Security: Why Germany Built and Led Europe’s Export Control Regime

Abstract

The export of sensitive technology exposes the age-old national policy conflict between the pursuit of security and the pursuit of wealth. The production of ‘dual-use’ technologies — civilian technologies that also have military significance — continues to rise dramatically. Private corporations are the developers of high technologies, and innovation carries with it proprietary rights. Even when firms develop new products and processes under defense contracts, they produce with an eye to commercial markets. Strict government technology controls obstruct diffusion of the latest techniques and products and thus frustrate corporate efforts to successfully compete for markets and thus inhibit national competitiveness in the global economy. The logic of political judgments with regard to export control often contradicts the steady dynamic of market expansion on which the competitiveness of high-technology firms depend (Crawford, 1993).