Richard Portes

We have come a long way from the excesses of "Western economic warfare" against Eastern Europe. The past five years have seen an explosion of East-West trade and Western lending to Eastern Europe, including the U.S.S.R., with Western governments, banks, and exporters competing strenuously for East European business. In the atmosphere of détente, a wide range of political and economic forces generated opportunities for profits, which competitive capitalism exploited with characteristic alacrity and flexibility. The sum total of these diverse initiatives has been large-scale Western export of capital, both financial and real, to Eastern Europe. This new East-West economic interdependence now clearly demands the policy analysis which ideally should have preceded it.