The Geoeconomics of Containment: Rethinking Economic Warfare in the Early Cold War

• In Event: Making and Breaking Markets across the Iron Curtain

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of Western sanctions against the Soviet bloc during the early Cold War. It argues that sanctions reinforced, but did not create, the Soviet bloc's emphasis on increasing self-sufficiency and thickening economic ties between socialist nations. Instead, the adoption of the Soviet developmental model across Eastern Europe meant that raw materials that had traditionally been exported to Western Europe were no longer available for trade they were now needed at home to fuel the modernization processes.

Author

• Michael De Groot, Indiana U Bloomington