Book contents
- Frontmatter
- POLITICS: Détente and Multipolarity: The Cold War and German-American Relations, 1968-1990
- SECURITY: German-American Security Relations, 1968-1990
- 1 A Limit to Solidarity-Germany, the United States, and the Vietnam War
- 2 NATO Strategy and the German-American Relationship
- 3 Differences on Arms Control in German-American Relations
- 4 The NATO Double-Track Decision, the INF Treaty, and the SNF Controversy - German-American Relations between Consensus and Conflict
- 5 The Shifting Military Balance in Central Europe
- 6 The Transfer of American Military Technology to Germany
- 7 German-American Intelligence Relations: An Ambivalent Partnership
- 8 No Unity Without Security: The Security Features of German Unification
- ECONOMICS: Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict: Economic Relations Between the United States and Germany, 1968-1990
- CULTURE: Culture as an Arena of Transatlantic Conflict
- SOCIETY: German-American Societal Relations in Three Dimensions, 1968-1990
- 1 “1968”: A Transatlantic Event and Its Consequences
- OUTLOOK: America, Germany, and the Atlantic Community After the Cold War
- Index
6 - The Transfer of American Military Technology to Germany
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- POLITICS: Détente and Multipolarity: The Cold War and German-American Relations, 1968-1990
- SECURITY: German-American Security Relations, 1968-1990
- 1 A Limit to Solidarity-Germany, the United States, and the Vietnam War
- 2 NATO Strategy and the German-American Relationship
- 3 Differences on Arms Control in German-American Relations
- 4 The NATO Double-Track Decision, the INF Treaty, and the SNF Controversy - German-American Relations between Consensus and Conflict
- 5 The Shifting Military Balance in Central Europe
- 6 The Transfer of American Military Technology to Germany
- 7 German-American Intelligence Relations: An Ambivalent Partnership
- 8 No Unity Without Security: The Security Features of German Unification
- ECONOMICS: Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict: Economic Relations Between the United States and Germany, 1968-1990
- CULTURE: Culture as an Arena of Transatlantic Conflict
- SOCIETY: German-American Societal Relations in Three Dimensions, 1968-1990
- 1 “1968”: A Transatlantic Event and Its Consequences
- OUTLOOK: America, Germany, and the Atlantic Community After the Cold War
- Index
Summary
Translated by Tradukas
The exchange of technical knowledge was a prerequisite for reviving the West European economies and establishing a military counterweight to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The economic stabilization of Western Europe reduced its susceptibility to communist overtures; making qualitatively superior weaponry available helped to contain the Soviet Union militarily by compensating for the Warsaw Pact's greater number of forces. Political and military containment of Soviet power nonetheless gave rise to contradictory demands on technology transfer policy and transfer control policy. The economy would have profited most from unrestricted technology transfer. But the qualitative superiority of Western weaponry could only be maintained in the long run by restricting technology transfer so that the Warsaw Pact would not be able to utilize Western know-how for its own weapons programs, for example by importing Western high-technology civilian goods. The development of U.S.-German technology transfer reflected these varied and sometimes conflicting political and military requirements.
Technology is defined here as knowledge about scientifically based processes, mainly technical, for the manufacture of goods. It is assumed that property rights can be exerted over technologies - that technologies are goods like any other. Patent protection, which bestows property rights for a limited period, was introduced to provide an incentive for the development of new technologies. Patent owners thus have rights over the transfer of “their” technology. Secrecy is another tool to exclude others from exploiting new knowledge.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1990A Handbook, pp. 163 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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