Introduction

Between 1962 and 1979 the Soviet-American relationship went through a series of dramatic peaks and troughs. In October 1962 the two countries entered into a dangerous confrontation over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and II) The agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union for the control of certain nuclear weapons, the first concluded in 1972 (SALT I) and the second drafted in 1979 (SALT II) but not ratified.

detente

A term meaning the reduction of tensions between states. It is often used to refer to the superpower diplomacy that took place between the inauguration of Richard Nixon as the American president in 1969 and the Senate's refusal to ratify SALT II in 1980.

Explanations for the rise of detente are complex. While the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, resulted in an apparent Soviet defeat and American victory, one of its effects was to cause an escalation in the Soviet arms buildup, which led to virtual parity between Washington and Moscow's nuclear arsenals by the late

Sino-Soviet split

The process whereby China and the Soviet Union became alienated from each other in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

People's Republic of China (PRC)

The official name of communist or mainland China. The PRC came into existence in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong.

Third World

A collective term of French origin for those states that are part of neither the developed capitalist world nor the communist bloc. It includes the states of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and South-East Asia. Also referred to as ‘the South’ in contrast to the developed ‘North’.

Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE)

An agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, in 1975, by thirty-five countries including the United States and the Soviet Union, which promoted human rights as well as co-operation in economic, social and cultural progress. It was succeeded in the 1990s by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has fifty-five members, including all European nations, all former republics of the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada.

1960s. In this context, the two superpowers found it convenient — and economically sound — to agree on set ceilings for their nuclear arsenals. At the same time, centrifugal tendencies within both blocs presented new challenges to Soviet and American leadership. In particular, countries such as France and West Germany launched independent calls for detente in the 1960s, while the Sino- Soviet split destroyed the myth of a communist monolith and opened up new diplomatic opportunities for the United States. All of these elements came together in the early 1970s when the United States opened a relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Soviets and Americans launched their high-level summitry, and a number of agreements seemed to normalize the post­war status quo in Europe.

The failure of detente was, in large part, a reflection of its shortcomings in the early 1970s.

It is important to underline that in any discussion of detente one needs to separate the bilateral Soviet-American detente from the multilateral East-West detente in Europe. In addition to the number of actors involved, the key difference between the two detentes lies in the nature of the areas and issues that were part of the respective processes. European detente dealt with issues limited to the specific regional context, such as the relationship between the two Germanies and the nature and level of interaction between Eastern and Western Europe. European detente thus resulted in a series of comprehensive agreements that ranged from such ‘traditional’ security issues as respect for the post-war borders of Europe, to increased economic and cultural links, and to such ‘intangibles’ as personal and human security. Much of the European agenda was codified in the 1975 Helsinki Accords, the final protocols of the lengthy all-European negotiations (the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, CSCE) that had commenced in 1972. With thirty-five countries involved (including the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union), the August 1975 Helsinki Accords represented, at least in retrospect, the beginning of an all-European process that would last into the post-Cold War era.

Superpower detente was different. It was associated particularly with the SALT agreement and the series of summit meetings between American and Soviet leaders. While it is true that the issues discussed between the Americans and Soviets covered the entire globe, it is equally true that the agreements reached were essentially on a narrow set of bilateral issues that did not involve third parties. Yet both the USSR and the United States were engaged in various regional conflicts around the world that led almost inevitably to disagreements and, ultimately, conflicts over the perceived interests of each party in, say, Angola or Afghanistan.

Indeed, the whole process of superpower detente began with a crisis on one such Cold War periphery, a small Caribbean island off the coast of the United States — Cuba — which would ironically later also play its own important role in the decline of detente.