibid., p. 323. 143. Ibid. 144. Memorandum of Discussion at the 281st Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, D.C., April 5, 1956, ibid., p. 332. 145. Ibid., p. 334. 146. Ibid. 147. Memorandum of a Conversation with the President, White House, Washington, D.C., April 18, 1956, ibid., p. 339. 148. Memorandum for the Record, by the Undersecretary of State (Hoover), Washington, D.C., April 19, 1956, ibid., p. 343. 149. Ibid. 150. Memorandum of Discussion at the 282d Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, D.C., April 26, 1956, ibid., p. 353. 151. Business Week, March 14, 1956, p. 160; April 19, 1956, p. 166. 152. Letters from the British Ambassador (Makins) to Secretary of State (Dulles), Washington, June 6, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, p. 366. 153. Memorandum from the Steering Committee of the Council on Foreign Economic Policy to the Chairman of the Council (Randall), ibid., pp. 379–380. 154. Harold J. Berman and John R. Garson, “United States Export Control–Past, Present, and Future,” Columbia Law Review, May 1967, pp. 791–890. 155. Førland, “Selling Firearms to the Indians,” p. 242. 156. National Security Council Paper, Washington, D.C., March 8, 1957, FRUS, 1955–57, 10, p. 429. 157. Ibid. 158. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, p. 110. 159. Memorandum of Discussion at the 356th Meeting of the National Security Council, February 27, 1958, FRUS, 1958–60, 4, p. 704. 160. Ibid., p. 706. 161. This was in the context of a wider anticommunist spree in print and film. The film version of the tawdry I Was a Communist for the FBI, for example, was nominated for an Oscar as the best documentary film of 1951. See Michael Barson Better Dead Than Red! New York: Hyperion, 1992, pp. 64–65. 162. In his first real national political job, Robert Kennedy worked as assistant council to the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee on Government Operations and found that 242 U.S. “Liberty” ships were being used Greek shipowners to trade with the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and other communist countries. See Gerald J. Bryan, “Joseph McCarthy,
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Robert Kennedy, and the Greek Shipping Crisis: A Study of Foreign Policy Rhetoric,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 24, 1 (Winter 1994): 93–104. 163. John McIntyre and Richard Cupitt, “COCOM and Strategic Trade Controls: Crumbling Consensus?” Survey 25, 2 (1980): 98.
chapter 5 1. Stephen Bryen, “Statement,” U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, 101st Congress, 2nd session, September 27, 1990, pp 34–39, at p. 37. 2. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, An Analysis of Export Control of U.S. Technology—A DoD Perspective, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on the Export of U.S. Technology. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976. Also known as the “Bucy Report” after the Task Force chair, Fred Bucy of Texas Instruments. 3. For a guide to the many proposals to expand or limit U.S. national security export controls during the 1970s and 1980s, see Harold Paul Luks, “U.S. National Security Export Controls: Legislative and Regulatory Proposals,” Panel on the Impact of National Security Controls on International Technology Transfer, Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, Balancing the National Interest: Working Papers,Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987, pp. 85–137. 4. Panel on the Impact of National Security Controls on International Technology Transfer, Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, Balancing the National Interest: U.S. National Security Export Controls and Global Economic Competition, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987, pp. 152 and 161. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. For a concise review of export control reform efforts up to 1993, see Glennon J. Harrison, Export Controls: Background and Issues, CRS Report for Congress, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, January 12, 1993. 8. John R. Cranford, “Administration Eases Stand on High-Tech Exports,” CQ Weekly, February 24, 1990, p. 575. 9. Ibid. 10. Export Control News 4, 3 (March 31, 1990): 12. 11. John R. Cranford, “House Approves Major Shift in Export-Control Rules,” CQ Weekly, June 9, 1990, p. 1778. 12. “Bush Pocket-Vetoes Export Control Law,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, pp. 199–200. 13. Ibid. 14. Cranford, “House Approves Major Shift in Export-Control Rules,” p. 1778. Cranford refers to Bill Dickinson (D-AL), and the quote is from Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy and a former assistant secretary of Defense under President Reagan. 15. “Bush Pocket-Vetoes Export Control Law,” p. 200. 16. Harold J. Berman and John R. Garson, “United States Export Control —Past, Present, and Future,” Columbia Law Review, May 1967, 819.
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17. For a concise review of U.S. nonproliferation legislation, see Zachary Davis et al., Proliferation Control Regimes: Background and Status, CRS Report for Congress, 95–547 F, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, April 27, 1995. 18. William C. Potter, Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, Cambridge: Delgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, pp. 44–45. 19. Trevor McMorris Tate, “Regime Building in the Non-Proliferation System,” Journal of Peace Research 27, 4 (1990): 399–414, p. 406. 20. Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland joined the NSG during the course of those meetings. 21. Potter, Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation, pp. 44–45; Harald Müller, “Prospects for the Fourth Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” in SIPRI Yearbook 1990: World Armaments and Disarmaments, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 572. 22. David Fischer and Paul Szasz, Safeguarding the Atom: A Critical Appraisal, London: Taylor & Francis, 1985, pp. 217–223. 23. Jeffrey M. Elliot and Robert Reginald, The Arms Control, Disarmament, and Military Security Dictionary, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1989, pp. 266–267. 24. Fischer and Szasz, Safeguarding the Atom; and the International Atomic Energy Agency, “Communications Received from Members Regarding the Export of Nuclear Material and of Certain Categories of Equipment and Other Material,” INFCIRC/ 209/Rev 1/November 1990. 25. Roland Timberaev, “A Major Milestone in Controlling Nuclear Exports,” Eye on Supply 6 (Spring 1992): 58–65, at p. 59. 26. Brad Roberts, “Chemical Weapons: A Policy Overview,” Issues in Science and Technology 2, 3 (Spring 1986): 102–114. 27. Elisa D. Harris, “Chemical Weapons Proliferation in the Developing World,” pp. 67–88 in the Defense Yearbook 1989, edited by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1989. 28. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Administration Annual Report 1989, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990, p 39. 29. This followed a U.S. call for a multilateral approach to controlling chemicals in March of 1985. The full name of the group is the Australia Group Informal Consultations on Preventing Association with Chemical and Biological Weapons Programs. 30. The membership generally has paralleled that of the other supplier arrangements. Although it has no formal criteria for membership, all its members must sign both the CWC and the BWC, demonstrate an overall commitment to nonproliferation, exercise effective export controls, and have some capacity for supply. 31. Erik Wemple, “Chemical Weapons Controls; Old Problems, New Solutions?” Export Control News, Special Report, 1990. 32. The nine were methyl phosphoryl dichloride, methyl phosphonyl difluoride, dimethyl methyl phosphonate, thiodiglycol, dimethyl phosphite, trimethyl phosphite, phosphorus trichloride, phosphorus oxychloride, and thionyl chloride. 33. Reginald Bartholomew, “U.S. Efforts Against the Spread of Chemical Weapons,” Current Policy, 1188, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, 1989. 34. Germany, the United States, and a few states already had controls in place. 35. W. Seth Carus, Ballistic Missiles in Modern Conflict, New York: Praeger, 1991, p. 16. 36. Ibid., p. 17.
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37. Aaron Karp, The United States and the Soviet Union and the Control of Ballistic Missile Proliferation to the Middle East, New York: Institute for East-West Security Studies, 1989. 38. Ibid., p. 13. 39. U.S. Department of State, American Foreign Policy Current Documents, Document 31, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1987, pp. 74–80. 40. Karp, The United States and the Soviet Union. 41. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Administration Annual Report Fiscal Year 1990, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1991. 42. Department of State, American Foreign Policy Current Documents, and James M. LeMunyon, “Statement of James M. LeMunyon, Acting Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Before the Joint Economic Committee,” U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1992, mimeo, p. 3. 43. Erik Wemple, “Fighting an Uphill Battle: Missile Technology Export Controls,” Export Control News, Special Report, 1990. 44. The MTCR was complete except for French reservations in 1985. 45. Department of Commerce, Export Administration Annual Report, 1988, p. 43. 46. “Inside BXA,” Export Control News 4, 7 (July 1990): 20–21. 47. Ibid., p 9. 48. Some exports to Pakistan, for example, clearly went against the spirit if not the letter of the Pressler amendment and obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 49. Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, 101st Congress, 2nd Session, September 27, 1990, p. 34. 50. William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, Critical Mass: The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 51. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” CQ Almanac, 46, 1990, p. 722. 52. Ibid. 53. Between 1985 and 1990, Commerce approved 771 export licenses for $1.5 billion. Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations House of Representatives, 101st, 2nd, September 27, 1990, p. 17. 54. Executive Office of the President, National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 1990. 55. Eric Wemple, “Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Multilateral Efforts and U.S. Attempts,” Export Control News, Special Issue (March 1991), p. 15. 56. James A. Baker III and Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 57. Executive Office of the President, National Security Strategy of the United States, 1990, p. 2. 58. See, for example, U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1989, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1988. 59. See, for example, the fund-raising letter by Albert Einstein and for the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, Inc., of February 1947, trying to obtain $1 million for education to control the spread of atomic weaponry. 60. See Thomas Woodhouse, ed., The International Peace Directory, Plymouth, UK: Northcote House, 1988. 61. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy.
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62. Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander, Unholy Babylon —The Secret History of Saddam’s War, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, pp. 85–86. 63. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, p. 32. 64. Ibid., p. 93–94. 65. Darwish and Alexander, Unholy Babylon, pp. 104–107. 66. Ibid., p. 107. 67. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 732. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. “Bush Pocket-Vetoes Export Control Law,” p. 200. 71. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 262–264. 72. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p 723. 73. Ibid. 74. Dilip Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War, New York: Routledge, 1992, p. 71. 75. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 268–269. 76. Ibid., p. 269. 77. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 724. 78. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, p. 270. 79. U.S. House of Representatives, Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, 101st Congress, 2nd Session, September 27, 1990, pp. 17–20, 34–35, 106–109. 80. New York Times, July 29, 1990, p. 19. 81. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 725. 82. Ibid., pp. 725–726. 83. Export Control News 4, 9 (September 21 1990), pp. 19–20. Trade controls on Iraq or other countries for nonproliferation and other reasons fell under the legal rubric of “foreign policy” controls, rather than the “national security” rationale that encompassed most controls on trade with communist countries. 84. “Bush Announces U.S. Troop Deployment,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, pp. 726–727. Bush announced this on August 7 and addressed Congress on August 8. 85. Ibid., p. 727. 86. UN Security Council Resolution 661, which relates to economic sanctions against Iraq. UN Security Council Resolution 67, which passed in November, set the January 15, 1991, deadline. 87. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 723. 88. Ibid., pp. 726–727. 89. James Ridgeway, ed., The March to War, New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991, p. 202. 90. “Bush Briefs Members on Gulf Policy,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, p. 729. 91. Ibid. 92. Alan Geyer and Barbara G. Green, Lines in the Sand —Justice and the Gulf War, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, p. 89. 93. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy; Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm, p. 256.
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94. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 733; House Joint Resolution 658 and Senate Consent Resolution 147. 95. Ibid., p. 734, U.S. House of Representatives voted on October 1 (380–29) and the Senate on October 2 (96–3). 96. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 736. 97. Ibid. 98. Testimony by Secretary of State James Baker before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, September 4, 1990. 99. “New ‘Partnership’ Answers Gulf Crisis,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, p. 731. 100. Ibid. 101. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 728. 102. Ibid., p. 729. 103. “New ‘Partnership’ Answers Gulf Crisis,” pp. 731–732. 104. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, p. 336; “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” pp. 744–745 105. Darwish and Alexander, Unholy Babylon, p. 133. 106. Ibid., pp. 91–92. 107. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 747. 108. Ibid., p. 730. 109. U.S. House of Representatives, Congress, Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Government Operations, 101st Congress, 2nd Session, September 27, 1990, p. 5. 110. “Regulation Briefs,” Export Control News 4, 9 (September 21, 1990): 17–18. 111. Carroll J. Doherty, “Bush’s Sanctions Veto Snubs Foreign Relations Leaders,” Congressional Quarterly, November 24, 1990, p. 3932. 112. “Inside BXA,” Export Control News 4, 10 (October 1990): 16–17. 113. “Bush Pocket-Vetoes Export Control Law,” p. 200. 114. Robert Woodward, The Commanders, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991; Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm. 115. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 228–237. 116. Washington Post, October 6, 1990, in Lexis/Nexis. 117. Ibid. 118. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 301–303. 119. Ibid., 301. 120. Darwish and Alexander, Unholy Babylon, p. 286. 121. Ibid. 122. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 738. 123. Ibid., p. 737. 124. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 309. 125. Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm. 126. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 325. 127. Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm. 128. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 739. 129. Ibid. 130. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 323–324. 131. Elizabeth Hann Hastings and Philip K. Hastings, Index to International Public Opinion 1990 –1991, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991, p. 226.
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132. Ibid. 133. Ibid., pp. 200–201. 134. Geyer and Green, Lines in the Sand, pp. 79–80. 135. “Persian Gulf Crisis Bring Forth a Variety of Rationales, Objectives,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, p. 745. 136. Ibid. 137. Baker and DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy, p. 332. 138. Jeffrey Record, Hollow Victory: A Contrary View of the Gulf War, Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993, pp. 45–46. 139. “Bush Administration Approves CPU Exports,” Export Control News 5, 1 (January 25, 1991): 5–6. 140. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 209. 141. “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,” p. 746. 142. Ibid., p. 748. 143. U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1991, p. 240. 144. Ibid. 145. One traditional proponent of nonproliferation, Sen. Allan Cranston, was undergoing cancer treatment and did not indicate a vote preference. 146. 137 Congressional Record, S235. 147. “The President Announces War on Iraq,” CQ Almanac 46, 1990, pp. 754–755. 148. Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm, p. 455. 149. Record, Hollow Victory, p. 44. 150. Ibid., pp. 55, 64–68. 151. Executive Order 12735, Federal Register, Part 8, November 20, 1990. 152. These penalties already existed for biological and nuclear weapons programs. 153. Offices of the Inspector General at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State, The Federal Government’s Export Licensing Processes for Munitions and Dual-Use Commodities Final Report, Special Interagency Review, Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 1993, p. 2. 154. Record, Hollow Victory, p. 35. 155. The restricted items for countries on the terrorist list, such as the “A” level commodities, were linked to COCOM control lists. 156. Export Control News 5, 5 (May 1991): 9–10. In hearings on May 22 before the House subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, Undersecretary of State Kimmitt was again grilled about the leniency of preinvasion licensing. Export Control News 5, 7 (July 1991): 6. 157. Offices of the Inspector General at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State, The Federal Government’s Export Licensing Processes for Munitions and Dual-Use Commodities Final Report, p. 17. 158. “U.S. to Lift China Sanction,” Export Control News 6, 2 (February 1992): 2. 159. John Black, “U.S. Sanctions Only Against the Recipient of Missile Technology — An Injection of Realism into U.S. Nonproliferation Efforts?” Export Control News 5, 10 (October 1991): 26–27. 160. Tim Mekeel, “A Pipeline of Deceit: Exposing ISC’s Scam,” Lancaster New Era, December 31, 1991, p. 1. 161. Alan Friedman, Lionel Barber, Tom Flannery, and Eric Reguly, “Arms For Iraq: Saddam’s Secret South African Connection—A Steady Flow of Illegal Missile Technology Was Exported from the U.S. with Full CIA Knowledge,” Financial Times, May 24, 1991, p. 6.
