Conclusion
In terms of Soviet-American relations the fall of detente exposed how slender the basis for co-operation had always been. As many historians have pointed out, the Americans and the Soviets had different notions of what detente consisted of and therefore conflict was bound to replace co-operation sooner or later.
Other historians, however, claim that superpower detente was never meant to achieve true co-operation in the first place. Rather, detente was an attempt, partially through covert means, to outmanoeuvre the other side and gain advantages in an ongoing Cold War. The Americans did so in the Middle East, while the Soviets responded in Angola and the Horn of Africa. In the end, the only area where meaningful agreements were possible was in the field of nuclear arms limitation. Prompted by the scare of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the emergence of virtual parity between the two sides' nuclear arsenals, both the USSR and the USA were ready to set some limits on their costly competition. Yet, even in this field, the promising start (SALT I) fell victim to other complications in the superpower relationship. Domestic political debates (particularly in the United States), persistent ideological differences, and continued geostrategic and military competition all help to explain why Soviet-American detente ultimately collapsed in the late 1970s.In Europe, however, detente persisted to a remarkable degree even as Soviet-American relations deteriorated. To be sure, a number of NATO countries, most obviously Britain under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative leadership, joined in the critique of Soviet policy. However, the West Europeans were reluctant to lend unambiguous support to American policy in the Third World and eager to preserve the gains of East-West detente in Europe. The shift of the focus of Soviet-American confrontation from Europe to the Third World may have made the old continent less central as a Cold War arena, but for most Europeans this represented a net gain, allowing political and economic engagement between the East and the West to increase even as the Soviet-American relationship deteriorated.
Indeed, the foundation for increased East-West contacts that had been built through Ostpolitik and the CSCE by and large survived in the years following the Red Army's incursion into Afghanistan. While still hampered by the Cold War bloc division, an all-European process continued through the 1980s with important consequences in the second half of the decade.Soviet-American detente may have collapsed on Christmas Day 1979 when the fully fledged invasion of Afghanistan commenced, but the period that began and ended with a Soviet-American confrontation in areas adjacent to one of the superpowers witnessed a number of important shifts that played a role in the eventual transformation from the Cold War to a new era. After all, even in the field of Soviet-American relations there was no return to the hair-raising dangers that had characterized the days of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet, it was neither evident nor obvious that the 1980s would end with the collapse of the international system that most had learned to take for granted over the previous decades.
Debating the rise and collapse of detente
The reasons behind the emergence of detente have created a considerable amount of debate among scholars of the Cold War. In fact, the arguments are so wide-ranging that it is hard to detect clear ‘schools of thought'; the most complete account remains Raymond Garthoff's Detente and Confrontation (Washington, DC, 1994), which emphasizes the bilateral Soviet-American relationship and the emergence of nuclear parity in the 1960s, but also pays homage to the many other issues that impacted upon the superpower relationship. On the American side the chief among these is the Vietnam War; the links between Vietnam and detente are detailed in Keith Nelson's The Making of Detente (New York, 1995). In addition, a number of other historians, including Chen Jian in Mao's China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001), have stressed the impact of the Sino-Soviet split on both Soviet and American thinking on international relations.
The origins and onset of European detente and its impact on Soviet-American relations provide another interesting avenue of inquiry. And in his book Power and Protest (Cambridge, MA, 2003) Jeremi Suri has opened yet another provocative avenue of investigation by maintaining that the global social context of the late 1960s was a root cause of detente.In recent years the debate about the reasons behind the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan has been reinvigorated in light of new documentary evidence from the former Soviet bloc archives. Whereas the ‘official'American explanation in the late 1970s and early 1980s emphasized aggressive Soviet motivations, today's scholars, from Henry Bradsher to Odd Arne Westad, tend to stress the essentially defensive motivations of the USSR.
Recommended reading
For general works on the Cold War see Chapter 9. The most comprehensive overall account of the rise and fall of Soviet-American detente is still Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation (Washington, DC, 1994); two other, by now somewhat outdated, studies that cover most of the issues discussed in this chapter are Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower Detente: A Reappraisal (New York, 1988) and Robert Stevenson, The Rise and Fall ofDetente: Relaxations of Tension in US-Soviet Relations, 1953—1984 (New York, 1985).
For an account that attempts to decentre the Cold War see Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (Cambridge, 2005); for one that ties together social and diplomatic history see Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente (Cambridge, MA, 2003). Westad’s work is particularly good on the rationale behind the superpowers’ covert and overt interventions in the Third World. Works that focus on American policy include: William Bundy, A Tangled Web (New York, 1998), Jussi M. Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York, 2004) and Robert S.
