The Politics of Trade Pressure: American - Soviet Relations 1980-88

The United States applied trade pressure on the Soviet Union on a large scale during the 1980s for the attainment of political objectives. Trade pressure became a concerted American policy aimed at influencing Soviet domestic and international behaviour, and expressing displeasure with Moscow's actions at home and abroad. This book assesses both the economic and political effect of Washington's application of economic measures during the 1980s on Soviet policy on human rights, dissent, Jewish emigration and the Third World. Two introductory chapters chart the overall development of Soviet-American relations. Four further chapters analyse the degree of economic and political success generated by American trade pressure. A final chapter sums up the results of the thesis. It concludes by arguing that US trade pressure on the Soviet Union largely failed to have the desired effect of influencing Soviet domestic and international behaviour.