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162. “U.S. Penalizes Russian and Indian Space Entities,” Export Control News 6, 5 (May 1992): 6. 163. David C. Morrison, “Washington’s Watching the ‘Have-Nots’,” National Journal 24, 27 (July 4, 1992): 1582. 164. “State Imposes Missile Sanctions on North Korea, Syrian Entities,” Export Control News 6, 7 (July 1992): 6. 165. “OEE Announces New Enforcement Package,” Export Control News 6, 7 (July 1992): 13. 166. President George Bush, “Message to the Congress Reporting on the Continuation of Export Control Regulations,” Public Papers of the Presidents, Pres. Doc. 1740, September 25, 1992. 167. “NSG Convenes Plenary Meeting in Warsaw,” Export Control News 6, 3 (March 1992): 20–21. 168. “IG Report Alleges State Department Misconduct,” Export Control News 6, 4 (April 1992), p. 13. 169. “Report Decries Iran Licensing Policy,” Export Control News 6, 1 (January 1992): 14. 170. Export Control News 5, 5 (May 1991): 9–10. In hearings on May 22 before the House subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, Undersecretary of State Kimmitt was grilled again about the leniency of pre-invasion licensing. Export Control News 5, 7 (July 1991): 6. 171. “Finger Pointing Abounds in Reborn Iraqi Licensing Controversy,” Export Control News 6, 6 (June 1992): 8–9. 172. Steven Jackson and Eric Wemple, “Gonzalez Escalates Security of Licensed Exports to Iraqi,” Export Control News 6, 7 (July 1992): 3–4. 173. Ibid., p. 4–5. 174. “Senate Banking Committee Renews Offensive on Iraq Policy,” Export Control News 6, 10 (October 1992): 4. 175. Section 212, P.L. pp. 102–228. 176. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union, Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 1994, p. 72. 177. Robert L. Price, “Comments,” mimeo, presented at the Conference on the Future of East–West Trade in Information Technology, May 15–16, 1990, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C. 178. COCOM negotiators agreed to build the list from scratch. Under this procedure countries could veto the retention of an item on the list, rather than simply propose changes to the existing list. In practice, the approach resulted in an item-by-item streamlining of the old Industrial List. 179. Bill Root, “The Core List: Expectations vs. Reality,” Export Control News 5, 7 (July 29, 1991): 2–5. 180. Ibid., p. 2. 181. “U.S. Releases List of Iraqi Front Companies,” Export Control News 5, 4 (April 1991): 9. 182. “The Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative,” Export Control News 5, 1 (January 25, 1991): 7–9. 183. Ibid. 184. Ibid. 185. Michael W. Doyle, “An International Liberal Community,” pp. 309–328 in G. John Ikenberry, American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays, 2nd edition, New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1996. 186. Compare, for example, David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Hyping the Iraqi Bomb,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (March 1991): 26–28, with David Albright and Mark Hibbs,
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“Iraq’s Quest for the Nuclear Grail: What Can We Learn?” Arms Control Today 22, 6 (July/August 1992): 3–11. 187. Leonard S. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988. 188. In addition to those that attended the London meetings, this meeting drew Australia, Bulgaria, the CSFR, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and Spain. See IAEA, “Communications Received from Certain Member States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment and Technology,” INFCIRC/254/Rev.1/Part 1, July 1992, p. 1. 189. The categories include industrial equipment, materials, uranium isotope separation equipment and components, heavy water production plant related equipment (other than Trigger List items), implosion system development equipment, explosives and related equipment, nuclear testing equipment and compounds, and remaining items. 190. “Full-scope” refers to a condition that all nuclear facilities in a nonnuclear weapons state must become subject to IAEA safeguards. See note 191. 191. International Atomic Energy Agency, “Statement on Full-Scope Safeguards Adopted by the Adherents to the Nuclear Suppliers Regime,” INFCIRC/405, May 1992. 192. “Proliferation Concerns,” Export Control News 5, 1 (January 25, 1991): 14–17. 193. “U.S. Pushes EPCI at Australia Group Meeting,” Export Control News 5, 5 (May 30, 1991): 23. 194. Ibid. 195. “Australia Group Considers Chemical Controls,” Export Control News 5, 1 (January 30, 1991): 15. 196. The ten countries were Bulgaria, Burma, China, Cuba, North Korea, Romania, South Africa, the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The two regions were the Middle East (Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) and Southwest Asia (Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Pakistan). Allegedly, by avoiding naming countries in those two regions specifically, more multilateral cooperation might be garnered. 197. James M. LeMunyon, “Statement,” U.S. House of Presentatives, Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Government Controls on Sales to Iraq, 101st Congress, 2nd session, September 27, 1990, pp. 81–84, at p. 83. 198. Wemple, “Chemical Weapons Controls; Old Problems, New Solutions?” 199. Nancy Najarian, “Germany Tightens Export Curbs,” Export Control News 5, 2 (May 30, 1991): 14–15. 200. “Australia Group Considers Chemical Controls,” p. 15. 201. Ibid., p. 20. 202. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Annual Report on the Proliferation of Missiles and Essential Components of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1992, page 9; and “Australia Group Meeting Approves Biological Controls,” Export Control News 5, 6 (June 30, 1992): 25. 203. “U.S. Announces New Position on CW Disarmament,” Export Control News 5, 5 (May 1991): 6–8. 204. “New Law Completes Congressional Push for CBW Sanctions,” Export Control News 5, 12 (December 1991): 14.
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205. “Historic Chemical Arms Treaty Completed,” Agence France Presse, August 7, 1992, in Lexis/Nexis. 206. “U.S. Denies Chemical Plant Export to Iran,” Export Control News 7, 1 (January 28, 1993): 8. 207. “Proposed Chemical Controls Catalyze Industry Backlash”, Export Control News 5, 1 (January 25, 1991): 17–18. 208. “MTCR Countries Complete Harmonization”, Export Control News 5, 11 (November 26, 1991): 15–16. 209. International Missile Proliferation Project, “Missile Technology Control Regime News,” Missile Monitor 1 (Fall 1991): 103–106, at p. 104. 210. “MTCR Countries Complete Harmonization,” Export Control News 5, 11 (November 1991): 15–16. 211. “U.S., Allies Agree to Tighten Curbs on Missile-Related Goods and Technology,” International Trade Reporter, January 13, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 212. The White House, “Memorandum of Disapproval,” Office of the Press Secretary, mimeo, November 16, 1990, p. 3. 213. “U.S.-Japan Accord Adjusts Supercomputer Licensing Requirements,” Export Control News 5, 6 (June 28, 1991): 2. 214. Supercomputers also affect encryption capabilities, which is a key element in national security. 215. “European Countries Spurn U.S. in Supercomputer Talks,” Export Control News 6, 10 (October 31, 1992): 13. 216. U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Administration Annual Report Fiscal Year 1991, pp. 15–16. 217. Ibid., p. 17. 218. “Finland: Finnish High-Tech Exports Limited by COCOM Agreement,” Reuter Textline, September 28, 1992, in Lexis/Nexis. 219. Countries represented at the CCF included Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldava, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan. 220. Woodward, The Commanders. 221. Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm. 222. Executive Office of the President, National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, D.C.: The White House, August 1991, pp. 15–16. 223. Ibid., p. 15. 224. The Group of Seven, “Full Text of the Political Declaration Issued at the Munich Summit,” The Japan Times, July 8, 1992, p. 19.
chapter 6 1. Ray Ozzie, “The Impact on America’s Software Industry of Current U.S. Government Munitions Export Controls,” mimeo, testimony before the Economic Policy, Trade and Environment Subcommittee, House of Representatives, October 12, 1993.
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2. Jacob Viner, “Power versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” World Politics 1, 1(October, 1948): 1–29. 3. “Guessing Game Begins on Clinton Export Control Policy,” Export Control News 6, 11 (November 27, 1992): 2. 4. Ibid. 5. “Manufacturing for the 21st Century,” cited in “Guessing Game Begins on Clinton Export Control Policy,” p. 2. 6. Executive Office of the President, National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, D.C.: The White House, March 1990, p. 3. 7. Executive Office of the President, National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, D.C.: The White House, January 1993, p. 2. 8. Executive Office of the President, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, Washington, D.C.: The White House, July 1994. 9. Executive Office of the President, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, Washington, D.C.: The White House, February 1995, p. 7. 10. Executive Office of the President, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, July 1994, p. 5. 11. Ibid., pp. 11–12. 12. President William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, p. 14. 13. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Export Controls and Nonproliferation Policy, OTA-ISS-596, Washington, D.C.: GPO, May 1994. 14. These were the Aerospace Industries Association, the American Association of Exporters and Importers, the American Electronics Association, the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Electronic Industries Association, the Information Technology Association of America, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, the Semiconductor Industry Association, and the Telecommunications Industry Association. 15. Eric Hirschhorn, “Anatomy of the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer (ICOTT),” Export Control News 4, 3 (March 31, 1990): 2–4. 16. National Association of Manufacturers, “The NAM at a Glance,” http://www. nam.org/Program/index.html. 17. Competitiveness Policy Council, A Trade Policy for a More Competitive America, report of the Trade Policy Subcouncil to the Competitiveness Policy Council, March 1993, p. 185. 18. Committee on Dual-Use Technology, Office of International Affairs, National Research Council, Dual-Use Technologies and Export Administration in the Post–Cold War Era, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1994. 19. Ibid. 20. J. David Richardson, Sizing Up U.S. Export Disincentives, Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, p. 127. 21. “CSIS Releases Export Control Transition Document,” Export Control News 7, 1 (January 28, 1993): 4. 22. “National Economic Council Emerges as Key Player in U.S. Trade Policy,” BNA International Trade Daily, April 7, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 23. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1995, 103rd, 2nd, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994: 1201.
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24. National Economic Council, National Security Council, and Office of Science and Technology Policy, Second to None: Preserving America’s Military Advantage Through Dual-Use Technology, Washington, D.C.: GPO, February 1995. 25. Ibid., p. 29. 26. Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of Cooperative Security, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992. 27. Ibid., p. 36. 28. Charles Lane, “Perry’s Parry,” New Republic, June 27, 1994, pp. 21–25. 29. “Whistleblower Hammers DTSA,” The Export Practitioner, July 1998, electronic version. 30. These roughly annual meetings were recognized as the key meeting for the NGO nonproliferation community. The 1997 meeting may have been the last, since Sandy Spector, the motive organizational force behind the conference, took a post with the Department of Energy. 31. Business Executives for National Security, “Government, Business, and Responsible Exporting,” a report prepared for the W. Alton Jones Foundation, July, 1993. 32. “Subcommittee Gears Up for EAA Reauthorization,” Export Control News 7, 5 (May 28, 1993): 13–14. 33. “House Introduces Progressive EAA Proposal,” Export Control News 8, 3 (March 31, 1994): 6–7. 34. Testimony by Art Downey before the House Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, 1994. 35. Ibid. 36. “House Approves Legislation Extending Export Controls Act Through June 1994,” BNA International Trade Daily, February 17, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 37. “House Extends Old EAA,” Export Control News 7, 2 (February 28, 1993): 3–4. 38. Ibid. 39. “Policy on Export Controls Under Clinton at Least a Month Away, Officials Say,” BNA International Trade Daily, March 19, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 40. “President Orders Major Review of U.S. Export Control Policy,” International Trade Reporter, April 28, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 41. “NAM Releases Legislative Proposal,” Export Control News 7, 6 (June 24, 1993): 9. 42. “CSIS Releases Export Control Transition Document,” Export Control News 7, 1 (January 28, 1993): 4. 43. “Subcommittee Gears Up for EAA Reauthorization,” Export Control News 7, 5 (May 28, 1993): 13–14. 44. Ramon P. Marks, “ U.S. Export Control Policy Toward Iran: Law Versus Practice,” Export Control News 7, 6 (July 30, 1993): 6. 45. “McCain, Bingaman Request Investigation of Missile Sanctions Implementation,” Export Control News 7, 8 (August 26, 1993): 14–15. 46. “Brown Promises Export Control Reform,” Export Control News 7, 8 (August 26, 1993): 15. 47. “Study Finds Computer Foreign Availability,” Export Control News 7, 6 (July 30, 1993): 2. 48. Ibid.; “Commerce Study Finds Computer Foreign Availability,” Export Control News 7, 8 (August 26, 1993): 3–4. 49. Jeff Gerth and Eric Schmitt, “Chinese Said to Reap Gains in U.S. Export Policy Shift,” New York Times, October 19, 1998, p. A1, A14. 50. “Administration Announces Mammoth Control Reform Package,” Export Control News 7, 9 (September 30, 1993): 2–6.
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51. Ibid. 52. The Export Enhancement Act of 1992 created the TPCC. It began its work in January 1993. 53. Trade Policy Coordinating Committee, “A Message for Growth in a Global Economy: U.S. Exports = U.S. Jobs,” Washington, D.C.: GPO, September 1993. 54. Quoted in Jeff Gerth, “China Buying U.S. Computers, Raising Arms Fears,” New York Times, June 10, 1997, p. A8. 55. “Address to the U.N. General Assembly,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, September 27, 1993, p. 651. 56. “Clinton Calls for Honest Look At U.N.’s Global Challenges,” CQ Almanac, 1993, pp. 54-55-D. 57. Trade Policy Coordinating Committee, “A Message for Growth in a Global Economy.” 58. Ibid. 59. The practice began under President Reagan in 1988, as controls existed even before the Tiananmen sanctions. President Bush chose not to approve any waivers, however, when the United States had sanctions on China for transferring M-11 missiles to Pakistan in 1992. 60. Mary Ann Akers, “Critics of Transfers Backed 1993 Waiver,” Washington Times, May 25, 1998, p. A12. 61. Bill Gertz, “Clinton Rescinded Bush’s Policy on Exports,” Washington Times, June 15, 1998, pp. A1 and A15. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. “President Orders Major Review of U.S. Export Control Policy,” International Trade Reporter, April 28, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 65. Ibid. 66. Leonard S. Spector and Virginia Foran, Preventing Weapons Proliferation: Should the Regimes Be Combined? Muscatine, IA: Stanley Foundation, 1992. 67. Lynn E. Davis, “Statement,” Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, mimeo, pp. 14–16. 68. “COCOM to Act on Computers, Telecoms,” Export Control News 7, 11 (November 30, 1993): 3–4; and “U.S. Approves Supercomputer Export to China,” Export Control News 7, 11 (November 30, 1993): 4–5. 69. John R. McIntyre and Richard T. Cupitt, “COCOM and Strategic Trade Controls: Crumbling Consensus?” Survey 25, 2 (1980): 81–108. 70. President William J. Clinton, “Address before the National Assembly of Korea,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, July 19, 1993, p. 510. 71. Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, September 27, 1993, pp. 651–652. 72. U.S. Department of Defense, Report on the Bottom-Up Review. Washington, D.C.: GPO, October 1993. 73. Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws (America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy), New York: Hill and Wang, 1995, pp. 110–129. 74. Zachary S. Davis with Mitchell Reiss, “U.S. Counterproliferation Doctrine: Issues for Congress,” CRS Report for Congress, 94–734 ENR, Congressional Reserach Service, The Library of Contress, September 21, 1994, p. 8. 75. U.S. Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Report on Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation Activities and Programs,” Washington, D.C., May 1994, p. ES-2. 76. Davis and Reiss, “U.S. Counterproliferation Doctrine,” p. 9.
