What was detente?

Superpower motives for detente

Achievements of detente

The demise of detente

What was Detente?

Within the context of international relations, detente has been generally understood as the relaxation or reduction of international tensions. Superpower detente depicted a series of agreements between 1968 and 1975 to regularise and improve the US-Soviet relationship.

Superpower Motives for Detente

1. The declining condition of the Soviet economy
2. The achievement of rough strategic parity between the superpowers
3. Soviet anxiety about the Chinese ‘threat’
4. The US desire to revise containment and secure Soviet help to withdraw from Vietnam

Achievements of Detente

Normalization of the European Divide

1. Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik
2. FRG-USSR non-aggression treaty of August 1970
3. The Four-Power agreement on Berlin of September 1971
4. The Basic Treaty of December 1972 between the two Germanies
5. The Helsinki Declaration of August 1975

Arms Control

1. SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) 1 agreement signed in May 1972 – The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement to limit defenses against missile attack (MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction) and an interim agreement to impose a 5 year freeze on missile lauches.
2. Agreement on the prevention of Nuclear War (June 1973)
3. An Interim agreement on the outline of a SALT 2 treaty in November 1974 which recognised the principle of parity.

The Erosion of Detente

By 1973, superpower detente began to founder. The demise of Richard Nixon’s Presidency following the Watergate scandal played a part in this, but it could be argued that the detente was flawed from the outset.

Conceptual Incompatibility

In essence, Moscow saw détente as offering new opportunities for the exercise of power, where as the US viewed it as a way of disciplining or constraining growing Soviet power.

Conflicts of Interest in the Third World

1. The Arab oil boycott of 1973-74
2. The Soviet-Cuban intervention in Angola (1975-76)
3. The Communist Victory in Vietnam (1975)
4. Soviet-Cuban intervention in the Horn of Africa (1977-78)
5. Hostage crisis in Iran (1979)
6. Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979)

Stagnation of Arms Control Talks

SALT 2 agreement was signed in June 1979 but the agreement was not ratified by the US.

Stumbling Block of Human Rights

President Carter’s new emphasis on Human Rights in US foreign policy proved a significant irritant in Soviet-American Relations. The Soviet Union was deemed to behave subversively.

Frustrated Expectations

For Moscow:

1. Economic benefits were not realised
2. Detente failed to diminish the perceived Chinese threat
3. Kremlin over-estimated Washington’s ability to manage and implement detente

For America:

1. Soviets lacked sufficient leverage in Vietnam to bring compromise settlement there
2. The US found it difficult to convert Moscow into a status-quo power

For both Moscow and Washington:

Detente was de-stabilized and undermined by unanticipated events and Third World turbulence that escaped the control of the two superpowers.