The Cold War

New Tensions.

Soviet-American relations, which had relaxed in the mid 1960s and most of the 1970s, intensified in the late 1970s, as the Soviets became more adventuresome in Latin America and Africa. President Jimmy Carter's conservative critics harped on the Soviets' attempt to extend their sphere of influence to the Third World and decried Soviet intransigence regarding the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. By 1978 Carter was calling for massive increases in defense spending, and by 1979 he had authorized the Trident submarine program, as well as the development of a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the MX missile. He reinstituted draft registration and announced the deployment of new intermediate-range missiles and cruise missiles to Europe. With a longer range than the missiles they were replacing, these new missiles were capable of hitting targets in the western part of the Soviet Union. Also in 1979 the United...

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