Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war, the two ideologically opposed superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union—looked for diplomatic solutions to ease the tension. Historians refer to this period with the French term “détente,” translated in this sense as “easing of tensions.”
The term was first coined in early 1904; Entente Cordiale was an agreement reached between Great Britain and France, ending centuries of confrontation and joining World War I as allies. Détente became the signature foreign policy approach of the well-known politician Henry Kissinger, when he held the positions of the National Security Adviser and later the Secretary of State of the United States.
Reasons Behind the Cold War Détente
The newly-elected president of the United States, Richard Nixon, was among the first to facilitate détente as a foreign policy approach in 1969. Aiming to avoid the escalation of armed and particular nuclear conflict, Richard Nixon’s administration initiated a series of political dialogues with the communist Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The prerequisites to embrace détente were the following:
- The October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly brought the world to a nuclear war, demonstrated that diplomacy could certainly be utilized in order to effectively reconcile opposed powers. The setup of the telephone communication line, widely known as the “hotline,” between the Soviet Union’s Kremlin and the United States White House introduced flexibility in the form of direct engagement in addressing the risks of confrontation.
- The two opposing states were financially drained by the arms race, in particular by the substantial expenditures in developing nuclear arsenals, as well as the associated maintenance costs.
- By 1969, the United States’ unsuccessful 1956 invasion of Vietnam cost Nixon’s administration $77 billion annually. The American president envisaged improved diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union as an important step toward negotiating the withdrawal agreement.
- The Soviet Union, led by Leonid Brezhnev, violently suppressed the anti-communist revolt in Czechoslovakia in 1968 to halt the possibility of spilling over the wave of protest in other communist states—a political move dictated by the Brezhnev Doctrine. The United States considered open communication with the Soviet Union a key factor in loosening the Soviet grip on Eastern European nations.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union showed the will to explore the possibility of slowing down the arms race through multilateral agreements—an early sign of détente-era cooperation in the late 1960s.
1. Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties
The Cuban Missile Crisis from October 16 to October 28, 1962 led the world to the brink of nuclear war. It paved the way for American-Soviet cooperation for the first nuclear arms control pacts: the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed in August 1963 and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of July 1968. Even though the treaty did not limit the proliferation of nuclear arms, it set the stage for further cooperation. In November 1969, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) commenced in Helsinki, Finland, leading to the creation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in May 1972, along with an interim agreement that introduced limits regarding the quantity of intercontinental ballistic missiles each side could develop. The idea of holding SALT II in the near future emerged the same year.
2. The Helsinki Accords
The 1973 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was the first tangible outcome of the multilateral approach to international affairs. Soon, during the second CSCE conference on August 1, 1975, the 35 participating representatives of national governments laid the foundation for the founding of the Helsinki Accords. Despite the tense geopolitical context, the Helsinki Accords introduced human rights and security in one framework.
Notably, the Soviet Union initiated the first CSCE negotiations in an effort to use it as an arena for discussing security-related issues in Europe.
In 1966, the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact countries introduced the Declaration of Bucharest, proposing to hold a pan-European conference. It was France that insisted that, in the wake of the brutal suppression of Czechoslovakia’s uprising by the Soviet forces, no conference should be held without human rights being an integral part of it. The United States-led North Atlantic Council issued the Brussels Declaration in 1969, also known as the Declaration on European Security, which included the human rights clauses as well. These two declarations paved the way for the Helsinki process.
The Helsinki Accords, or the Final Act of 1975, consisted of the so-called baskets, referring to the major areas of concern: human rights, security, and economics.
Basket 1 outlined the connection between human rights and security by introducing ten principles of security:
1. Sovereign equality;
2. Refraining from the threat or use of force;
3. Maintaining territorial integrity and respect for human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religious belief;
4. Inviolability of borders and territorial integrity of states;
5. Peaceful resolution of disputes;
6. Refraining from interfering in domestic affairs;
7. Respect for human rights;
8. Equal rights and self-determination of peoples;
9. Cooperation among States;
10. Fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law.
Basket 2 promoted economic, scientific, and environmental cooperation between the states, focusing on the role of environmental security.
