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C00002 00002	%soviet[f88,jmc]	Terms for Soviet access to Western computer technology
C00017 00003	\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1988 by John McCarthy}
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%soviet[f88,jmc]	Terms for Soviet access to Western computer technology
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\title{TERMS FOR SOVIET ACCESS TO WESTERN COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY}

	The object of this essay is to suggest that the United
States and its allies undertake to set terms for substantially
increased Soviet access to Western computer and other electronic
technology.  We will also have to sell the Soviets on changing
their ways of importing technology and on the advantages of paying
the price we ask.

	Here are some considerations.

	1. The Soviets are far behind in these areas.  They have been
behind ever since the computer industry started and are not catching up.

	2. The Western countries through the COCOM consortium restrict
technology exports to the Soviet Union for defense reasons.  In the
computer area the newest technologies are restricted, but the restrictions
on any particular technology are removed after some years, averaging
five years.

	3. The Soviets import some Western computer technology in
compliance with the restrictions.

	4. The Soviets steal other technology, chiefly through getting
unscrupulous Western businessmen to set up dummy companies, purchase
the computers and smuggle them.  Every so often Western countries catch
someone at it and arrest them.  Only small numbers of computers are
illegally imported.  Probably they are mainly imported to be copied
rather than just for use.  The Soviets copied the IBM 360/370 line starting
in the middle 1960s with only moderate success.  In the middle 1970s
they started making computers compatible with the D.E.C PDP-11 and
more recently the VAX.  This hasn't been very successful either.

	5. Theft as a means of getting technology has serious disadvantages
for the Soviets.  Information about this is available from emigrants
from the Soviet Union and other Soviet bloc countries.  Here are some of
the disadvantages.

		a. The normal use of computer technology involves continued
communication between the users of the hardware or software and the
suppliers.  This communication involves correcting users' mistakes, resolving
ambiguities and incompleteness in the documentation, getting bugs that
have arisen in the users' work corrected, and getting information about
projected improvements in the software and hardware.  The Soviets and
their allies have no reliable way of communicating with the suppliers
of the technology they steal.  As a result initial compatibility with foreign
technology often lost when the Soviets have to improvise a solution to
a problem that arises.  Their solution is likely to be incompatibile with
the supplier's own subsequent solution to the problem.  This means that
software or auxiliary equipment acquired later requires expensive and time-consuming
modification.

		b. The documentation obtained often doesn't agree with the
hardware.  One might suppose that documentation is even easier to steal
than hardware, but apparently the KGB isn't equipped to steal exactly what
is wanted.  Maybe it is hard to say exactly what is wanted.

		c. The KGB or whoever steals the technology insists that
the technology be kept under wraps, and this interferes with communication
within the Soviet Union.

		d. Institutions with stolen technology are restricted
in their communication with foreigners.

	6. Very likely the KGB doesn't understand the difficulties
their methods make for their Soviet customers.  Most likely they are
proud of their intelligence coups.  Our intelligence people are chagrined
at the KGB's successes but may not be in a position to analyze how much
use Soviet industry gets from it.

	7. The COCOM restrictions have important effects in
limiting Soviet computer technology.  However, they are
probably less than the effects of the Soviets' own restrictions on
their ability to absorb foreign technology.  Here are some details.

	a. They restrict foreign travel by their own scientists
and engineers far beyond the restrictions imposed by their lack
of foreign currency.  While they get all the important foreign
scientific journals in their central libraries,
distribution throughout the country is weak, and there are very
few individual subscriptions.  This makes use of foreign ideas
difficult, and encourages complacency about how well they are
doing.

	b. When they do buy foreign computers legally, they usually
restrict their contacts with the service organizations of the
companies from which they purchase.  For example, they don't
let them set up service organizations within the Soviet Union.
This makes service calls very difficult.

