Strategic export controls – which include export, brokering, transshipment and transit controls, as well as sanctions and supply chain security mechanisms – are important tools used in international and national security efforts, including countering WMD proliferation and terrorism. Traditionally, they have focused on raising the cost of WMD development programs and reducing access to advanced military capabilities by terrorist organizations or states active in proscribed proliferation activities or regional conflict. Strategic export controls have also become a prominent feature of the international trade landscape, and as such, are calibrated to facilitate legal trade in dual-use goods and technologies while reducing risk of instability and conflict.

This lecture course will explore the role of strategic export controls in balancing security and trade. Course participants will learn how strategic controls are applied at global, multilateral, national and industry levels. Course participants will also acquire an understanding of policies and legal-regulatory frameworks used by governments to shape strategic export controls – as well as strategies used by exporters in industry and the private sector to comply with them. The course will also examine challenges to these controls, in the form of illicit trafficking networks, evolving supply chains and new means of distribution, and emerging dual-use technologies – and implications for the future of balancing security and trade.

The course will also feature a ‘red-teaming’ exercise, simulating the operation of trafficking networks. The exercise will give course participants an opportunity to apply knowledge gained through the lectures and readings to better understand illicit procurement and diversion of dual-use goods and technologies – and consider strategies for addressing this challenge while facilitating legal trade and its advantages for global prosperity and human welfare.