The Crumbling Embargo? Evidence of OECD Cohesiveness from the Composition of Manufactured Exports to the USSR

The decade of the 1980s witnessed an embarassing display of economic impotence as the US failed in its efforts to apply an effective embargo on multinational pipeline machinery exports to the USSR. Such impotence merely highlighted the apparent breakdown of the multinational embargo begun with the establishment of the Coordinating Committee in 1949. The 1960s saw a rapidly growing trade in machinery between the Soviet bloc and US allies, while the US maintained stricter unilateral export controls. By 1969, the US had entered a period of detente, and trade with the Soviets rapidly expanded. This trend was reversed in the 1980s. The present study analyzes the evolution of the multinational embargo and the patterns of East-West machinery trade to provide an historical perspective on recent developments. An analysis of exports to the USSR strongly indicates that the post-Afghanistan period of the early 1980s was one of close and effective coordination and cooperation among Western allies. This conclusion is found to be particularly true of machinery categories with relatively high levels of embodied research and development.