Litwak, Detente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969—1976 (Cambridge, 1984); Robert Dallek’s Nixon and Kissinger (New York, 2007) focuses heavily on these two key personalities. On Soviet policy the best works are Peter Dibb, The Soviet Union: The Incomplete Superpower (Cambridge, 1988), Raymond Edmonds, Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years (Ithaca, NY, 1983) and Matthew J. Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy (Chapel Hill, NC, 2003).The following titles offer a non-exhaustive sample of recent writing on the Cuban Missile Crisis and related issues: Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, 1999), Michael Beschloss, Kennedy versus Khrushchev: The Crisis Years, 1960—1963 (New York, 1991), James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Re-examine the Missile Crisis (New York, 1989), Laurence Chang and Peter Kornbluh (eds), The Cuban Missile Crisis (New York, 1992), Anatoly Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell ofa Gamble’: The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York, 1997), Ernest May and Philip Zelikow (eds), The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, 1997) and Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997). See also on the Kennedy period, Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (Oxford, 2000).
For discussions on the various aspects of the nuclear arms race, see John D. Boutwell (ed.), The Nuclear Confrontation in Europe (London, 1985), McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York, 1988), Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York, 1981), Williamson J. Murray, McGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (eds), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War (Cambridge, 1994), David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Nuclear Arms Race (New Haven, CT, 1983), Michael Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Revolution (Cambridge, 1981), Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ, 1991) and Andreas Wenger, Living with Peril: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nuclear Weapons (Lanham, MD, 1997).
The most comprehensive overview of the development of European detente is John van Oudenaren, European Detente: The Soviet Union and the West since 1953 (Durham, NC, 1991). It should be complemented with such works as David Calleo, Beyond American Hegemony (New York, 1987), Frank Costigliola, France and the United States (New York, 1992), Philip Gordon, France, Germany, and the Western Alliance (New York, 1995), Geir Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945—1997 (New York, 1998), Barbara Marshall, Willy Brandt: A Political Biography (Cambridge, 1997), Avrill Pittman, From Ostpolitik to Reunification (Cambridge, 1992), Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik (New York, 1981), Nicholas Wahl and Robert Paxton, De Gaulle and the United States (New York, 1994) and John W. Young, Britain and European Unity, 1945—1992 (Cambridge, 1994). For a particularly comprehensive set of essays focusing on a key period see N. Piers Ludlow (ed.), European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik, Westpolitik, 1965—1973 (London, 2007).
For an analysis of Soviet policy towards Germany and Western Europe, see Michael J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany and the West: From Khrushchev to Gorbachev (Ithaca, NY, 1991). Other aspects of the German question are explored competently in William Glenn Gray, Germany’s Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007) and Mary E. Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Detente, and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001). For other developments in the Soviet bloc, see Barbara Barnouin, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution (London, 1998), Karen Dawisha, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (Berkeley, CA, 1984), Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (Durham, NC, 1986), Bennett Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges (Durham, NC, 1991), John McAdams, East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall (Cambridge, 1985), I. Neuman and O. A. Westad, The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, 1945—1989 (Oslo, 1994), G. Swain and N.
Swain, Eastern Europe since 1945 (Cambridge, 1993) and Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance (Stanford, CA, 1998).The opening to China has been of much interest to scholars in recent years. For the American president’s momentous trip to Beijing see Margaret Macmillan, Nixon andMao (New York, 2007). On the American side see Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall (New York, 1999) and James Mann, About Face (New York, 1998). For the Chinese perspective the best recent analysis is Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001). On the triangular diplomacy leading up to the rapprochement, emphasizing the role of the United States, see Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies (Stanford, CA, 1989). For a collection of documents that highlight triangular diplomacy after the opening of China one should consult William Burr (ed.), The Kissinger Transcripts (New York, 1998).
A good introduction to the issues that caused the decline of Soviet-American detente is Odd Arne Westad (ed.), The Fall of Detente: Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years (Oslo, 1997). For general early assessments see Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente (Cambridge, 1984) and Fred Halliday, The Making ofthe Second Cold War (New York, 1986). On the Carter presidency, consult Jerel A. Rosati, The Carter Administration’s Quest for Global Community (Columbia, SC, 1991), David Skidmore, Reversing Course: Carter’s Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, and the Failure of Reform (Nashville, TN, 1996), Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason and Power (New Haven, CT, 1986), Robert Strong, Working in the World (Baton Rouge, LA, 2000) and John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency (Manchester, 1995).
On the role of Africa, one should consult David E. Albright, Africa and International Communism (London, 1980), Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition: The Rise, Fall, and Reprise of Soviet-Russian Military Interventionism, 1973-1996 (New York, 1999), Peter Calvocoressi, Independent Africa and the World (London, 1985), Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001), Brian J. Hesse, The United States, South Africa, and Africa (Aldershot, 2001), Henry F. Jackson, From the Congo to Soweto: US Foreign Policy towards Africa since 1960 (New York, 1984), Helen Kitchen (ed.), Angola, Mozambique and the West (New York, 1987) and John Seiler (ed.), Southern Africa since the Portuguese Coup (Boulder, CO, 1980). The best account of the rationale behind Soviet intervention in Afghanistan remains Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention (New York, 1999).