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77. Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Report on Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation Activities and Programs,” p. ES–2. 78. Ibid., pp. 250–251. According to the NSC memorandum on “agreed” definitions, counterproliferation means the activities of the Department of Defense across the full range of U.S. efforts to combat proliferation, including diplomacy, arms control, export controls, and intelligence collection and analysis, with particular responsibility for assuring U.S. forces and interests can be protected should they confront an adversary armed with weapons of mass destruction or missiles. The memorandum defines nonproliferation as the use of the full range of political, economic and military tools to prevent proliferation, reverse it diplomatically or protect our interests against an opponent armed with weapons of mass destruction or missiles, should that prove necessary. Nonproliferation tools include: intelligfence analysis, global nonproliferation norms and agreements, diplomacy, export controls, security assrances, defenses, and the application of military force. See the National Security Council memorandum on “agreed definitions” from Senior Director for Nonproliferation, NSC to Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, Robert L. Gallucci, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Security and Counterproliferation, Ashton Carter, February 18, 1994, noted in Davis and Reiss, “U.S. Counterproliferation Doctrine,” p. 8. 79. Reportedly, North Korea wanted a 50-MW(e) reactor in Yongbyon and a 200-MW(e) reactor in Taechon. If used to generate electricity, these would likely far exceed North Korean economic demand or its transmission capacity. 80. Ibid., p. 24. 81. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Implications of the U.S./North Korean Agreement on Nuclear Issues, GAO/RCED/NSIAD-97-8 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, October 1996), p.22. 82. Ibid., 25. 83. At least three intelligence communities reported higher figures, including South Korea (7 to 22 kilos), Japan (16 to 24), and Russia (20). The U.S. Department of Energy also revised its public estimates for the amount of plutonium required for a weapon from 8 to 4 kilograms, which meant that North Korea could construct from three to six devices. Ibid., p. 28. 84. Testimony by Secretary of State Warren Christopher before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 22, 1994. 85. Richard N. Haass, “Keep the Heat on North Korea,” New York Times, June 17, 1994, in Lexis/Nexus. 86. Thomas W. Lippman, “U.S. Considered Attacks on N. Korea, Perry Tells Panel,” Washington Post, January 25, 1995. 87. From Appendix B, pp. 310–314 in Fighting Proliferation, p. 313. 88. Walter B. Slocombe, “Resolution of the North Korean Nuclear Issue,” pp. 183–195 in Fighting Proliferation, p. 190. 89. There are other benefits from the agreement. In particular, the light-water reactors are less compatible with efforts to develop materials for a nuclear weapons program than the graphite reactors in the North Korea program. 90. Robert Gallucci, “Limiting U.S. Policy Options to Prevent Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: The Relevance of Minimum Deterrence,” pp. 103–117 in Charles Gaston, ed., Grand Strategy and the Decisionmaking Process, Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1992.
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91. The groups are the Joint Committee on Proliferation, the Senior Politico-Military Group on Proliferation, and the Senior Defense Group on Proliferation. See the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, Washington, D.C.: GPO (April 1996), p. 56. Also see Davis and Reiss, “U.S. Counterproliferation Doctrine,” p. 16. 92. Natilie J. Goldring, “NATO: Skittish on Counterproliferation,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50, 2 (March–April 1994): 12–13; Ashton B. Carter and David B. Omand, “Countering the Proliferation Risks: Adapting the Alliance to the New Security Environment,” NATO Review, 44, 5 (September 1996), pp. 10–15. 93. Davis and Reiss, “U.S. Counterprolifeation Doctrine,” p. 18. 94. U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, Washington, D.C.: GPO (April 1996), pp. 48–57. 95. Ibid., pp. 57–63. 96. Offices of the Inspector General at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and State, The Federal Government’s Export Licensing Processes for Munitions and Dual-Use Commodities, Final Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S.GPO, September 1993, 2. 97. Statement by Zachary Davis of the Congressional Research Service in “The Administration’s Non-Proliferation and Export Control Policy,” Arms Control Today 23, 9 (November 1993): 11. 98. “Committee Proposes Tight Limits on Export Controls,” Export Control News 7, 11 (November 30, 1993): 10. 99. “CEO Group Prescribes Export Control Reform Scheme,” Export Control News 8, 1 (January 31, 1994): 7. 100. “Policy on Export Controls under Clinton at least a Month Away, Officials Say,” BNA International Trade Daily, March 19, 1993, in Lexis/Nexis. 101. Ibid. 102. “Arms Transfer Reorganization,” Defense Trade News 6, 1 (October 1995): 7. 103. “Clinton Administration to Slash BXA Personnel and Budget,” Export Control News 7, 2 (February 28, 1993): 9. 104. Steven Goldman, “New Nonproliferation, Economic Analysis Offices to Open in BXA,” The BXA Insider 1, 2 (July 1994): 3; and Iain Baird, “BXA Addresses Critical Nonproliferation Concerns,” The BXA Insider 1, 2 (July 1994): 4. 105. U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, Washington, D.C.: GPO, April 1996, p. 50. 106. “Disputes Doom Administration’s EAA Proposals,” Export Control News 8, 1 (January 30, 1994): 5–6. 107. “EIA Calls on Clinton Administration to Avoid Using Unilateral Controls,” BNA International Business & Finance Daily (February 18, 1994), in Lexis/Nexis. 108. “Industry Rejects Administration’s EAA Proposals,” Export Control News 8, 2 (February 1994): 2–5. 109. Ibid. 110. Ibid., p. 2. 111. Ibid., p. 4. 112. “House Introduces Progressive EAA Proposal,” Export Control News 8, 3 (March 1994): 6–7. 113. “EAA Bills Ferment on Hill,” Export Control News 8, 4 (April 30, 1994): 2–3; “House Mark Up Preserves Industry Focus,” Export Control News 8, 5 (May 31, 1994): 5. 114. “EAA Bills Ferment on Hill,” pp. 2–3. 115. “House Mark Up Preserves Industry Focus,” pp. 4–6.
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116. “Senate Crafts Unique EAA Proposal,” Export Control News 8, 5 (May 31, 1994): 2–4. 117. Ibid., p. 3; and “Export Administration Act Makes Progress on the Hill,” BXA Insider II (July 1994): 2. 118. “House Mark Up preserves Industry Focus,” Export Control News 8, 5 (May 31, 1994): 5. 119. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Export Licensing Procedures for Dual-Use Items Need to Be Strengthened, GAO/NSAID-94-119, Washington, D.C.: GPO, April 1994. 120. “Commerce, State Fire Back at GAO, Pryor,” Export Control News 6, 6 (June 30, 1994): 5–6. 121. “Armed Services Amendments Threaten Progressive EAA Draft,” Export Control News 8, 6 (June 30, 1994): 2–3. 122. Ibid. 123. “EAA Dies Over Obscure Clause,” Export Control News 8, 9 (September 30, 1994): 2. 124. Ibid. 125. “No Bill, No Problem: Administration Vows to Adopt Some Reforms,” Export Control News 8, 9 (September 30, 1994): 3. 126. Kenneth J. Cooper, “Court Declares Democrat Won in Connecticut,” Washington Post, December 17, 1994, A5. 127. “Republican Congress Stirs Up Export Control Brew,” Export Control News 8, 11 (November 30, 1994): 4. 128. “Administrative Reforms Still Pending,” Export Control News 8, 11 (November 30, 1994): 3–4. Reportedly, the proposals covered limits on unilateral controls, protection from “unfair” economic effects, restricting the treatment of dual-use items as munitions, limits on the use of proliferation controls and the standard of knowledge about the end use or end user by industry, conducting an annual list review, easing restrictions on semiconductors, making Commerce responsible for controls on dual-use encryption software with a presumption of approval, and ending the supercomputer regime. 129. “1994: The Year in Review,” Export Control News 8, 12 (December 30, 1994): 7. 130. “EAA Picture Still Murky,” Export Control News 8, 12 (December 30, 1994): 3–4. 131. Gerth and Schmitt, “Chinese Said to Reap Gains In U.S. Export Policy Shift,” New York Times, p. A14. 132. Ibid. 133. “EAA Picture Still Murky,” p. 3. 134. “New Nonproliferation, Economic Analysis Offices to Open in BXA,” BXA Insider II (July 1994): 3. 135. “Science and Technology and the Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A White Paper,” prepared for the Forum on the Role of Science and Technology in Promoting National Security and Global Stability, March 29–30, 1995: 1–2. 136. Ibid. 137. “Exporters call for Slow-Down of Regulatory Rewrite,” Export Control News 9, 7 (July 31, 1995): 6–7. 138. BXA, Export Administration Annual Report 1991 and Export Administration Annual Report 1995. 139. “Computer Decontrol Awaits Clinton’s Approval,” The Export Practitioner 9, 9 (September 30, 1995): 3–4; and “Clinton Lifts Computer Restrictions,” Export Practitioner 9, 10 (November 30, 1995): 5–6. 140. U.S. Newswire, October 9, 1995, in “Computer Decontrol Awaits Clinton’s Approval,” 6.
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141. Ibid. 142. BXA, Export Administration Annual Report 1994, p. II–1. 143. Ibid., p. II–4. 144. U.S. General Accounting Office, Export Controls: Concerns Over Stealth-Related Exports, GAO/NSIAD-95-140, Washington, D.C.: GPO, May 1995. 145. “Administration, House Committees Plot EAA Strategy,” Export Control News 9, 5 (May 31, 1995): 10–11. 146. “EAA Moves Quietly, if at All,” Export Control News 9, 6 (June 30, 1995): 8–9. 147. Frank Gaffney, “Selling the High-Technology Rope,” Washington Times, September 12, 1995, p. A12; and Frank Gaffney, “Ostriches and Trojan Horses,” Washington Times, October 10, 1995, p. A16. 148. Gaffney, “Selling the High-Technology Rope,” p. A12. 149. This possibility arose when the Department of Commerce faced extinction. During the midterm election campaign, Republicans promised to cut government, and rumors flourished about the coming extinction of various government departments. In the highly touted House and Senate compromise on a seven-year deficit reduction plan, however, the only federal department selected for abolition was the Department of Commerce. The Republicans agreed that export controls and the Bureau of Export Administration provided an essential service, so BXA would survive, but in another bureaucratic context. In specific legislation to terminate the department, Rep. Dick Chrysler (R-MI) and sixty-six cosponsors put BXA in the State Department. In the end, the Republicans relented and Commerce survived. See “Commerce Inches Toward Extinction,” Export Control News 9, 6 (June 30, 1995): 2. 150. Wemple, “Save BXA,” Export Control News. 151. No president has convened the EARB since 1988. 152. The White House, Administration of Export Controls, Executive Order No. 12981, December 6, 1995, Section 1. 153. “Waiting to Exhale —All Eyes on House as EAA is Passed Out of Committee,” Export Practitioner 10, 4 (April 1996): 10–11. 154. “Export Administration Act —Hostage and Incentive,” Export Practitioner 10, 6 (June 1996): 19. 155. Bill Gertz, “Satellite Export Concerns Not New,” Washington Times, June 3, 1998, pp. A1 and A14. 156. Jeff Gerth and Raymond Bonner, “Companies Are Investigated for Aid to China on Rockets,” New York Times, April 4, 1998, pp. A1 and A3. 157. Bill Gertz, “China Nuclear Transfer Exposed; Hill Expected to Urge Sanctions,” Washington Times, February 5, 1996; R. Jeffrey Smith, “China Aids Pakistan Nuclear Program; Parts Shipment Reported by CIA Could Jeopardize U.S. Trade Deals,” Washington Post, February 7, 1996. 158. Sridhar Krishnaswami, “U.S. Lets China, Pak. Off On Ring Magnets Sale,” The Hindu, May 11, 1996, p. 6. 159. “Hearing of the House International Relations Committee,” June 19, 1996. 160. Ibid. 161. Ibid. 162. Ibid. 163. Remarks by Rep. Curt Weldon, Chair, Military Procurement Subcommittee on Military Research and Development, “Clinton Administration’s Response to the Threat Posed by Proliferation,” June 20, 1996, House National Security Committee.
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164. “EAA—It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over,” The Export Practitioner 10, 9 (September 1996): 9. 165. “EAA Takes Hit From Industry Association,” The Export Practitioner 10, 5 (May 1996): 10–11. 166. “EAA Ready for House Floor Vote in Mid-July,” The Export Practitioner 10, 7 (July 1996): 15. 167. Twenty-three countries were original participants in the high-level meetings: Australia; Austria; Belgium; Canada; Denmark; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Ireland; Italy; Japan; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Portugal; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; the United Kingdom; and the United States. Five other states were added as cofounders at the September meeting, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Russian Federation, and the Slovak Republic. “New Multilateral Export Control Arrangement,” press release, High Level Meeting, Wassenaar, September 11 and 12, 1996. 168. Ibid. 169. Agence France Presse, July 13, 1996, in Lexis/Nexis. 170. The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and DualUse Goods and Technologies, Initial Elements, July 1996. 171. Ibid. 172. Facts on File, “Arms Exporters Sign Control Accord,” World News Digest, August, 1, 1996, p. 530. 173. Harald Müller, “National and International Export Control Systems and Supplier States’ Commitments under the NPT,” Programme for Promoting Nuclear Non-Proliferation Issue Review 8, September 1996, p. 5. 174. Ibid., p. 7. 175. John Black, “State Sends Its Encryption Controls to Commerce: But State Decontrolled Encryption Months Ago,” The Export Practitioner 10, 12 (December): 10–11. 176. Felice Kaden Laird, “Analysis of the Executive Order on Encryption Exports,” The Export Practitioner 10, 12 (December 1996): 4–5. 177. Draft of “Review Criteria for Exporter Key Recovery Development Plans, November 7 1996,” reproduced in “Criteria for Exporter’s Key Recovery Development Plans,” Export Practitioner 10, 12 (December 1996): 6–7. 178. For a discussion of the commercial advantages to a key escrow system see Terry Bernstein, Anish B. Bhimani, Eugene Schultz, and Carol A. Siegel, Internet Security for Business, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1996, pp. 373–375. 179. Stephen Pizzo, “IBM Gives Feds Keys to Lotus,” Web Review Net Daily News, January 17, 1997. 180. Janne E. Nolan (chair), Edward Randolph Jayne II, Ronald F. Lehman, David E. McGiffert, and Paul C. Warnke, Report of the Presidential Advisory Board on Arms Proliferation Policy, Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1996, p. 23.
c on c l u s i on 1. For example, see the New York Times, September or October 1996. 2. United States General Accounting Office, Export Controls: Sensitive Machine Tool Exports to China, GAO/NSIAD-97-4, Washington, D.C.: GPO, November 1996. 3. For a list of the conditions, see United States General Accounting Office, Export Controls, pp. 24–25.
