More than ten years after the symbolic end of the
cold war—the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989—the
United States and its allies are still sorting out
which foreign policy issues have become obsolete and
which endure. With American products at the leading edge
of technology’s advancing wave, the questions raised by
exports of sensitive technology have never been more
important. Yet we continue to address the issues surrounding
the control of high-tech exports with little regard to the
differences in the pace of technological change and the
extent of globalization that separate 2001 and 1989. Policies
that were invaluable during the cold war have been continued
as a result of inertia but to no useful end. This is a mistake.
Radical change is needed.