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of the policy, by uncertainty over the military relevance of some "dual use" 

 technologies, by sharp differences of view within the American Government, by 

 differences of philosophy over the value of denial in terms of its actual 

 effects, and by differences with industry over enforcement policy. 



There is little question about the importance of embargoing specific 

 advanced military technology. Moving from technology with direct military 

 applications, however, quickly leads to gray areas, with uncertainty over 

 military relevance, over availability from uncontrolled sources, or even of 

 whether denial is in Western interests. For example, is it in support of or 

 opposed to Western interests to enable the Soviet Union to improve its ability 

 to explore and recover its vast oil deposits? 



Many more specifically technological questions arise, however: how is 

 technology actually transferred and adopted? What is the real potential of 

 diverting a piece of hardware from a "peaceful" to a "military" application? 

 And what actual difference would it make? Is reverse engineering of a piece 

 of equipment possible? At what cost? On what time scale? How long will it 

 take for a particular technology to be developed independently? 



All too often, the debate over technology export controls is characterized 

 not only by unreality in political terms, as though it is simple to control 

 the movement of technological information, but also by lack of understanding 

 of technological realities. The importance of the issue, and its potential 

 for damaging the West politically and economically, will require effective 

 integration of the scientific and technological aspects in the policy debates. 



