The Strategic Trade Embargoes: Sense or Nonsense
Strange, Susan. “The Strategic Trade Embargoes: Sense or Nonsense.” In Year Book of World Affairs 1958, edited by George W. Keeton, Georg Schwarzenberger, 55-73. London: Stevens, 1958.
Strange argues that the policy of strategic trade embargoes, a central plank of American cold war policy, should be reassessed in light of the launch of Sputnik and Britain’s decision to part from the US on an embargo on trade with China. If as she suggests that post-Suez resentment towards America prompted the British relaxation of the embargo on China than surely this policy really played no real strategic role. Neither did it restrict Russian technological advance (as had been hoped), as Sputnik had shown. This leads to Strange to review the policy, as set out in the Battle Act as well as the political psychology underlying it, before arguing that it should be dispensed with, at has proved neither particularly useful not effective.
Keywords: Knowledge; Trade; Technology; Knowledge Production