	8. The Gorbachev reforms are making the Soviet Union
more congenial to many people all over the world.  Lots of
people didn't see the defense importance of observing COCOM
restrictions in the past, and this number will increase.  The
number of suppliers has increased.  The COCOM system may weaken
considerably.

	9. It would increase the Soviet standard of living
considerably over the long term to induce the West to
relax or abandon restrictions on technology transfer.  It
would be to their advantage to pay a considerable price
for this relaxation.  Running a technology race with the
rest of the world is something they can't win.

	10. The Soviet standard of living hasn't been the
dominant consideration with the Politburo in the past, and it
isn't obvious what its priority is today --- relative to military
advantage.

	11. Some Western people favor relaxing the restrictions
unilaterally to encourage Gorbachev, to promote peace, because
they consider them wasted effort, to make a profit or for other
reasons.  They have some success from time to time, but there is
no reason to suppose they will get the West to abandon the
restrictions to an extent that would remove them as a hindrance
to Soviet technology.  Therefore, the West has bargaining power.

	12. To the extent that the West is agreeable, the best
Soviet strategy is to rejoin the world technologically.  This
means buying Western products and technology from a variety of
countries using the same commercial practices as are used among
Western countries.  It means motivating Western companies to set
up sales and service organizations within the Soviet Union.  It
means letting Soviet organizations deal directly with foreign
companies, rather than only through the Ministry of Foreign
Trade.  It means letting Soviet engineers and scientists
subscribe freely to foreign publications and travel abroad freely
when it advances their work.

	13. The advantages of rejoining the world technologically
will not be obvious to organizations like the KGB, proud of their
success in stealing technology.  It also goes against the
tendency of the Party to control everything.  However, the
Gorbachev Administration has been taking some steps in this
direction.

	14. The West needs to figure out how to sell the Soviets
on the advantages of rejoining the world.  Otherwise, the
negotiations will fail, because the Soviet diplomats won't find
the price worth paying.

	15. It is beyond the scope of this paper to treat
comprehensively the price we should ask.  Here are a few
considerations.

		a. The Soviets might like agreements purely in the
technological area - we exchange our technology for theirs.  However,
we have so much more that they need than vice-versa that purely
technological exchanges can have only limited scope if they are
to be even.  The areas where they are most reasonable are in software
involving advanced mathematics produced by an individual or small group.

		b. We should imagine a sequence of successively more
comprehensive agreements.

		c. Reduction of Soviet territorial and industrial
secrecy should be part of the price.  Giving up some of the military
advantage this secrecy gives them will make disarmament agreements
more verifiable.  Some of this secrecy was pointless anyway, and
we are getting some concessions for nothing.  For example, they now
have promised the Soviet public to publish correct maps, including
a road atlas of the Soviet Union.

		d. Probably the main concessions have to be in
the military area.  They need to give up some of their conventional
armaments advantage in Europe, maybe even their draft.

	16. Experts frequently have said, ``The Soviets will never
give up X'', only to be confounded by events.  We should enter
negotiations without preconceptions about what they might agree to.

	17. According to Arkady Shevchenko, the U.N. Undersecretary
who defected to the U.S. in 1985, the Soviets have never
feared an unprovoked Western attack.  This suggests that we make
no presumptions about their state of mind based on ideas of symmetry
between their situation and ours.

	18. The single most effective way for them to improve their
standard of living is to reduce military and police expenditures.
Howver, this offers institutional difficulties, the extent of which
we cannot predict.

\noindent Summary.

	1. The West should decide on terms for reducing technological
restrictions.  Otherwise, they may just evaporate with no corresponding
gain in Western security and with reinforcement of the KGB doctrine
that the West consists of villains and suckers.

	2. We need to sell the Soviets on the advantages to their
standard of living of rejoining the world technologically.  This
will motivate them to pay the price we must ask.
\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1988 by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of SOVIET[F88,JMC] TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
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recipients:
Angelo Codevilla, Hoover
Edward Fredkin