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4. Discussions by author with Chinese officials, Beijing, November 1996. 5. Ibid., p. 11. 6. Ibid., p. 14. 7. Compare the 1997 and 1996 annual reports of the Bureau of Export Administration regarding the activities of the Nonproliferation and Export Control Cooperation Team. 8. Glen Chafetz, “The Political Psychology of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” The Journal of Politics 37, 3 (August 1995): 743–775. 9. Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro, The Coming Conflict with China, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. 10. Federal News Service, “Hearing of the International Economic Policy and Trade Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee,” November 9, 1995, in Lexis/Nexis. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Mary Ann Akers, “Critics of Transfers Backed 1993 Waiver,” Washington Times, May 25, 1998, p. A12. 15. Samuel R. Berger, “A Foreign Policy Agenda for the Second Term,” remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 27, 1997, Washington, D.C., Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, p. 1. 16. Ibid., p. 2. 17. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Export Administration, Export Administration Annual Report 1995, Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 1996, and the unpublished versions of the 1996 and 1997 reports. 18. Data supplied by BXA officials. 19. Mitchell B. Wallerstein, “China and Proliferation: A Path Not Taken?” Survival 38, 3 (Autumn 1996): 58–66. 20. Matthew Evangelista, “Internal and External Constraints on Grand Strategy,” in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur Stein, eds., The Domestic Basis of Grand Strategy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993, p. 154. 21. For a discussion of this approach, see Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, eds., Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, Berkeley, University of California Press; or Joe D. Hagan, “Domestic Political Explanations in the Analysis of Foreign Policy,” in Laura Neack, Jeanne A. K. Hey, and Patrick J. Haney, eds., Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995, pp. 117–143. For a compelling critique, see John Kurt Jacobson, “Are All Politics Domestic? Perspectives on the Integration of Comparative Politics and International Relations Theories,” Comparative Politics 29, 1(October 1996): 93–115. 22. John Lewis Gaddis, “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War,” International Security 17, 1992–93: 5–58. 23. Kim Edward Spiezio, Beyond Containment: Reconstructing European Security, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1995, 27. 24. Peter M. Leitner, Decontrolling Strategic Technology, 1990–1992: Creating the Military Threats of the 21st Century, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995. 25. Ibid.; William A. Root, Solveig B. Spielmann, and Felice A. Kaden, “A Study of Foreign Export Control Systems,” pp. 206–248, in Panel on the Impact of National Security Controls on International Technology Transfer, Committee on Science, Engineering, and
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Public Policy, Balancing the National Interest: Working Papers, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987. 26. Peter M. Leitner, Decontrolling Strategic Technology, 1990–1992. 27. Kjell Goldmann, “Change and Stability in Foreign Policy: Détente as a Problem of Stabilization,” World Politics 34, 2 (January 1982): 237. 28. Peter F. Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States,” International Organization 47, 2 (Spring 1993): 299–326, 307. 29. Michael Mastanduno, Economic Containment: CoCom and the Politics of East-West Trade, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. 30. Robert M. Orr, Jr., The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. 31. Peter B. Evans, Harold K. Jacobson, and Robert D. Putnam, Double-Edged Diplomacy. 32. Peter Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments,” pp. 299–326. 33. The Right Honourable Sir Richard Scott, Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions, House of Commons Papers 115, London: HMSO, 1996. 34. Jacob Viner, “Power versus Plenty as Objectives of Foreign Policy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” World Politics 1, 1 (October, 1948): 1–29, at p. 10. 35. Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War,” International Organization 48, 2 (Spring 1994): 185–214. 36. Ibid., pp. 205–206.
index ★ ★ ★
Aaron, Ambassador David L., 207 Abdul Qadeer Khan Research Laboratory, 198 ACDA, 195–96 Acheson, Secretary of State Dean, 53, 71, 73, 79 Adler-Karlsson, Gunnar, 7, 10 Administrative: Action Program, 101; Proc dure Act of 1946, 70 Administrator of Export Control, 46 Advanced Space Launch Vehicle, 145 Advertising Council, 87 Advisory Committee on Export Policy (ACEP), 70, 78, 194 AFL/CIO, 87 Africa, 46, 113; North, 146, 191 Aggarwal, Vinod, 16 Agreed Framework, 178–79 Alexander, Representative William Jr., 132 Algeria, 123 Allan, Pierre, 16 Allen Report, the, 120 Allied: Blockade Committee, 40; Powers, 39–40 Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, 61 Alsop, Joseph and Stewart, 52 American: Electronics Association, 199; Federation of Labor longshoremen, 66; Legion, 62; Red Cross, 40 Amtorg Trading Corporation, 55 Anderson, Representative H. Carl, 63, 81, 106 Anglo-: American alliance, 53; French Treaty of Commerce and Navigation at Utrecht, 35 anti-Soviet strategy, 4, 121 (see also anticomunism; Soviet Union) Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Amendment Act of 1989, The, 167
anticommunism, 11, 16–19, 21, 23, 28–29, 42, 51–53, 60–61, 66, 80, 82–83, 86–91, 102, 104–5, 109, 119, 126–27, 213–14, 218–21, 253n 161; Black Lists, 78, 80 (see also Black Lists); organizations, 27, 88; trade controls, 101–3, 120, 143 Anticommunist Trade Legislation, 102 Apple Computer, 159 Appropriations Bill of 1951, 75; Third Supplemental, 77 APSTAR. See satellites Arab(s), 138; -Israeli conflict, 127; states, 130 Argentina, 123, 152, 153, 178, 201, 202, 203, 204–5, 221 Armory, Robert Jr., 106 Arms: Control and Disarmament Agency, 29, 209; Control Association, 180, 219; Export Control Act, 122, 186, 198 arms (see also weapons): control, 165, 201, 215; exporters, 174, 213 ARMSCOR, 145 Armstrong, Michael, 214 Army and Navy Munitions Board, 55–56 Asia, 17, 46, 63, 86, 92, 105, 178, 201, 206, 216, 224, 230 Asian: Economic Development Fund, 105, 113; Export Control Seminar, 206 Aspin, Senator Les, 130, 134, 142, 175 Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 191 Atomic Energy: Act of 1954, 121; Commission, 65, 68, 70 AT&T, 170, 188 Australia, 124, 125, 149, 150, 151, 178, 191, 202, 206; Group, 2, 124, 126, 128, 130, 148–49, 151–52, 157, 173, 200–4
273
274
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Austria, 52, 57, 64, 124, 149, 153, 202 Axis powers, 45, 48 Baird, Ian, 181 Baker, James, 127–28, 133, 135–36, 139, 145, 155–56, 220 Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, 175 Baltics, the, 205 Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, 2, 133, 146 Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly, 52 Battle, Representative Laurie C., 77, 79, 80, 81, 95 Battle Act, the: 14, 77-80, 94, 95-100, 110 (see also Mutual Defense Assurance Control Act of 1951); Lists, 78, 85, 96, 101, 114, 116 Belarus, 178 Belgium, 69, 71–72, 74, 77, 78, 80, 112, 125, 149, 202 Bender, Representative George H., 62, 81, 102, 114–15 Benelux countries, 68 Berger, National Security Advisor Samuel, 215 Berman, Representative Harold, 70, 184 Beruch, Bernard, 44 Bingaman, Senator Jeff, 167, 170 Bingham, Senator Hiram, 43 Biological: and Toxin Weapons Convention, 203; Weapons Convention, 152, 200 Bizonia, 68 Black, Ed, 199 Black List (see also anticommunism), 80; Committee, 47 blockades, 35–36 Bloom, Representative Sol, 51 Board of Economic Warfare, 47 Bolivia, 43 Bolton, Representative Francis P., 51, 81 Bond, Senator Christopher "Kit," 199 Boothe Luce, Clare, 85 Borah, William E., 42 Boren, David, 142 Borland International, 159 Boschwitz, Senator Rudy, 132 Bosnia, 220 Bottom-Up Review, 175 Boxer, Barbara, 185, 199
BP Chemical, 152 Brazil, 123, 134, 142, 202, 203, 221 Breaux, Senator John, 143 Bridges, Senator Styles, 87, 91, 102 Britain, 2, 4, 10, 20, 24, 32–34, 36, 37–38, 40–41, 44–47, 51, 53, 55, 58, 68–69, 71–72, 75–79, 84, 96–97, 98, 104, 114, 121, 125, 149, 150, 154, 174, 202; economic defense policy of, 96; government of, 7, 31–32, 40, 115 British: Board of Trade, 97–98; Navy, 46; Orders in Council, 31; Statutory List of denied partners, 47 Brookings Institution, 164, 169 Brown, Commerce Secretary Ron, 169–70, 180, 189 Bryen, Stephen D., 2, 118–19, 148 Bryson, Representative Joseph R., 81 Bucy Report, 119, 254n 2 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruno, 16 Bulganin, Council of Ministers Chair, 108 Bulgaria, 149, 201 Bureau: of Economic Business Affairs, 181; of Enemy Trade, 39; of Export Administration. See BXA; of Exports, 39; of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, 181; of PoliticoMilitary Affairs, 181–82; of War Trade Intelligence, 39 Burma, 104 Bush, President George, 2–3, 6, 10, 19, 22, 26, 122, 127, 131, 133–37, 138–43, 144–45, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 156–57, 160, 172, 213–14, 218–20, 231n 8, 265n 59 Bush administration, 2, 4–5, 11, 28–29, 118–57, 126–28, 144, 146, 148, 155, 161, 172–73, 217, 219–21, 223–25 Business: Executives for National Security, The, 165; Software Alliance, 158–59 BXA (Bureau of Export Administration), 128, 137, 144, 146, 164, 182–83, 189–91, 194–96, 208, 269n 149 Byelorussia, 59 Byrd, Senator Harry F., 75, 77, 81, 102 Calabrese, Dave, 183 Campaign for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, 165
Index Canada, 47, 68, 71–72, 76, 112, 122, 124, 125, 149, 150, 178, 191, 202 Canfield, Representative Gordan, 62, 81 Cannon, Representative Clarence, 75 Cannon Amendment, the, 75, 77 Cantwell, Representative Maria, 163, 180, 183–85 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 128 Carter, Ashton, 164 Carter, President Jimmy, 177–78 Cass, Secretary of State Lewis, 35 Category I and II items. See exports Catholic War Veterans (CWV), 66–67 Center: for Security Policy, 193; for Strategic and International Studies, 169 Central Powers, the, 38 Ceylon, 114 CFEP (Commission on Foreign Economic Policy), 95, 105–7 CFER, 95, 105–6, 108, 110–11, 114 CG (Consultative Group), 71–72, 74–80, 98–101, 111, 114 Chaco War, the, 43, 49 Chase National Bank, 53 Chemical: and Biological Nonproliferation Controls, 190; and Biological Weapons Control Act of 1989, 132, 147; Manufacturer's Association, 148; Weapons Convention. See CWC chemicals: export control of, 196; precursors, 201; restricted, 130; sale of, 130; for warfare, 44; weapons (see weapons) Cheney, Secretary of Defense Dick, 135, 138–40, 147 Chile, 145, 178 China, 39, 42, 57, 64, 66, 73, 74, 76–77, 86, 91, 92, 94, 106, 109, 125, 139, 145, 150, 153, 168, 173, 188, 191, 199, 203–4, 209, 210–17, 221, 223–24, 230; -Pakistan relations, 144–45, 172, 198, 217, 265n 59; -U.S. relations, 145, 197–98; embargo on, 98, 102, 115; export controls on, 74–76, 85, 93, 95, 97, 98, 101, 109–111, 113, 115–16, 145, 148, 160, 168, 170, 172, 193–94, 210, 212, 214; government of, 136, 198;
★
275
Great Wall Industry Corporation, 144; Japanese expansion into, 39, 44; Lobby, 168; military of, 89, 197, 203; National Aero-Technology Import and Export Company (CATIC), 210–12; Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation, 198; open-door policy in, 38; People's Republic of, 13, 142, 157, 174, 198, 206, 214–15, 221; Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation, 144; satellite launches by, 172–73; Three Gorges Dam project, 214; Tiananmen Square, 172, 216; trade with, 14, 76, 86, 89, 96, 103, 114–15, 160–61, 168, 193–94, 197–98, 210, 215–17 CHINCOM (China Committee), 74–80, 104, 106, 109, 111–16; export controls, 111; members, 111 Chinese: the, 4, 92, 99, 121, 134, 140, 145; Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, 172; companies, 210–11; Nationalist government, 74; People's Liberation Army, 210–11 Christiansen, Larry, 190 Christopher, Secretary of State Warren M., 172, 177, 197, 215 Chukotka, 66 Churchill, Sir Winston, 41, 52–53, 97 CIA, the, 71, 75, 77, 106, 108, 110–11, 130, 136, 141, 145, 177, 183, 196 Clark, Attorney General Ramsey, 142 Class I items, 68 Class II items, 68 Clayton, Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs William L., 57 Clifford, Clark, 54–56, 60 Clinton, President William J., 4–5, 6, 19, 22, 26, 159–61, 164, 169–74, 183–84, 187–89, 191, 195, 197–99, 206, 209, 212, 213–14, 218–19, 222 Clinton administration, 4–5, 10, 11, 28–30, 158–209, 210, 212, 215, 217–220, 222–26 Clipper Chip, 159 Cloak List, 39 Coalition: for Export Control Reform, 183; to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle
