Security Export Controls and Military Assistance

Abstract

The Cold War, together with the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, prompted the creation of a comprehensive American export control system which was to be used by the United States against the Soviet Union and China in the pursuit of a long-term strategy of containment. The Marshall Plan and the Mutual Security Programme provided the United States with the necessary tools to seek extension of the application of its domestic export control policy to its North Atlantic allies. The Western European North Atlantic Treaty states faced numerous problems associated with East-West trade and security export controls in the late 1940s and early 1950s, problems which were a manifestation of the willingness of the US to use both multilateral and unilateral controls to pursue short and long-term objectives. For Britain the problems were particularly acute. In the early post-war years its grave economic position, traditional trading links with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and differing interpretation of the strategic embargo, posed increasing diplomatic difficulties in its relations with its North Atlantic ally. Dependence on American aid, combined with Britain’s close political relationship with the United States, dictated a position of public acquiescence but private diplomatic resistance to an American policy of economic warfare.