Essay about Detente and the Cold War

In conclusion, President Nixon and Soviet leader Brezhnev developed detente from 1969 to 1979 because of the overwhelming fear of a possibility of a nuclear war. The cost of the arms race had taken an immense toll on the economic stability of both the United States and the Soviet Union, causes both leaders to adopt a more pragmatic view of the Cold War. The European countries involved in the Cold War were also taking steps to relax tensions between the countries divided by the iron curtain. This caused both nations to develop this period of detente and establish treaties through the Arms Limitations

Under the presidency of Richard Nixon, the policy of détente, or the “lessoning of tensions,” between the two super powers took several leaps forward. In May 1972, the President attended a summit conference in Moscow that produced a flurry of agreements on reducing missile proliferation as well as agreements on environmental cooperation, exchanges in science, technology, education and culture, and more.

The Cold War peaked the interest of the entire globe. Each threat, policy and action that took place had ramifications far more reaching then ever imaginable. The world sat on edge because it feared its own destruction, after the introduction of nuclear warfare at the close of World War II, another World War could result in the Earth’s demise. This fear ran through the hearts and minds of citizens of both the United States and the Soviet Union, but it is the citizens elsewhere that had to pay the consequences for these fears. The “race” to become the premier superpower of the world between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. did not always remain as subsided as many like to believe. Many regions of the world were held accountable

Cleva also examines what he terms the “Kissinger cycle” of foreign policy, which advocated limited war and continued enhancement of military strength . Cleva cites the paradoxes present in Kissinger’s foreign policy, for example, the reason a virulent anti-communist could negotiate détente is that Kissinger also sought to avoid nuclear holocaust .

To what extent did Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic actions with China play a dominant role in the United States foreign policy between the years of 1969 and 1977 regarding the Soviet Union?

In the wake of World War II as the decades-long force of Germany’s reign came to its conclusion, an extensive repositioning of authority among the world’s top powers began. The war wielded devastating consequences for most countries involved and effectively diminished the dominance Britain and France once employed across the globe. Out of this devastation rose the two new dominating forces of the world who were triumphant in the aftermath of the war: the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States desired to spread democracy across the globe, while the Soviet Union remained ambitious in the hopes of ending capitalism and inciting communist revolutions. The Cold War began in 1947 as a result of the ideological tension steadily built between these two superpowers throughout both World Wars and their prolonged rivalry over the division of power in the postwar world.

sought negotiations that negated U.S. military advantage; second, means corrupted ends as evidenced by continued participation in Vietnam when the U.S. was supposed to relinquish Third World commitments. Reagan’s administration saw previous administrations adopt asymmetric or symmetric response by incorrectly basing calculations on what the U.S. economy could withstand rather than what the Soviets’ could. Reagan devised strategy through optimized combination of symmetric and asymmetric orientations—while he appeared symmetric in his belief that the U.S. could outspend Soviets forever, he reoriented to asymmetry by exploiting the multidimensional nature of U.S. power at specific moments and terrains when and where Soviet power was mono-dimensional. Reagan therefore created situations with high risks and costs such that he would “chang[e] rather than contain[ ] an adversary[,]” to lower risks and costs. Reagan therefore rejected détente and SALT due to their erred reliance on MAD—the only way to limit nuclear proliferation would be to bolster U.S. military capabilities to the point where the Soviets saw limitation necessary. Reagan sought to “contain” communism by changing it; testing the limits of Soviet military, economic and political capacities when communism experienced its greatest challenges convinced Soviets their economics were outdated, politics oppressive, and longevity

This is broken down by describing the détente policy as an aberration from major parts of American’s foreign policy, which implied that President Reagan administration was actually closer that they were asked to be. As statements were made by President Reagan were closely looked into, this kind of give some insight of its simplicity and its appeal that can be pulled from the Truman administration between 1946-1952. There have been quite a few disagreements since the Truman doctrine of 1947. Such arguments created by the Kennedy Era of 1961-1963 with the U.S. having a major build up of American nuclear and conventional forces. Along the way, the confrontations that lasted from 1947-1968 were just arguments about means rather than ends. The assumptions of the objective affiliated with containment were deemed legitimate and viable.

