East-West Trade and the Cold War (review)

The fall of the Berlin Wall opened not only Eastern European borders but also archives previously inaccessible to western scholars. The result is a growing body of revisionist literature on the origin, evolution, and end of the Cold War (e.g., John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know, 1997). Most literature on the Cold War era still concerns political and military history. Broader perspectives include social relations, and art and culture, although only touching economic relations (e.g., Toy Judd, Postwar, 2005). This volume on East–West trade relations focuses primarily on economic warfare, the roles of international organizations during the Cold War period, and the economic significance of the trade. According to some scholars, the United States controlled the East–West trade and Western European countries accepted American dominance and cooperated. Recent research (e.g., Alan Dobson) refutes this interpretation and instead argues that Western European countries were able to influence and moderate U.S. policy. The contributions in this volume attempt to analyze the nature of the relationship between the United States and Western European countries during the Cold War. Special attention is paid to the often neglected history of neutral countries and smaller states.

The volume is divided into three parts. The first part contains two contributions: an introduction by the editors and a chapter by Alan Dobson on economic policies and different instruments of statecraft, particularly economic warfare. The second part contains eight case histories on different countries: the Soviet Union, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, and the United Kingdom. In the final part, Alan Milward offers some perspectives on economic warfare and its relative success or failure to force different historical outcomes.

From December 1947, the United States imposed restrictions on trade with Eastern European countries. This, however, affected Western European countries more than the United States because of their larger trade volume in the prewar period. In some cases, Eastern European countries supplied essential raw materials. Western European countries were thus eager to restore relations as quickly as possible in an attempt to improve their economies. However, as the Cold War intensified, the United States pressed for further trade restrictions, particularly "strategic goods" (eventually including Chinese hog bristles and Bakelite). European countries mostly complied because the United States offered Marshall Aid as compensation. However, these trade restrictions had an unanticipated effect: European industrial exports to the United States increased sharply, and U.S. companies faced strong competition from European companies.

From January 1950, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), consisting of the United States and Western European countries, regulated East–West trade. An extensive list of 167 embargoed items, later amended to 450 items, left little room for trade. However, as the case studies in this volume demonstrate, each country tried, much to the chagrin of the United States, to expand its trade with Eastern European countries. "Neutral countries" such as Switzerland and Sweden were better positioned to pursue their own policy than the United Kingdom or other Western European countries. The Finnish position was almost impossible. Economically, it depended strongly on the Soviet Union, especially the shipbuilding industry, machine building, and paper industry. On the contrary, the United States wanted to keep Finland in the Western political sphere, and, therefore, in times of crisis, it offered financial aid.

From 1957, after the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC), Western European countries were able to defend their interest vis-à-vis the United States much better. The first major confrontation happened during the Kennedy Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations (1964–1967). In her article on Poland's accession to GATT, Lucia Coppolaro explains the different views and positions held by the EEC members and the United States regarding Poland's rather unusual request. Although both parties welcomed Polish interests in the GATT, in an attempt to weaken Soviet influence, the EEC objected a full member status to Poland because it would allow Polish...