276
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Index
East, A, 142 COCOM/CHINCOM system, 94, 116 COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls), 2, 4, 10, 23, 74–80, 82, 98, 100, 104, 106, 112–13, 115, 120, 126, 143, 144, 147, 148–49, 153–54, 157, 173, 180, 193–95, 200–1, 208, 216–18, 222, 226, 232n 22, 260n 178; controls, 100, 104, 117, 144, 147, 174; Cooperation Forum, 155–56, 173, 226; creation of, 71–72; embargo lists, 101, 116, 147, 194, 200; members of, 75–76, 78–80, 85, 99, 114, 116–17, 148, 155, 159, 162, 170–71, 174; transformation of, 154–55 Coelho, Representative Tony, 141 Cohen, Senator William, 132 Cold War, 4, 7–8, 16, 30, 33, 73, 79–80, 117, 119, 121, 125, 136, 148, 160–61, 163, 173, 184, 208, 219–22; post-, 8–9, 156, 160, 169, 171, 184, 215 Colmer, Representative William M., 57, 67, 81 Colmer amendment, the, 68 Colmer-Mundt: provisions, 68; substitute, 57, 68 Colombo Plan Group, 105 Commerce Control List, 186, 189, 197 Committee: for European Economic Cooperation (CEEC), 61; on Ways and Means, 94 Commodity: Control List, 113; Credit Corporation, 133 Commonwealth of Independent States, 201 communism, 5, 13, 41–42, 52, 58, 62–64, 82, 86–88, 97, 100, 103, 105–6, 109, 117, 126, 157, 213, 218, 220–21, 224 communist(s), 4, 13, 41, 58, 64–65, 74, 90, 114, 219; countries, 11, 13–15, 60, 63, 67, 69, 75, 77–78, 83, 84, 102, 112, 114, 117, 119, 125, 162, 191 companies: European, 2; high-technology, 3; multinational, 8, 163; U. S., industries), 2, 44, 47, 159, 165, 168, 170, 185–86, 207, 214 (see also U.S. Compaq, 170 Competitiveness Policy Council, 163
compliance, 15, 179, 190 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 174–75 Computer: and Communications Industry Association, 199; Systems Policy Project, 170, 180 computers (see also data encryption; software; supercomputers), 120, 153–54, 171, 173, 216; commercial systems, 159; export controls on (see export controls); exports, 121, 131, 145, 171, 174, 191–93, 216, 222; high-performance, 192, 209, 212, 224 (see also supercomputers); manufacturers, 170–71, 184, 192; personal, 159; software, 158–59 Condor missile project, 130 Confidential Enemy Trading List, 37, 39, 47 Congressional Record, 28 Connally, Senate Foreign Relations Chair, 79 Connolly, Admiral Richard L., 91–92 Consarc Corporation, 133–35 Consultative Group. See CG containment, 53–55, 80, 87, 128, 138, 148, 184, 225; export controls (see export controls); grand strategy of, 64, 220–21; of Soviet power, 119, 121 contraband, 35–36 Conventional Arms Nonproliferation and Unilateral Controls, 190 Cooperative Threat Reduction program, 146–47, 205 Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. See COCOM Core List, 147–48, 200 Council: of Economic Advisors, 61, 172; for Export Control Reform, 184; on Foreign Economic Policy, 116 Counterproliferation: Program Review Committee, 182–83; Support Program, 182 counterproliferation, 175–79, 182–83, 266n 78 Cowhey, Peter, 7, 23, 224, 228 Cox Committee, 212 Cranston, Senator Alan, 130 Cray, 170 Crowe, Admiral William, 141 cryptography, 207
Index CTP (composit theoretical performance), 154, 170–71, 173, 191 Cuba, 36, 42, 168, 217 Curtis, Senator Carl T., 102, 109 Curtiss-Wright Corporation v. United States, 15 CWC (Chemical Weapons Convention), 152, 174, 200, 203, 222 cyberspace, 206–7 Czechoslovakia, 40, 51, 61, 65, 72, 104, 149, 191, 201, 202, 205 D'Amato, Senator Alphonse, 132, 168, 169, 184, 188, 193, 197 Dantzic, David, 134 data encryption. See DES; software Daughters of the American Revolution, 62 Davis, Dr. Lynn E., 18, 174, 197, 199 Declaration of Paris, 35 Defense: Appropriations, 67, 205; Counterproliferation Initiative, 175; Operations Plan 90-1002, 138; Science Board Task Force on the Export of U.S. Technolgy, 119; Technology Security Administration. See DTSA delivery verification system. See verification Dellums, Representative Ron, 185–86, 188 democracy, 29, 36, 58, 119, 154, 161, 221–22; free market, 161–62 democratic countries, 15, 54, 119, 220–21, 227–28 Democrats, the, 41, 54, 64, 87, 95, 104, 114, 132, 139, 142, 156, 163, 167, 187–88 Denmark, 72, 97, 149, 153, 202 DES (data encryption standard), 159, 206 descriptive anarchy, 6–7 Desert: Shield, 11, 137–43 (see also Gulf War); Storm, 11, 137–43 (see also Gulf War) deterrence, 17, 109, 128 Deutsch Commission, the, 212 developing countries, 95, 104–5, 124 Digital, 170, 192 Dingle, Senator John, 130, 142 diplomacy, 138, 145, 174–75, 208; preven tative, 161 Diversion Control Network, 101 Dodd, Senator Christopher, 143
★
277
Dodge, Budget Director, 92, 105–7, 110, 112 Dole, Senator Robert, 131, 133, 139, 179, 194 domestic politics, 6–8, 10, 23, 218; and export controls, 13–30 Dos Passos, John, 52 Doxey, Margaret, 9 Doyle, MIchael, 149 Draft List of Contraband of War, the, 37 Dresser Industries, 113 Drew, Elizabeth, 138 DTSA (Defense Technology Security Administration), 118, 126–27, 141, 148, 165, 182 dual-use items, 4–5, 7–8, 10, 11, 23, 33–36, 38, 44, 48, 68, 100, 116, 121–22, 150, 151, 164, 168, 173, 184–86, 191, 200–1, 203, 209, 213, 218, 221–22, 229, 268n 128; biological, 146; categories of, 126; chemicals as, 124; export controls on, 3, 31– 50, 81–82, 102, 128, 150–53, 182, 184, 192, 225 (see also export controls); exported to Russia, 64, 83; exports, 2–3, 34, 83, 100, 146, 150, 155, 168, 191, 213, 222; industrial goods, 14, 86; licensing of, 70, 120, 129, 181–82, 185, 194–97, 216, 229 (see also export licensing); lists, 174, 197; military items, 17, 83, 146, 213, 221, 229; missiles as, 125; of proliferation, 146, 174; strategic, 2; technologies, 10, 164–65, 167, 221; transfer of, 2, 48, 145, 167, 200 Dulles, John Foster, 86–87, 99, 104, 109–110, 112, 116 EAA. See Export Administration Act EARB, 194, 196 Eckert, Secretary of Commerce Sue, 184 economic: reforms, 120, 155; security (see security, economic) Economic Cooperation: Act, 65–66; Administration, 65, 77 Economic Defense: Board, 47; List, 80 economy: British, 110; Eastern European, 93; global, 17, 34, 36, 87, 105, 155–56,
278
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Index
222; Japanese, 74; U. S., 3, 5, 54, 55–56, 61, 81, 86–87, 89, 93, 137, 161–64, 221 (see also U.S. economic interests); Western European, 81 EDACACEP Committee, 94, 96 EDAC (Economic Defense Advisory Committee), 78, 94 Eden, Prime Minister, 104, 108, 110 Edward III, 34 Egypt, 104 EIA (Electronic Industry Associates), 183, 189 Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 4–5, 6, 14, 19, 22, 26, 84, 86–89, 91–94, 97, 98, 100–5, 108–113, 115–16, 214, 218–19, 221, 226 Eisenhower administration, 4, 10, 11, 14, 23, 29–30, 84–117, 213, 217, 220, 223, 225–26 ELAIN, 191 electronic: commerce, 8; communication, 158–59 Electronic Industry Associates. See EIA Ellender, Senator Allen J., 115 Elliott, Representative Alfred J., 56, 81 Embargo Act of 1807, the, 31–33, 34 embargoes, 9, 43–44, 68–69, 76, 114; arms, 42, 74; China, 98, 102, 214–15; COCOM, 85; Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, 98–101; Iran, 193; lists, 75, 96, 98; North Korea, 98, 177; oil, 7, 9, 44; trade, 134, 193; U. S., 33, 56, 79, 83, 93, 193 Emerson, Representative Norvell, 131 encryption, 159, 197, 207 (see also software); devices, 159, 184, 189, 206, 208; programs (see also DES), 158–59; software, 8, 180, 184–86, 197, 206–7 end-use, 211–12, 214; certification, 126; military, 75, 200; peaceful, 125, 173 end-users, 10, 130, 154, 157, 167, 191–92, 197, 207, 212, 224, 268n 128; dual-use, 167, 185; proliferation, 144, 146, 181, 191 Enemy Trading List, 39, 56 Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative. See EPCI
entrepreneurs, 18; moral, 20, 22, 128; nonproliferation, 161, 165, 167, 169, 177, 185, 188, 193, 219; political, 13–30, 45, 82, 103, 115, 117, 128–30, 156, 161, 165, 185, 187–88, 193, 208–9, 213, 219–20, 222, 225, 227, 229–30, 236n 43; public, 10, 18, 19, 22, 25, 29–30, 45, 82, 156, 161, 167, 177, 193, 213, 218–20, 222, 225–26, 229 environmental issues, 19, 221 EPCI (Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative), 2, 141–42, 144, 148, 151, 217–18 ERIC, 191 Erskine, David, 32 Erskine Agreement, 32 Ervin, Senator Sam, 102, 114 Espionage Act of 1917, 38, 41 Ethiopia, 43 Europe, 17, 37, 39, 44, 46, 50, 51, 52, 55–56, 62–63, 66–68, 71, 79, 80, 92, 97, 100, 124, 191, 200–1, 202, 205, 212–13, 221; Eastern, 52, 55, 64–67, 69, 73, 75, 93, 97, 98–101, 107, 119–20, 153, 154–55, 170, 201, 205, 221; reconstruction of, 11, 55, 60; Western, 4, 61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 75, 78, 82, 93, 95–96, 109, 174, 191, 221 European: Cooperation Act, 68; Recovery Program (ERP), 61, 67–69; Union, 203–4 Europeans, 69, 79, 80 Evangelista, Matthew, 218, 227 Evans, 17 Ex-Im Bank, 214 Executive Order: 434, 65; 12735, 2, 140, 144; 12924, 187; 12981, 195; 13026, 206 Export Administration: Act, 5, 11, 117, 119, 129, 136, 140, 162, 164, 167–70, 173, 180, 183–85, 187–88, 193, 195, 197, 199, 207–8, 223, 231n 8; Board, 38–39; Division, 189; Regulations, 190–91, 208 Export Control Act (ECA), 14, 45, 46, 69–71, 91, 94, 99; Category A list, 86; Category B list, 86 export controls (see also COCOM), 4, 8,
Index 13–30, 35, 40, 42, 50, 68, 72–83, 85–86, 89–92, 94, 98, 103, 107, 111, 115–16, 119, 121, 126, 131, 136–37, 140, 143–48, 154, 156–57, 160, 161–69, 171–72, 179, 181–85, 189–98, 200–1, 203–7, 213–14, 216–19, 221–24, 226, 229–30; anticommunist, 18, 21, 29, 68, 120 (see also anticommunism); bilateral, 206; Category I and II items, 125–26; chemical, 196 (see also Shield); China, 74–76, 214; CHINCOM, 111; computers, 170–71, 189, 191–92, 207, 216, 222; containment, 8, 10, 18; cyberspace, 206–7; domestic politics and, 13–30, 187–88; dual-use, 31–50, 81, 128, 150–53, 216(see also dual–use items); Eastern Europe, 75; encryption technology, 206; European, 37–38, 80; Hong Kong, 74; issues, 37, 72; Japanese, 76; legislation, 120, 161, 187, 189 (see also legislation activity; U.S. export control policy); liberalization of, 93, 97, 103, 106–8, 110–11, 116–17, 120, 154, 161, 164, 191–92, 199, 208–9, 212, 216, 222, 224–26 (see also trade); Marshall plan and, 60–64; military, 128, 131; missile dual-use items, 125–26, 152–53; multilateral, 2, 11, 14, 27, 34, 77, 80, 104, 109–110, 113, 121–27, 140, 148, 156, 173–75, 197, 200–1, 206, 208, 224, 226–27; munitions, 186, 194; nonproliferation (see nonproliferation); norms, 14, 126, 197; policies, 5–7, 26–27, 30, 48, 72, 75, 79, 90, 109, 116, 123, 160, 191, 209, 228; presidential (see presidential export control policies); reform, 11, 30, 64–68, 94–96, 115, 119–21, 137, 159–60, 163, 180–83, 193, 199, 207–8, 226; regimes, 10, 148, 202; as sanctions, 188; shipments to Russia, 40–42, 61, 116; strategic goods, 68, 76; supercomputers, 153–54, 207; systems, 119–20, 144, 162, 180, 187, 190, 200–1, 212, 214, 218, 221, 226; Truman Doctrine and, 55–60; U. S. (see U. S., export controls); unilateral, 120, 163, 168–69, 172, 183,
★
279
186; violations of, 208; Western, 78; during World War I, 36–40; during World War II, 46–48, 52, 56 Export Council, 38 export enhancement, 162–64, 168, 181, 193, 209 Export-Import Bank, 198; financing, 133 export licensing, 3, 48, 64, 67–71, 78–79, 108, 113, 118, 120, 124–26, 128–29, 135, 144, 146, 151–53, 160, 163–65, 167, 169, 171, 174, 180–87, 189–97, 199, 200–1, 207–9, 211, 216, 224, 229, 250n 53 (see also dual–use licensing; export controls; trade licenses); interagency, 169, 194–96; liberalization of, 171, 191 exports: aircraft, 210–12; of Category I items, 125–26, 172, 203; of Category II items, 125–26, 172; chemical, 124; to China, 197, 215; to communist countries, 69, 74, 84–85; computers, 121, 170–71, 209 (see also computers); dualuse (see dual-use exports); to Eastern Europe, 75; to Europe, 65, 67; high-tech, 160, 168, 189, 209; high-temperature furnaces, 144; Japanese, 74; of nuclear items, 122–23, 198; software, 159, 206; to the Soviet Union, 18, 69, 75, 81, 97; U.S. (see U.S. exports) Far East, the, 38, 109 Fascell, Senator Dante, 130 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), 47, 159, 196, 207, 218 Federation of British Industries, 97 Finland, 44, 67, 149, 152, 153, 155, 178, 202 Finlayson and Zacker, 20 First and Second Decontrol Acts, 55 Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, 174 Flanagan, Senator Francis, 13–14 Flowe, Ben, 169 Foley, Representative Tom, 139, 186–88 Ford, President Gerald, 122 Foreign: Aid Appropriations, 114; Assistance Act, 67–68, 75; Economic Administration, 47; Operations Administra-
280
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Index
