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La Grande Fauche: La Fuite des Technologies verl'Est

(English title: Gorbachev's TechnologyWars)

by KennethR. Timmerman

Click here to readbiographical information

 

Introduction

The Soviet Union has always been stealing secrets from the West.But over the past ten years, Soviet-inspired high tech smugglingrings have become so effective that the Pentagon estimates they havehelped the USSR save billions of dollars in research and developmentwork. The fruits of their campaign to beg, borrow or steal the bestthe West can offer in high technology can be found in nearly everymajor Soviet military program. Ballistic missiles, tanks, nuclearsubmarines, jet fighters and anti-aircraft missiles: all owe a largepart of their deadly might to technological secrets stolen from theWest. At times, new weapons systems have been designed onWestern-built computers, crafted with Western-built machine-tools,and tested with software designed to run to Pentagon specifications.Entire factories have been procured through parallel networks,especially for the production of embargoed high-quality computerchips.

The thirst of the Soviet military for Western high tech hasreceived substantial publicity over the past few years from bothwithin the Reagan administration and without. The word "technobandit"has become a household term. And yet, the high tech rings continue tospread, like a virus feeding off of capitalist greed.

New smuggling rings, which will be exposed in this book, havesprung up in the past few years in France, West Germany, Sweden, andGreat Britain. Major companies have consciously violated COCOM rulesin a dozen more countries, including the United States. In recentmonths, Western governments belonging to COCOM have been seeking alarge number of national "exceptions" to the rules, on the pretextthat the USSR is managing to obtain the same technology elsewhere,especially in the Far East.

With the election of President Bush, many U.S. officialspreviously involved in the struggle to maintain the West's hightechnology lead over the USSR are preparing to throw in the towel.Trade wars among Western Allies seem to have taken precedence overthe Technology War with the USSR.

But despite Gorbachev's smiles and the siren songs of perestroikaand glasnost, the USSR is becoming increasingly backward. Forinstance, this text is being written on a Macintosh computer with 1MB of live memory, available from any serious computer retail storein the West. But thanks to its economic deficiencies, the SovietUnion is still incapable of manufacturing a personal computer withone-tenth the memory capacity. And the KGB has recently made itillegal for Soviet citizens to possess a personal computer and aprinter at the same time.

"Computers are the future," says Under Secretary of Commerce PaulFreedenberg, "and the Soviets are a good ten years behind." This iswhy Soviet high tech rings continue to focus on micro-electronicsmanufacturing technology.

And they are stealing everything. A pair of Polish brothers fliesback and forth between California, Stockholm, and the Eastern blockwith their suitcases full of computer chips and circuit boards. AFrench physicist contracts with a Soviet Foreign Trade Organizationto set up a bubble memory production line in the USSR. A U.S.machine-tool maker tries to undercut European competitors in sellingembargoed milling machines to Soviet military factories. And ofcourse, a Japanese trading company sells machine-tools with Norwegiancomputers which allow Soviet shipyards to build quieter nuclearsubmarines. The Toshiba/Kongsberg case, revealed in 1987, led to afierce public debate over COCOM and its desirability which has yet tomake its final effects felt.

These are some of the stories which will be told in this book in ajournalistic style, by a professional journalist. Written for thenon-specialist, with detailed notes for interested readers,Technology Wars portrays men and their motivations; but also thesecret mechanisms at work behind their actions, and the Soviet agentswhose primary job is to run the COCOM embargo. It includes extensivenew reporting on the Toshiba/Kongsberg affair, and a host of newercases which will be making tomorrow's headlines.