During the 1970s the official foreign policy of the Nixon Administration was detente, which aimed to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union following the confrontations of the 1960s. These confrontations were evident in all corners of the world, including the Middle East. Since 1948, the Arab states of the Middle East had fought against the newly established Israel. The Arab forces were repeatedly pushed back by the more advanced and better disciplined Israeli military. The Arab-Israeli disputes, particularly the Egyptian-Israeli conflict, had evolved into a proxy conflict for the US and USSR. Nixon and Kissinger, despite their belief in detente, saw the need to end the Soviet exploitation of the Middle East through the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Sinai Agreement was, in part, the result of the Nixon and Ford Administrations efforts to reduce Soviet control

The Era of the Cold War occurred between 1947-1991 in which it wasn’t a physical war but it was between the United States and The Soviet Union. The United States was capitalists, in which their properties and businesses are owned by the citizens. The Soviet Union were communists, in which the properties are controlled by the government. In this paper, President Ronald Regan’s effects on the escalation of the Cold War will be explained and how his effectiveness made the Cold War worse.

The end of World War Two was the beginning of the Cold war. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from this terrible time in World History with totally different economic and political goals and ambitions. The Cold War was a state of political, military and economic hostility that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. The ideological differences between the two superpowers, because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, the world “cold’ was used to describe their relationship. The United States and the Soviet Union after World War had a relationship that was complex, ideological, economically, politically and which led to shifts between cautious cooperation and often bitter

This colloquium will define the connection between various sources related to the “counter insurgency” policies of the American government throughout the 1960s that caused a slow escalation of the Vietnam War in the fight against communist expansion in Southeast Asia. The Campaign of 1968 defines the legacy of president Kennedy “counter insurgency” policies, which President Nixon would soon utilize to slowly escalate the war in Vietnam on the political platform of protecting capitalism from the communist threat. Eisenhower and Kennedy’s application of the “Domino effect” illustrates the fear of communism expanding into capitalist nations, such as South Vietnam. Nixon’s plan to continue the increased escalation of solider deployments to Vietnam defines the causality of Kennedy’s :counter insurgency” plan to use guerilla warfare without properly training soldiers to adapt to jungle conditions. These devastating presidential policies define the failure of Nixon and other president to directly prevent communist forces in North Vietnam from advancing into South Vietnam during the war. The Presidential Campaign of 1968 defines the apogee of the “counter insurgency” policies of previous presidential administrations, which Nixon fulfilled by his election as a president. In essence, the Presidential

The Cold War was a leading influence on the America society during the second half of the 20th century. During the Cold War, the United States was involved in capitalism and democracy, and the Soviet Union was very persuasive in the spread of communism (Columbia Southern University (CSU) n.d.). The Americans and the Soviets were two of the world’s most dominant powers after World War II, the contention between the two became a global conflict.

When most people think of President Kennedy’s Diplomacy efforts, they will often refer to situations that were resolved using the doctrine of flexible response. This is when the military and White House planners implemented a policy that offered them a range of options to choose from: in dealing with a host of threats. These included: the increased use of conventional forces to small and large nuclear weapons. As, this was based on two main principals most notably: destroying the enemy’s ability to make retaliatory strikes against American interests and only attacking the cities along with other population centers as a last resort. (Cohen, 1986, pp.

Détente is a French word that refers to the time during the Cold war that tensions between America and the USSR cooled down. This cooling period began around 1971 and took full effect when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972. Both countries were shocked by the Vietnam War, and found that the arms race was too expensive causing Détente, this time of low tensions. Though the détente did not end the Cold War, it increased communications between the 2 nations and allowed them to form treaties limiting their nuclear weapons.