The economics and politics of East-West relations

Conceived modestly, the idea of East-West interdependence offers a convenient framework for exploring the intersection of politics with economics, of national economic goals with international economic relations, and, ultimately, of East-West efforts to increase economic cooperation with Western efforts to restructure international economic institutions. By interdependence we do not mean to imply a decisive set of arrangements, capable of impinging on the most fundamental economic and political choices of the other party. Rather, we have in mind a lesser level of mutual dependence in which both or all parties view cooperation as a useful but not a decisive means for pursuing some or all of their essential economic goals. More simply, we use the term because, better than any other, it underscores the difference between an economic relationship imposed by political confrontation, and reflected in economic warfare and autarky, and an economic relationship benefiting from the easing of political tension, evident in a common recognition of gains, political as well as economic, to be had from cooperation.