Weapons of Mass Destruction: Cold War Lessons for a New World Order
Abstract
The end of the Cold War reduced the threat of a nuclear war between the superpowers. However, global relief quickly gave way to concern over a new if less dramatic danger: the tinder box of potentially explosive regional conflicts resulting from the uncontrolled spread of weapons and delivery systems of mass destruction, particularly in the developing world. A number of mechanisms have been established to handle specific technologies related to weapons of mass destruction, and especially to the spread of nonconventional weapons. They form, at best, a patchwork of controls rather than a cohesive framework. In particular, the new arrangements do not fully address the difficult area of transfer of dual-use technologies that may be necessary to produce and support these weapons systems. The Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) has over 40 years' experience in attempting to slow the flow of dual-use technology to the former Soviet Union and its allies. Although COCOM was designed and used as a Cold War instrument to control militarily sensitive East-West trade and never as a nonproliferation regime, the COCOM experience can still provide valuable insights into the problems associated with any North-South technology transfer control mechanism. Lessons learned from COCOM include the importance of correctly assessing an item's "controllability," the difficulties in maintaining controls as production sources spread, the problems of third country player sensitivities, and the inevitable need to factor legitimate commercial considerations into the final equation. These COCOM lessons highlight the difficult problems associated with controlling trade in dual-use sensitive technologies. Equally important, they underline the limited objectives that could reasonably be associated with any North-South export control regime established to limit such trade.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 13, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA437704
Entities
People
- Diana M. Dameron
Organizations
- National War College