tion, 70, 97, 105; Policy Association, 87; Relations Authorization Act, 168; Relations Committee, 131 Forestall, James, 18 Førland, Tor Egil, 23, 102 Forrestal, Secretary of Defense, 67 Foster, Gregory, 22 Foster, William, 65 France, 4, 10, 23, 31, 33, 40–41, 46, 51, 64, 68–69, 72, 74, 75, 78–79, 97, 115, 121, 122–23, 125, 149, 150, 154, 155, 174, 178, 202, 213 free world, the, 73–74, 80, 86, 89, 100, 105, 110, 114, 126–27, 216 Freedenberg, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Paul, 168 Freedom Support Act, 205 Fund for Asian Economic Development, 105 Funk, Inspector Sherman, 146, 170
Gonzales, Representative, 146 Gordon, Representative Thomas S., 51, 81 Gore, Al Jr., 130, 142, 143, 146, 160, 165, 170 Gore, Senator Al Sr., 103 Gore-Chernomyrden Commission, 165 Government Operations, 13 Gramm, Senator Phil, 132, 194 Grand Alliance, the, 56 grand strategy. See presidential grand strategy; U. S. grand strategy Grandy, Representative Fred, 131 Grassley, Senator, 143 Greece, 8, 11, 57, 58–59, 66, 68, 112, 149, 153, 202 Group of Seven (G-7), 157, 160 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 135 Gulf War, 1–3, 11, 123, 124, 131, 134–37, 138–43, 143–48, 151, 156–57, 191, 220
Gaffney, Frank, 193–94 gaiatsu, 226 Galtung, Johan, 9 Galucci, Ambassador Robert, 9, 182 GAO, 137, 146, 170, 185, 193, 222 Garson, John, 70 Gejdenson, Representative Sam, 168, 169, 180, 183–84, 187–88 General: Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 95; Dynamics Corporation, 145; Electric, 87; License GLV, 189 Geneva: Four-Power Negotiations, 108; Heads of Government, 107; Protocol of 1925, 123 Germany, 10, 36–37, 40, 44–46, 48, 52, 68, 115, 121, 122–23, 125, 149, 151, 154, 158, 202, 228–29; Nazi, 50 Gilligan, Michael J., 23 Gilman, 198 Gingrich, House Speaker Newt, 179 Glenn, Senator John, 121, 130, 142, 167, 185 Glickman, Representative Dan, 131 Goldman, Kjell, 23, 223 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Department Reorganization Act, 127
Haiti, 9 Hallett, Jeffrey, 148 Hamilton, Representative Lee, 185–86, 199 Harriman, W. Averell, 4, 52, 54, 61, 69, 79 Harris, Martha, 181 Hatfield, Senator, 143 Hayden, Senator Carl, 77 Heflin, Senator Howell, 143 Heinz, Senator John, 130 Helms, Senator Jesse, 130, 167–68, 188, 217, 219 Herter, Representative Christian A., 61 Herter Committee, 61 high-temperature furnaces (see exports) Hirschman, Albert O., 8 Hitler, 67 Hofhansel, Claus, 227–28 Honduras, 42 Hong Kong, 74 Hoover, J. Edgar, 42, 62 Hoover, President Herbert, 62, 111–12 Hoover administration, 43 House Committees: Appropriations, 58, 62; Armed Services, 134, 141, 185, 187–88; Banking, 146; Budget, 188; Foreign Affairs, 51, 57–58, 66, 77, 114, 135, 146,
Index 169, 184–85; Foreign Aid, 61; Government Operations, 133, 137; Intelligence, 185; International Relations, 193, 195, 197; Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 56; Judiciary, 146; National Security, 193, 199, 210; Surplus Property Investigating, 67; Ways and Means, 106, 197 House Resolution: 77, 142; 153, 57; 361, 197, 199–200; 366, 63; 750, 169; 1724, 152; 2616, 60; 3937, 184–85; 4643, 120; 4653, 137, 153, 231n 8; 12130, 114 House Subcommittees: Economic Policy, Trade and Environment, 158, 170, 188; Foreign Affairs International Economic Policy, 120; Foreign Affairs International Security and Nonproliferation, 167, 169–70; Foreign Affairs International Trade, 169; Foreign Economic Affairs and Trade, 164; Merchant Marine, 61; Military Procurement, 199 Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott, 9–10 Hughes, Gregory, 169 Hughes Electronic Corporation, 214–15 Hull, Cordell, 87 human rights, 8, 161, 198, 215, 220–21 Humphrey, Treasury Secretary, 92 Hungary, 57, 149, 152, 191, 201, 203, 205 Hunt, Cecil, 190 Hunt, W. Ben, 23 Hunter, Representative Duncan, 187–88 Hussein, Saddam, 3, 118, 127, 131, 133, 138, 140–41, 143 hydrogen bomb, 73 IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), 121, 122–23, 143, 175, 177, 204; safeguards, 122, 205 (see also nuclear safeguards; safeguards) IBM, 207 IC/DV system (Import Certificate/Delivery Verification system), 78, 101 Iceland, 68, 201, 202 IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm), 159 IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act), 140
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import certificates, 154 incentives, 15, 17 India, 104, 123, 142, 145, 168, 191, 212, 213, 217, 224 Indian: space launch vehicle (SLV-3), 125, 145; Space Research Organization, 145 Indochina, 75, 98, 100–1 Indonesia, 104, 178, 204 Industrial List, 194, 260n 178 industrial nations, 164 industry: defense, 222; groups, 29, 159, 162, 173, 180, 183, 197; initiatives, 194, 199; interests, 207–8; lobbyists, 162, 183, 185–86, 188–89; representatives, 190 Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer, 162, 188–89 INF Treaty, 203 interagency committees, 194–96 International: Atomic Energy Agency. See IAEA; Atomic Energy List, 85; Development Authority, 87; Economic Emergency Powers Act, 187, 199; Monetary Fund, 95; Munitions List, 85; Signal and Control Group, 145; Traffic in Arms Regulations, 158, 186 international: affairs, 20, 82; agreements, 161; community, 20, 45, 224; conflicts, 45; cooperation, 15–16, 19, 221; crime cartels, 7; economics, 17, 34; law, 135; markets, 4, 18, 24; nonproliferation norms (see nonproliferation norms); norms, 24, 29–30, 45, 226–28; politics, 7, 22; regimes, 19–20, 22, 68–69; relations, 6–7, 15; security interests, 7, 9; trade, 17, 20, 161 International Lists (IL), 72, 79, 99, 110, 148; IL I, 72, 76, 96, 101; IL II, 72, 76, 96, 101; IL III, 76, 96 Internet, the, 206–7 Interstate and Foreign Commerce committee, 63 Iran, 18, 53, 130, 137, 144, 146, 152, 157, 162, 168, 170, 191, 193, 197, 200, 204–5, 213, 223 Iran-Iraq: Arms Non-Proliferation Amendment, 170, 197; War, 124–25, 127, 130, 156
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Iraq, 1–3, 9, 18, 118, 123, 130–31, 133–37, 138–45, 151, 156–57, 162, 168, 170, 175, 191, 200, 213, 217; invasion of Kuwait, 4, 6, 119, 128, 130, 137–43, 155, 157, 162, 220; sale of dual-use items to, 3, 222, 229; U.S. policy toward, 118, 127, 130, 133; U.S export controls for, 127, 130–34, 137, 146, 160, 165, 168, 257n 83 Iraqi: chemical and biological weapons capability, 2, 127, 130–31, 136, 141, 156, 217; export licenses, 118, 130, 137, 146, 229; military, 1–2, 6, 118–19, 134, 138, 140–41, 146; nuclear capability, 141–43, 149–50, 156, 217; weapons programs, 1–2, 30, 127, 130, 134–36, 138, 142–43, 150, 153, 156, 203, 217 Ireland, 68, 149, 153, 202 isolationism, 16, 43–44, 60, 82, 104–5, 225 Israel, 123, 125, 127, 130, 133, 141, 145, 146, 153, 213, 221 Italy, 38, 40–41, 43–45, 48, 57, 64, 69, 71–72, 77, 78, 85, 97, 112, 125, 149, 202 Jackson, C. D., 85, 105, 111 Jackson, Henry "Scoop," 114, 194 Japan, 10, 23, 36, 38, 40–41, 43, 44–45, 48, 62, 64, 66, 74, 76, 90, 109–110, 121, 122–23, 124, 125, 149, 151, 153, 154, 157, 178–79, 191, 202, 206, 224, 230; Foundation Center for Global Partnership, 165 Japanese: economy, 74, 109; exports, 74; government, 38, 76, 80; manufacturers, 38 Jasinowski, Jerry, 169 Jefferson, President Thomas, 32 Jenner, Representative William, 102, 106, 115 Johnson, President Lyndon B., 117 Johnson, Secretary of Defense Louis, 73–74 Joint: British-U.S. Subcommittee on Export Licenses, 37; Chiefs of Staff, 92; Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation of the U.S. Congress, 71; Information Exchange, 204; Resolution, 49 Jones, David, 141
Jones, W. Alton, 165 Jordan, 1, 133 Jordan, Michael, 214 Kamel, Lt. General Hussein, 143 Kasich, Representative John, 167, 187–88 Kazakhstan, 205 Keefe, Representative Frank B., 62, 81 Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State John, 133–34 Kem, Senator James P., 75, 77–79, 81 Kem rider, the, 77, 79 Kennan, George, 54, 60, 80, 91–92 Kennedy, Senator Robert, 13–14, 86, 117, 253n 162 Keohane, Robert, 6 Kersten, Representative Charles J., 63, 81 key escrow systems, 206–7 Khrushchev, Nikita, 106 Kilgore, Senator Harley, 53 Kim Il Sung, 178 King, Dr. Martin Luther Jr., 19 Kirkpatrick, Jean, 141 Kissinger, Henry, 141 Klijarvi, Thorsten J., 107 Klontz, Audie, 227 Knowland, Senator William F., 63–65, 81, 87, 89, 91, 102, 105, 115 Korea, 15, 90, 91, 93, 94, 178–79; and CG/CHINCOM, 74–80; Electric Power Corporation, 178; export controls on, 85, 95, 98, 101; North, 9, 18, 52, 77, 85, 94, 98, 116, 123, 145, 157, 162, 168, 174–78, 191, 200, 203–4, 213, 221–22, 224, 230, 266n 89; South, 75, 125, 170, 178–79, 191, 201, 202, 203, 204, 230 Korean: Economic Development, 223; Energy Development Organization, 178; War, 4, 75, 77, 86, 88–89, 217 Krauthammer, Charles, 141 Krug, Secretary of the Interior J. A., 61 Kuwait, 3, 134, 138–43, 155, 217; invasion by Iraq (see Iraq invasion of Kuwait) Kyl, Representative John, 187–88 Lake, National Security Advisor Anthony, 174
Index Landon, Governor Alf, 62 Lane, Ruth, 29 Lansing, Secretary of State Robert, 37 Lantos, Representative Tom, 167, 169 Latin America, 39, 42, 47, 72, 78, 191, 201 launch vehicles, 172, 197, 203 League of Nations, the, 8–9, 42, 44 legislative activity, 28, 94, 109, 120, 147, 161, 189 LeMay, General Curtis, 62 Levanthal, Paul, 128 liberalization. See export controls liberalization; trade liberalization Libya, 9, 18, 123, 131, 137, 151, 157, 162, 168, 191, 197, 200, 213 Lieberman, Senator Joseph, 130, 143, 219 Life magazine, 52 Limited Test Ban Treaty, 121 Lincoln, President Abraham, 35 lists: 1A, 68–69, 72, 74–75, 77; AngloFrench, 69; 1B, 68–69, 74–75, 77; British, 39; chemical weapons, 124; COCOM, 94, 96, 147; control, 99, 153, 186, 194, 224, 261n 189; Core, 147–48; dual-use, 174, 197, 201; export control, 101, 126; French, 39; International (see International Lists); Italian, 39; munitions, 186, 189, 197, 200, 212, 216; of strategic items, 75, 98; U. S., 39, 76, 94, 112; weapons, 46, 174, 200–1 Litton Industries, 2 Lloyd, Prime Minister, 112 Lodge, Representative Henry Cabot, 62, 66, 81 Loral and Hughes Electronics, 197 Loral Space & Communications, 197, 212 Lotus: Development, 159; Notes™, 158, 206–7 Lowi, Theodore, 82 Lugar, Senator Richard, 130, 136, 139, 146–47, 205 Luxemborg, 72, 125, 149, 151, 202 Maçao, 76 Mack, Senator, 197 Macon's Bill No. 2, 32 Madison administration, 32 Main Committee III, 204 Makio, Miyagawa, 7
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Malaya, 74 Malaysia, 114, 204 Malenkov, Georgi, 85 Malone, Senator George W., 59, 75, 77, 81, 102 Manchuria, 52 manufacturers, 101–2 Manzullo, Representative Donald, 164, 180, 183, 214 market(s), 164, 226; global, 4, 18, 159; reforms, 160; Soviet, 81 Marshall, Secretary of State George C., 57, 60 Marshall Plan, the, 4, 11, 67–68, 75, 80, 87, 95, 105, 116; and export controls, 60–64 Martin, Lisa, 9 Mastanduno, Michael, 226 materials: nuclear (see nuclear materials); strategic, 67, 75, 90; war, 45 Materials and Production Division of the National Defense Advisory Commission, 46 McCain, Senator John, 130, 167, 170, 197 McCarthy, Senator Joseph, 13–14, 84, 86, 102, 111–12, 115, 117 McClellan, Senator John, 14, 57, 63–64, 81, 102, 110–11, 113, 115 McClellan Committee Investigation, 110–15, 251n 83 McClure, Senator James, 133 McCormick, Maj. General James, 91 McCracken, Edward, 171 McDonnell Douglas Corporation, 210–12, 213 McGregor, Representative J. Harry, 62, 81 McMahan, Senator Brien, 63, 66, 68, 81, 102 McMahan Act on Atomic Energy, 63 Menendez, Representative Robert, 198 Metzenbaum, Senator Howard, 133 Microsoft, 159, 163–64 Middle East, the, 113, 118, 138, 146, 191 Milhollin, Gary, 128, 134, 146, 217 military: aid, 103, 105, 115, 121, 122, 198, 220; equipment, 44, 48, 77, 113, 198; export controls (see export controls, military); security, 17, 219, 222, 228–29
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Military Critical Technologies List, 148 Millikan, Max, 105 Milliken, Senator Eugene, 87, 91, 95, 102, 115 Milner, Helen, 17 Ministry: of Economic Warfare, 47; of Foreign Affairs, 226; of International Trade and Industry, 226 Missile Technology Control: Act, 146–47; Regime, 2 Missile Technology Export Control Group, 195 missiles, 127, 137, 146, 153, 197, 203, 205, 211, 224, 265n 59; Agni, 145; components, 133, 145–46, 152–53; Condor II program, 125, 130; cruise, 175, 203, 210; Jericho IIb, 125; M-11, 172; nonproliferation of, 125–26, 203, 205; proliferation of, 146, 153, 203–5, 229; Russian submarine-launched ballistic, 1; Saad 16, 130; SLV-3, 125; systems, 125, 203 Mitchell, Senator George, 139 Mitrany, David, 8 Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister, 52 Morocco, 39 most-favored-nation-status, 170 MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), 125–26, 130, 145, 148–49, 152–53, 157, 167, 170, 172–73, 181, 199, 200, 202–3, 217 MTEC, 196 Mundt, Senator Karl E., 51, 57, 63, 67, 81, 102, 111, 114–15, 223 Mundt amendment, the, 68 munitions: controls, 194; items, 174, 181; licensing, 182; lists, 186, 189, 197, 200, 212, 216 Munitions List, 186, 189, 197, 200, 212, 216 Murkowski, Senator Frank, 133 Murray, Senator Patty, 184 Mussolini, Benito, 46 Mutual Defense: Assistance Administrator, 78; Assurance Control Act of 1951. See Battle Act, the Mutual Security: Act of 1956, 113; Administration, 97; Agency, 14; Bill, 77–79;
