How national security considerations affect technology transfer

Abstract

The transfer of United States high technology to the Soviet Union shows that, contrary to many assumptions, international transfer of technology can heighten national rivalries and increase military tensions. Many advanced technologies have important military applications. The Soviet Union has acquired much such technology from the west and then has used it to strengthen Soviet military capabilities vis-a-vis the west. This approach to international technology transfer supports general Soviet priorities in science and technology, which emphasize military power rather than international commercial competitiveness or domestic social welfare. The United States and its allies have responded by sharing militarily applicable technology among themselves while denying its export to the Soviet bloc. As of September 1988, neither the Soviet policy of glasnost nor progress in the US-USSR arms control negotiations seems to have changed the primarily military bent of Soviet policy on technology transfer.