They may be essential to economic growth, environmental sustainability, health, or education, and may move in international trade in what appears to be a nonmilitary and therefore nonproblematic way. The commercialization of military technologies argues for a control system that begins to shift the focus away from controls only on exports to controls on their actual end use. In other words, technology transfers with commercial applications should be permitted only if the seller states can be confident that these technologies will not be used for proscribed military applications. Creating a credible system of end-use assurances is essential. But it will require profoundly greater levels of transparency in the international trading system as well as a more effective system of enforcement.
Industry is also likely to complain about the imposition of an added regulatory burden.
However, if a transparency regime could reduce intrusions on legitimate trade while protecting the goal of nonproliferation, it might well be welcomed by participants. For both weapons and technology, transparency is the key principle around which international efforts should focus. Again, the Wassenaar Arrangement provides a valuable framework within which to establish procedures for monitoring and anticipating technological developments and to create mechanisms for routine consultation among countries that both sell and buy arms and technology. Finally, efforts to monitor and restrain the proliferation of weapons and technology would benefit from streamlining existing national and multinational enforcement mechanisms. The United States alone currently participates in at least six distinct control arrangements.