Formed by Western governments in 1949 to prevent the transfer of military-related technology from the West to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In 1989 members of CoCom included Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany West Germany , France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. With no formal relationship to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO , CoCom operated on informal agreements on items having military applications and those with nuclear uses.