Program, 79, 85, 103, 114 Nadelmann, Ethan A., 19–20 Nader, Ralph, 19 Nanching Aircraft Company, 210–11 Napoleonic Wars, 31 Nation, The, 97 National: Academy of Sciences, 147, 165; Aeronautic and Space Administration, 125; Aeronautics and Space Act, 125; Association of Manufacturers, 162–64, 169, 180, 183, 193; Defense Authorization Act, 170, 205, 212; Economic Council, 164, 183; Foreign Trade Council, 189; Grange, 94; Intelligence Estimate, 98, 104; Military Establishment, 65; Munitions Control Board, 43, 46; Performance Review, 165; Research Council, 163 National Security: Agency, 159, 185, 206–7; Directive 53, 144; Directive 26 (NSD-26), 3; Resources Board, 65 National Security Council (NSC) (see also NSC), 29, 65, 71, 73, 75, 77, 89–93, 99–101, 106, 108, 112–13, 115–16, 144, 160, 175, 181, 192, 214, 266n 78; Alternative A, 91; Alternative C, 91; Policy Coordinating Committees on Non-Proliferation and on Technology Transfer, 144; Task Force A, 92–93; Task Force B, 91, 92–93; Task Force C, 92–93 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 4, 71–72, 88, 103, 109, 125, 179 navicert system, 40, 48, 49 Near East, 51, 58 Netherlands, 69, 71–72, 74, 125, 149, 150, 151, 202 Netscape, 206–7 Neustadt, Richard, 25 neutrality: legislation, 48; policies, 45; U. S., 33, 36, 42–46, 48, 50 Neutrality Act, 43–44, 46, 49 New Republic, The, 58 New World Order, 118–57, 220 New York Herald Tribune, 52 New York Times, 28, 80, 134, 140
Index New Zealand, 124, 153, 178, 191, 202 Newsweek, 80, 103 Nicaragua, 42 Nightline, 2 Nixon, Richard M., 14, 55, 81, 87, 113, 218 no undercut rule, 153, 201 Nolan Commission, 209 Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, 32 Non-Proliferation Program Review Committee, 182 nongovernmental organizations, 128–29, 165–66 Nonproliferation: Center, 183, 196; and Disarmament Fund, 205; Treaty, 150, 165, 174, 176 nonproliferation, 19, 28–29, 119, 126, 128–30, 137–43, 154, 156–57, 162, 165, 170, 175, 180, 182–84, 187, 189–90, 203, 205, 209, 213, 215, 219–20, 224, 266n 78; advocates, nonproliferation), 167, 173, 175, 197, 208, 219 (see also entrepreneurs; of chemical and biological weapons, 123–24; community, 168; export controls, 2, 8, 10, 11–12, 18, 21, 23, 29, 134, 136–37, 155–57, 160, 163, 167, 170, 173, 187, 189, 192, 204, 208, 222–23, 227; incentives, 173–75; legislation, 147; of missiles, 125–26; multilateral, 121–26; NGOs, 165–66; norms, 127, 174, 179, 208, 213–14, 224, 229; nuclear, 121–23, 190; organizations, 27, 129; regimes, 218; regulations, 148; U.S. policy of, 122, 137–43, 143–48, 171, 175, 181, 185, 198, 218, 224 nonstrategic items (see also trade), 93–94, 97 Norton Utilities™, 158, 206 Norway, 4, 68, 72, 97, 112, 124, 149, 153, 202 Novell, 159 NPT. See Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty NSC 68, 80, 88; and export controls, 72–74 (see also National Security Council) NSC 149, 89 NSC 152, 92, 100
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NSC 162, 93, 100, 109 NSC 5704, 116 NSC 20/4, 73 (see also National Security Council) NSC 152/2, 93 NSC 162/2, 93 NSD-70, 125 NSD 26, 131 NSDM-187, 126 Nuclear: Control Institute, 128; Exporters Committee, 122; and Missile Nonproliferation Controls, 190; Non-Proliferation Treaty, 122–23, 165, 174, 176, 178, 204; Nonproliferation Act of 1978 (NNPA), 122; Proliferation Prevention Act, 198; Referral List, 122; Safeguards Agreement, 176; Suppliers Group (NSG), 2, 122–23, 148–49, 150–51, 157, 173, 200, 202–4 nuclear: devices, 123, 133, 153, 205; exports, 122–23, 145, 198; freeze, 128, 219; items, 66, 68, 121, 122, 144, 181, 198, 201, 204, 217; materials, 136, 176, 222; programs, 122; reactors, 123, 176, 178, 198, 215; safeguards, 121, 122–23, 125, 147, 150, 199 (see also IAEA; safeguards); technology (see technologies, nuclear); tests, 123, 224, 230; transfers (see transfers); warfare, 17, 128, 161; waste dumps, 176–77; weapons delivery, 125, 152, 153, 190; weapons (see weapons, nuclear) Nunn, Senator Sam, 135, 141–42, 146–47, 205 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, 179, 205 Nye, Senator Gerald P., 43, 45 Nye Committee, 43 Oberstar, Representatives James, 183 Odom, Lt. General William, 141 OECD. See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OEE (Office of Export Enforcement), 146 Office: of Arms Transfer and Export Control Policy, 182; of Chemical and Biological Nonproliferation, 182; of Conven-
286
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tional Arms Nonproliferation, 182; of Defense Trade Controls, 182, 212; of Economic Security, 189; of Economic Warfare, 47; of Export Control Policy, 182; of Exporter Services, 189; of Foreign Availability, 170; of International Trade (OIT), 56, 69; of Nuclear and Missile Nonproliferation, 182; of Science and Technology Policy, 172; of Trade and Administration, 65 Omnibus: Export Administrations Act, 137, 184; Export Amendments Act of 1990, 153; Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, 120 Operating Committee, 195–96 Organization: of American States, 9; for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 124, 207; for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), 67–69 Osherenko, 22 Ozzie, Ray, 159 Padilla, Chris, 188 Pakistan, 122, 123, 145, 167, 191, 198, 213, 217, 221; -China relations, 144–45, 172, 198, 217, 265n 59; aid to, 121, 167, 197–98, 265n 59; nuclear program in, 144–45, 150, 167, 197, 217, 224 Paraguay, 43 Parisus, Herbert W., 67 Peace: Act, 44, 49; Research Institute of Frankfurt, 165 Pearson, Drew, 14 Pell, Senator Claiborne, 130, 188 Pell measure, 137 Pendergast, Tom, 52 Pepper, Senator Claude, 53 Perle, Richard, 141 Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. See Senate Investigations Subcommittee Perry, William, 164, 177, 194, 205 Persian Gulf. See Gulf War Phillipines, 36 Phillips, Representative John, 62–63, 81 Pierson, Warren Lee, 95 plutonium, 121, 176–78
Poland, 51, 57, 59, 67, 72, 149, 191, 201, 202, 205 policy: -making communities, 27–29; advocates, 128–30; makers, 30, 70, 230 Policy Planning Staff, 64 politics. See domestic politics Polk, President James, 35 Poneman, Daniel, 181, 191–92 Portugal, 38, 68, 76, 149, 153, 202 Positive List of controlled goods, 56, 62, 65, 71, 75 postcommunist countries, 154–55, 187, 205, 208, 220–21 Presidential: Advisory Board on Arms Proliferation Policy, 209; Decision Directive 13, 171, 174; Proclamation 2413, 46 presidential: export control policies, 5–7, 12, 22, 25, 27–29, 91–94, 119, 158–209, 214–19, 222–23, 225, 228–30; grand strategy, 27, 91–94, 119, 126–28, 155, 159, 161, 209, 218, 220, 223, 225, 227, 228–30; powers, 46–47 President's: Committe on Foreign Aid, 61; Export Council, 180 Pressler, Senator Larry, 122, 197–98 Pressler amendment, 122, 167, 198 Priority Board, 40 Proclaimed List of Blocked Nationals, 47 Programme for Promoting Nuclear NonProliferation, 165 prohibition: norms, 13–30, 227; regimes, 148–55 Project: Sapphire, 205; Solarium, 91–93 proliferation, 7, 128, 142, 146, 156, 161, 169, 179, 185, 191, 205, 209, 221–22, 224, 230; of chemical and biological weapons, 123, 160, 217; Chinese, 168, 198–99, 203, 217; controls, 127, 155, 174, 268n 128; end-users (see end-users, proliferation); export control licensing, 128 (see also export licensing; trade licensing); issues, 130, 137; missile, 126, 146, 153, 182, 203–4, 229; nuclear, 126, 150, 160, 178, 203–4; of weapons of mass destruction, 121, 128, 164–65, 167, 182 protectionism, 87, 92, 95
Index Pryor, Senator David, 185 public: choice theory, 17, 25; interest groups, 27; policy, 17, 19–20, 26, 28 Radford, Admiral, 107, 109, 112 Randall, Clarence B., 95, 116 Randall Commission Report on Foreign Economic Policy, 4, 96 Ray, James Lee, 19 Rayburn, Representative Sam, 63 Reagan, President Ronald, 117, 122, 126, 193, 265n 59 Reagan administration, 2–3, 125, 126–27, 128, 130, 146, 217, 228 Record, Jeffrey, 118, 143 Redd, Vice Admiral Scott, 197 Redfield, Secretary of Commerce, 40 Reed, Representative Daniel A., 95–96 regime building, 226–28 (see also export control regimes; nonproliferation regimes) Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee, 190 Reinsch, William, 181, 193 Remmington, Thomas, 56 Renwick, Robin, 9 Republicans, the, 41, 55, 64, 87, 91, 95, 117, 132, 138, 139, 143, 167, 187, 205, 243n 23, 269n 149; as a majority, 187–89 Resources Committee, 61 Revercomb, Senator Chapman, 59, 81, 102 Rhodesia, 9 Richardson, J. David, 3, 163 ring magnets, 198–99, 217 Risse-Kappen, Thomas, 227–28, 230 Robb, Senator Charles, 143 Rockefeller, Nelson A., 47, 87 rogue states, 162, 167–68, 175, 179, 188, 209, 213 Rohrabacher, Representative Dana, 215 Romania, 149, 201, 202 Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano, 43–44 Roosevelt administration, 44, 52 Root, Secretary of State Elihu, 36 Ross, Representative Robert Tripp, 63, 81 Rostenkowski, Senator Dan, 130, 142
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Rostow, Walt, 105 Roth, Representative Toby, 164, 169, 180, 183, 188, 193, 199, 214 Rubin, Barry, 183 Rubin, Robert E., 164 Russell, Senator Richard, 106, 111 Russia, 4, 33, 36, 38, 45, 51, 53, 55–57, 59, 64–67, 89, 97, 149, 150, 161, 168, 201, 202, 203, 212, 220, 222–24, 229–30; U.S. relations, 165; Bolshevik, 40–41; democratization of, 6, 161; expansionism of, 52; export controls on shipments to, 40–42, 61, 64, 75; Nazi invasion of, 51–52; trade with, 40–42, 54–55, 60–63, 83, 95, 96–97, 103–4, 106 (see also trade with Soviet Union) Russian: Federation, 157, 173, 213; Space Agency, 145 Russo-Japanese War of 1904, 36 Ryter, Representative Joseph R., 51, 81 safeguards, 191, 204, 224 (see also IAEA; nuclear safeguards) Safire, William, 141 sanctions, 7, 14–15, 86, 99, 114, 126, 131, 135, 137–38, 144–45, 152, 154, 168, 170, 173, 188, 198, 204, 213; against China, 197–98, 217, 265n 59; economic, 8–9, 25, 32, 131, 133, 135, 138–39, 177; against Iraq, 138–41, 143–44; against North Korea, 177; against Russia, 93 Sarbanes, Senator Paul, 199 Sasser, Senator James, 183–84, 188 satellites, 145, 197, 212; APSTAR, 197; commercial, 172–73, 189, 197, 209, 212, 224; exports of, 172, 207, 215 Saudi Arabia, 125, 134–35, 138, 140 Sawyer, Secretary of Commerce Charles W., 68 Schlesinger, James, 141 Schumpeter, Joseph, 18–19 Schwarzkopf, General Norman, 139 Scientific Atlanta, 2 Scowcroft, National Security Advisor Brent, 138, 140–41 Second: Decontrol Act of 1947, 52, 70; Hague Peace Conference, 36
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security: economic, 119, 162; international, 7, 9, 168, 193; military, 119, 219, 222, 228–29; regional, 9, 168; U.S. (see U.S., security interests); Western, 56 Security List Working Group, 96 Senate Resolutions: 195, 132, 137; 320, 147; 678, 139–40 Senate (see also U.S. Senate): Armed Services Committee, 67, 106, 141, 142, 186–87, 194; Banking Committee, 120, 146, 183–84, 186, 188; Committee on Expenditures, 66; Committee on Governmental Affairs, 185; Foreign Relations Committee, 43–44, 57–58, 65, 114, 133, 135–36, 186, 188; International Finance and Monetary Policy, 120, 199; Investigations Subcommittee, 13, 66, 69, 110, 112; Joint Resolution 2, 143 Serbia, 157 Shanghai Aviation Industrial Corporation, 212 Sheen, Bishop Fulton J., 218 Shelby, Senator Richard, 143 SHIELD, 195, 196 Shumann, Maurice, 98 Silicon: Graphics, 171, 192; Valley, 171 Simon Wiesenthal Center, the, 2 Simpson, Representative Richard H., 95–96 Simpson, Senator Alan, 133 Singapore, 74, 114, 230 Siverson, Randolph, 16 slavery, 19–20 Slovakia, 191, 201, 202 Slovenia, 191 Smith, Adam, 35 Smith, Representative Lawrence H., 57, 81, 102 Smith, Secretary of State Robert, 32 Smith, Senator H. Alexander, 100 SNEC, 196 software (see also computers; data encryption; encryption), 158–59; exports, 159; U.S. companies, 185 Solarz, Representative Stephen J., 3, 122, 141, 142 Solarz amendment, 122
