Export Controls and the Junction of Economics and National Security: A Review Article

Abstract

Mario Daniels and John Krige's Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America is a detailed history of the U.S. use of export controls and domestic debates over that use. Their account describes how issues of trade and commerce increasingly have been viewed in terms of security. Their history, which ends in 2020, does not directly address the current use of export controls and other measures to restrict the transfer of knowledge but is highly relevant to issues surrounding that use. Such controls represent a retreat from globalization and raise questions about their economic costs to the United States, their ultimate political impact on the targeted country, and their consequences for scientific inquiry.