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What are the key features of detente during the Cold War?
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Détente during the Cold War was marked by reduced tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, primarily in the 1970s. Key features included arms control agreements like the Nonproliferation Treaty and SALT I, improved U.S.-China relations, and increased U.S.-USSR trade. Notable events included the 1975 joint space mission. However, tensions persisted due to the Vietnam War, and détente ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Ronald Reagan's election, which shifted U.S. policy to a more confrontational stance.
Détente describes the relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union throughout the 1970s. Some of its key features included the following:
- the negotiation of arms control agreements between the United States and the USSR, especially the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 and the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty, or SALT I;
- the general acceptance by the United States that the Soviet Union would maintain control over Eastern Europe;
- a growing divide between the leadership of the Soviet Union and communist China;
- increased trade between the United States and the USSR.
Sustainability did not turn out to be a key feature of détente. In the end, it could not survive two related developments, among others. The first was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. This convinced many Americans that the Soviets were exploiting the new rapprochement with the United States to expand their power and influence. The second...
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was the election of President Ronald Reagan, which happened in part due to perceptions of American weakness in the face of communism. Reagan viewed communism as a fundamentally evil force and thought that détente implied American acceptance of this supposed evil. When he became president, he pursued a more aggressive American policy that heightened tensions with the USSR.
References
The key feature of detente was a reduction in tensions between the United States and its allies on the one hand and the Communist bloc on the other. The period of detente is generally said to have begun in the late 1960s and to have lasted until the mid-1970s.
Among the most important achievements of the detente era were the opening of relations between the United States and China and the SALT arms limitations treaty that was signed in 1972. Symbolically important was the joint space mission between the United States and the USSR in 1975.
It is important to note, however, that there were still Cold War tensions during this time. Much of this period coincided with the Vietnam War which was, of course, a Cold War conflict. Therefore, the period of detente was one of reduced tensions, but not one in which tensions were entirely absent.