Somalia, 9, 220 South Africa, 9, 123, 145, 150, 202, 203, 204, 205 Soviet: -Nazi pact, 85; Nuclear Threat Reduction Act, 147; Purchasing Commission, 55 Soviet bloc, 56, 70, 72, 75, 77, 85–86, 89–93, 95, 97, 98, 160, 221; exports to the, 100, 109–111, 114; trade with, 76, 91, 93, 104, 106–8, 110, 116–17 Soviet Union, 4–5, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18, 46, 50, 52, 54, 58–59, 61–64, 70, 72–74, 79, 81–83, 88, 91, 93, 100, 104, 109, 120, 121, 122, 125, 128, 136, 147, 159, 176, 213, 217–18, 228, 235n 27; -U. S. relations, 54, 56, 73, 80, 105; collapse of the, 119–20, 150, 214; communism, 6, 220 (see also communism; communist countries); embargo on, 81, 98–101; expansion into Eastern Europe, Eastern), 4, 52, 60, 72–73 (see also communist countries; Europe; exports to, 98, 104, 170; former, 147, 153, 155, 161, 164, 170, 173, 191–92, 205–6, 212–13, 221; government, 42, 73; invasion of Afghanistan, 7, 121; leaders of, 54, 104, 106; military, 6, 53–55, 93, 95, 106, 205; military threat, 90–4, 120–21, 159; nuclear program, 71–73; space agency Glavkosmos, 145; trade with, 18, 62, 64, 69, 72–75, 82–83, 90, 94, 97, 100, 104, 112, 116–17(see also Russia; trade) Soviets, the, 4, 42, 50, 54, 57, 59, 60–61, 65, 68, 72–74, 77, 82, 85, 87, 92, 94, 99, 104–8, 110, 113, 116, 121, 127, 134, 218, 220–21, 223 Spain, 8, 36, 39, 44, 125, 149, 150, 202 Spanish-American War, 49 Special Senate Committee, 43 Specter, Senator Arlen, 197 Spector, Leonard, 128 Spence, Representative Floyd, 188, 210 St. George, Representative Katherine, 63, 81 Stalin, Joseph, 6, 52–53, 59, 67, 85 Stamp Act, the, 32 START I, 200
Index Stassen, Governor Harold, 14, 53, 66, 85–87, 89, 96, 98–99, 101, 104–6, 108, 111 State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, 56 Statutory List, 37–38 Steinbruner, John D., 25, 164, 169 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 165 Strange, Susan, 6 Strategic Defense Initiative, 175 strategic materials, 67, 75, 90 Subgroup on Nuclear Export Controls, 134, 185, 195 Sudan, 168 Sun Microsystems, 170 supercomputers, 134, 142, 153–54, 171, 173, 192, 194, 212, 224 Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), 74, 76 Sutton, Anthony, 10 Sweden, 45, 68–69, 71–72, 121, 149, 152, 153, 202 Switzerland, 39, 45, 68–69, 72, 124, 149, 150, 153, 202 Symington, Senator Stuart, 14, 102, 111, 113–15, 121 Symington amendment, the, 121 Syria, 104, 130, 137, 145–46, 151, 157, 168 Taber, Representative John, 58, 62, 81 Taft, Senator Robert, 13, 62, 81, 87, 94, 102, 104 Taiwan, 74, 123, 125, 155, 170, 206, 215 tariffs, 35, 41, 85, 86 Taylor, Senator Glen, 53 Technical Advisory Committees, 134 technologies, 64, 93; commercial, 10; computer, 153; critical, 119; dual-use (see dual-use items); encryption, 197, 206; engine, 189; exports, 168, 189; high, 119, 127, 162–63, 168, 189, 209; "hotsection" engine, 209; military, 10, 174, 203, 221; missile, 125–26, 145, 203; nuclear, 198; satellite, 197, 212; sensitive, 8, 164, 167, 193, 197, 221; space,
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289
125–26, 203; transfer of, 34, 48, 82, 113, 119, 125–26, 145, 162, 167, 193, 212; U.S., 119, 156; weapons, 34; Western, 155 Tektronix, 2 telecommunications, 174, 192–93, 216 terrorism, 7, 144, 167–68, 203, 219 Thorneycroft, Peter, 98, 104 Tier I items, 181 Tier II items, 181 Timmerman, Ken, 167, 170 Townshend Acts, the, 32 Trade: Agreements Act, 103; Policy Coordinating Committee, 4, 174; Promotion Coordinating Committee, 170–72, 180–81, 187, 190–91, 214, 222 trade, 4, 8, 24, 32, 35, 42, 44, 47, 64, 74, 76, 80, 84–85, 86–93, 101, 105, 107, 113, 124, 144, 223; agreements, 104, 170; and aid, 103–8; barriers, 85–86, 93; Chinese foreign, 14, 89, 168, 193–94; with communist countries, 13–15, 61, 84–85, 89, 96, 219, 221, 257n 83; controls, 90, 95, 98, 101–3, 106–8, 116, 147, 155, 201, 257n 83; East European, 55, 69, 84–85, 97; EastWest, 3–4, 66, 80, 82, 85–86, 89, 92, 94–97, 106–9, 111–13, 116–17, 163, 174; embargoes (see embargoes); European, 66, 84–85; free, 17, 35, 42, 78, 87, 103, 105–6, 161, 188, 221; hightech, 119, 198; international, 17, 20, 161, 221; with Latin America, 48; liberalization, 23, 104, 106–8, 112–13, 154, 161, 171, 191 (see also export controls); licenses, 108, 170 (see also export licensing); nonstrategic, 84–85, 93, 96–99, 106–8; policies, 17, 41, 86, 109, 180, 216; restrictions, trade restrictions), 20, 33, 41, 43, 80, 162 (see also U. S.; strategic, 84, 96, 108, 110–11, 114, 173; U.S., 7, 11, 15, 34–36, 224; U.S.-Russia, 40–42, 54–55, 60–63, 82; U.S.-Soviet Union, 18, 62, 64, 69, 72–75, 82–83, 90, 169 Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), 37, 39, 47, 49, 56
290
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Trans World Airlines, 95 Transcaucusus, the, 220 transfers: arms, 182, 200–1, 218; of dualuse items, 2, 48, 145, 167, 197, 200–1; of missiles, 173, 197; of munitions, 145–46; of nuclear items, 144, 170, 197, 201; of technology, 34, 48, 82, 113, 119, 125–26, 145, 162, 167, 193, 212 transparency, 201, 205, 228 treaties, 35, 42, 121, 150, 165, 174, 179, 203–4, 208, 215 Treaty: on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 121, 150; Plan of 1776, 35 Trieste, 57, 85 trigger list controls, 204 Truman, President Harry S., 5, 6, 10, 19, 22, 26, 52–53, 57–61, 65, 67, 73, 77–78, 101, 103, 214, 218–20 Truman administration, 4–5, 11, 16–17, 29, 50, 51–83, 88–89, 91, 103, 213, 217–18, 220–21, 223–25 Truman Doctrine, the, 11, 60, 64, 80, 87, 116; and export controls, 55–60 Tsebelis, George, 9 Tucker, Robert, 136 Turkey, 11, 58–59, 66, 68, 112, 152 TWEA. See Trading With the Enemy Act U. S. News and World Reports, 60–61 Ukraine, 59, 178, 201, 202 Unisys, 170 United Nations, 1, 16, 53, 55, 73, 76, 82, 104, 127, 135, 138, 171, 180, 220; coalition against Iraq, 156–57; General Assembly, 171; Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), 56–57, 59; Security Council, 9, 53, 134, 139, 155; Special Commission on Disarmament (see UNSCOM) UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission on Disarmament), 1; inspection system, 1, 143 uranium enrichment, 121, 123, 150, 176, 197, 205 U.S., 4, 6, 8–10, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, 29–30, 33, 35–46, 51, 52, 57–58, 60, 62, 64, 66–69, 71–72, 74–76, 78–79, 80, 82,
84, 87, 89–90, 92–96, 98, 100–1, 103, 105–7, 109–110, 112, 114–16, 119, 121, 123–24, 125–26, 130, 134, 138, 144, 147, 149, 150, 151, 155–56, 159–60, 170, 172–75, 184, 190, 198, 201, 202, 204, 208–9, 212–15, 218–19, 222, 224–26, 228, 230; -China relations, 145, 214–16; -Japanese relations, 109; -North Korean relations, 178; Russia relations, 165; -Soviet relations, 16, 54, 56, 73, 80, 105, 214; allies, 13–14, 68, 74–75, 77, 79, 84, 85–86, 90–91, 92–93, 102–4, 108, 111, 114, 127, 226; Army, 119; Chamber of Commerce, 62, 148, 163; commercial interests, 103, 160, 168; companies (see companies, U. S.); Congress, 2, 10, 14, 15–17, 23, 25, 27–29, 32, 35, 38–39, 41, 44, 46–47, 49, 55, 56–58, 60–62, 64–68, 70, 71, 79–80, 82, 86, 90–91, 92, 94, 96, 101–4, 105, 109, 111–14, 117, 121, 126–27, 130–31, 135–37, 138–39, 148, 155–56, 159, 162, 163, 165, 167–68, 182, 185, 189, 194, 198–200, 205, 208–9, 210, 213, 214, 222, 224–25, 227, 230; Council of International Chambers of Commerce, 95; Customs, 134, 191, 213; Defense Intelligence Agency, 136; defense spending, 88–89; Deparment of the Interior, 44, 70; Department of Agriculture, 38, 47, 70; Department of Commerce, 3, 29, 38, 43, 52, 56, 61, 65–66, 69–71, 78, 90, 96, 101, 108, 120, 121, 124, 126, 128, 130, 133–34, 137, 144, 146, 151, 180–86, 189, 191, 193–96, 199, 206–8, 211–12, 269n 149; Department of Defense, 3, 29, 70, 107, 112, 120, 128, 137, 144, 147, 164, 174–75, 180, 182–86, 189, 191, 194–96, 208–9, 212, 225, 254n 2; Department of Energy, 3, 29, 180, 182, 184–85, 191, 196, 213; Department of Justice, 67, 207; Department of Labor, 172; Department of Navy, 43; Department of State, 3, 14, 29, 38, 43–44, 47–48, 52, 59, 61, 64–68, 70, 85, 97, 114, 120, 128, 131,
Notes 133–34, 145–46, 151, 167, 170, 172, 174–75, 180–81, 183–86, 189, 191, 194, 196–97, 206, 208, 212–13; Department of Treasury, 43, 47, 56, 70, 112; Department of War, 43, 52; domestic politics (see domestic politics); economic interests, U.S.), 172, 194 (see also economy; economy (see economy, U. S.); Embassy in Iran, 7; export control policies, 7–10, 30, 33, 64, 70, 83, 84–86, 91, 94, 97, 98, 101–2, 104, 112, 119, 123, 126–28, 134, 137, 141–42, 146, 162, 169, 173, 184, 187, 198, 208, 212–15, 217–18, 223, 226; export controls, 1–12, 14, 38, 50, 64–69, 81, 99, 107, 120, 121–26, 133, 140, 143–48, 162–63, 192, 198–99, 204, 208, 210, 214, 217–18, 222–23, 227–28; ExportImport Bank credits, 131; exporters, 37, 46, 48, 49, 68, 90, 162; exports, 18, 32, 37–38, 40, 50, 69, 119, 146, 161–64, 213; Food Administration, 38; foreign aid, 57–62, 64–65, 77–78, 90, 93, 95, 103–9, 111–14, 122, 133, 146, 198, 220; foreign policy, 6, 8, 14–16, 22, 25, 27, 33, 35, 38, 52, 54, 60, 71, 73, 86–87, 93, 104–5, 115, 119, 126, 134–37, 161, 187, 196, 217–27; goods, 52, 53, 68; government, 13, 28, 32, 35, 36, 39–40, 46–48, 52, 65, 78, 101, 127, 134, 145, 159, 182, 211–12, 216, 227; grand strategy, 45, 53–55, 64, 80, 91, 119–20, 122, 126, 134–37, 156, 213; and Gulf War, 138–43 (see also Desert Shield; Desert Storm; Gulf War); House of Representatives, 28, 41, 60, 66–68, 77, 81, 104, 113, 115, 120, 131–32, 137, 167, 184, 186–87; industries, U.S.), 4, 53, 120, 160, 163, 168, 185 (see also companies; Information Agency, 86; initiatives, 148–55; interests, 6, 130–31, 137, 172, 194, 205, 217; law, 14, 66, 172, 184; lists (see lists); Master Export Security List, 96; military, 54, 77, 88–89, 92, 134, 138, 164, 171, 175, 220; Munitions Lists, 186; Navy, 18, 33; neutrality (see neutrality, U.S.); nonproliferation export controls, 11–12 (see
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291
also export controls; nonproliferation); officials, 39–40, 46, 48, 71, 76, 78; policies, 6, 15–18, 22, 39, 54, 105, 108, 135, 142, 155, 161, 174, 226–27; Russian Bureau, 41; security interests, 7–8, 15, 66, 71, 73–74, 89, 94, 99, 126–28, 137, 159–67, 171, 183–84, 187, 190, 196, 217, 220, 229; Senate, 28, 42, 65–66, 78–79, 81, 95, 102, 105, 131, 137, 147, 165, 167, 170, 181, 184, 186, 188, 199, 225 (see also Senate); shipping, 32, 37; Shipping Board, 38; space industry, 125–26; Supreme Court, 15, 36; trade policy, 15, 34–36, 66, 85–86, 96, 109, 161, 209, 213, 216; Trade Representative, 172; trade restrictions, 11, 82, 84–85, 213, 228; trade sanctions, 7 (see also sanctions); troops, 138–43, 223 (see also Bosnia; Gulf War); war production, 48 Van Evera, Stephen, 6 Vandenberg, Senator Arthur H., 43, 57–59, 64, 66 Vasquez, John, 24 verification, 78, 154; delivery, 154; postshipment, 185, 191, 211–12 Vernon, Raymond, 85 Versailles Treaty, 42 Victory-over-Japan (V-J) day, 59 Vietnam, 191; export controls on, 116 Viner, Jacob, 229 Wadsworth, Senator James, 41 Walker, Senator Hiram, 100, 102 Wallace, Secretary of Commerce Henry A., 52–53, 54, 56, 58, 235n 27 Wallerstein, Mitchell, 165 Walls, Michael, 148 War: Assets Administration, 67; Trade Board, 39–41; Trade Lists, 48 war: chemical, 123; global, 89, 98; nuclear (see nuclear warfare) Warsaw: Treaty Organization, 147; uprising, 52 Washington Post, 14 Washington Times, 193 Wassenaar Arrangement, the, 194, 200–2, 204, 208, 226
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Watch List, 79 weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 2, 7, 11, 18, 128–29, 130, 134, 137, 138, 141–42, 152–53, 157, 164, 170, 175, 182, 205, 212, 217, 224, 229; proliferation of, 121, 128, 167, 190, 209, 219–20, 222 weapons (see also arms), 3, 37, 49, 144, 205; biological, 123–24, 140, 144, 151–52, 175, 203, 217; chemical, 44, 118–19, 123–24, 127–28, 131–32, 136–37, 140, 144, 151–52, 170, 175, 203, 217; components, 133; conventional, 18, 175, 200, 221; export controls on, 42, 213; lists, 46; nuclear, 73, 121–23, 125, 136, 140–41, 150, 153, 176–77, 204–5, 212, 230, 266n 89; production and sales, 45, 48, 110; programs, 126; sales, 134, 174, 201; systems, 7, 10; technology, 34; trade, 85; transfers, 74, 201, 218 Webster, William, 141 Weeks, Commerce Secretary Sinclair, 99, 106, 110, 112–13 Welch Larson, Deborah, 82 Welchels, Representative Alvin F., 61, 81 Weldon, Representative Curt, 199 Wells, Sumner, 52 Western: alliance, 111, 113; countries, 4, 61, 71, 74–75, 79, 100; economies, 136; Hemisphere, 45, 49, 92; oil supplies, 135, 140 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 214 Wherry, Senator Kenneth S., 59–60, 66, 75, 77–78, 81, 102
Wherry amendment, 77 White List, 39 Wightman, David, 97 Williams, John H., 110 Wilson, Charles, 84, 90, 99–100, 106, 109, 112, 223 Wilson, James Q., 17–18 Wilson, President Woodrow, 37–38, 40–41 Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, 2, 128 WMD. See weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense, 134 Wolverton, Representative Charles A., 56, 63, 81 Woolsey, L. H., 38 Working Group on Conditions of Supply, 204 Workman, Williard, 148, 183 World: Bank, 95; Trade Organization, 95 World War I, 33, 42, 45, 46, 47, 213; export controls during, 36–40 World War II, 16, 33, 62, 78, 220, 235n 27; export controls during, 46–50 Wyden, Ron, 184 Yalta agreements, 52, 85 Yearbook of Institutions, 27 Yeltsin, President Boris, 155, 173 Young, Oran, 19, 22 Yugoslavia, 8–9, 57, 59, 113 Zangger Committee, 122–2