Conclusion

Abstract

During the Bush administration, the American export control system was refocused away from controlling the transfer of sensitive goods and technology to the Communist bloc towards controlling the spread of WMD- and ballistic missile-related components, technology and technical knowledge in the developing world. A particular emphasis was placed on strengthening controls on items that could contribute to missile and chemical weapons proliferation. In the missile field, this focused on rectifying problems that had become apparent with US policy for restricting proliferation through the MTCR. These problems included the lax enforcement of the guidelines by several member states, bureaucratic and systemic problems in Washington regarding the implementation of US policy in conjunction with the MTCR, and the regime’s failure to address the proliferation activities of certain non-regime suppliers of missile technology. In part, these problems reflected the origins of the MTCR as a product of a US policy designed to address a Cold War problem; American and Soviet competition for influence in the developing world had initiated and sustained the missile proliferation phenomenon from the 1950s until the late 1980s. Moreover, the United States began negotiating the MTCR with its G-7 industrialised allies in the early 1980s, a period characterised by President Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’ speech and his announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), both of which were directed against the Soviet Union.