Basket 3 established the guidelines for safeguarding human rights.
Basket 4 created the framework for the conference’s functioning.
The principles upheld in the Helsinki Accords are often depicted as the Soviet Union’s victory, as they confirmed the post-World War II status quo in Europe by recognizing existing borders. However, the Final Act was not legally binding under international law.
The United States’ president, Gerald Ford, described the importance of the Helsinki Accords in his address on July 25th, 1975, with the following words:
“The Helsinki documents involve political and moral commitments aimed at lessening tensions and opening further lines of communication between the peoples of East and West. It is the policy of the United States, and it has been my policy ever since I entered public life, to support the aspirations for freedom and national independence of the peoples of Eastern Europe—with whom we have close ties of culture and blood—by every proper and peaceful means.”
3. Ping-Pong Diplomacy: US-China Détente
Ping-Pong Diplomacy represents another example of thawing relations between the opposed groups of the Cold War. It refers to the period of easing China-United States relations in the 1970s via a series of tennis matches between athletes from each respective country.
At the 1971 World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, the representatives of the United States and communist China unexpectedly shook hands, sparking the start of the Sino-American rapprochement. Just two days later, China invited the American team to play exhibition matches against the Chinese team on Chinese soil.
The United States accepted and, before the visit, made a simple but significant modification to the American passports of the traveling team members. On the page containing the list of countries that Americans could incur penalties “for travel to or in Communist-controlled portions,” the US Department of State consular office in Japan crossed out the country “China.”
Diplomatic relations between the United States and China had been terminated following the communist takeover of China in 1949. Two decades later, in 1972, Richard Nixon became the first American president to travel to Mao Zedong’s communist China. With this historic move, Nixon moved forward with his Vietnam withdrawal as the Chinese government put pressure on North Vietnam to collaborate with the United States.
On the other side, the Sino-Soviet split over the ideological conflict between the two communist nations benefited the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence of nations deviated from Mao Zedong’s vision of communism. The difference is described in his remark regarding the nuclear war: “half of mankind would die, the other half would remain, while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist.”
The split threatened the strict bipolarity of the Cold War and undermined the unity of the communist bloc, traditionally led by the Soviet Union. Division within the key communist countries created a fruitful environment for closer diplomatic and strategic cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
4. Shuttle Diplomacy & The Arab-Israel Conflict (1973)
On October 6, 1973, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched an unexpected attack on Israel with the support of the Soviet Union. The future of détente was suddenly brought into question. Even though the United States backed Israel militarily, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon attempted to prevent armed conflict since it might tempt the Soviet Union to join the conflict.
Henry Kissinger was crucial in laying the groundwork for the peace agreements that ended the fighting. The term “Shuttle Diplomacy” refers to Kissinger’s tireless efforts between January and May 1974, when he flew from nation to nation negotiating the cease-fire agreement. Kissinger’s Shuttle Diplomacy resulted in the treaty’s conclusion, also known as the Sinai Interim Agreement or Sinai II, which Egypt and Israel signed on September 4, 1975. The agreement called for the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula, occupied by Israel since 1967, the formation of a new UN buffer zone, and the resolution of conflicts through peaceful means.
5. Apollo-Soyuz Mission in 1975
Another example of closer cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States was the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the first international human spaceflight launched on July 15, 1975. With this, the space race transformed from competition to collaboration—a true sign of détente. The US and Soviet crafts jointly docked in space, and the astronauts shook hands. Prior to the mission launch, newly elected President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev enjoyed dinner together and exchanged commemorative items, symbolizing the political partnership in exchange for orbital cooperation.
Decline of Relations & Results of the Détente
Even if the direct diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union improved during détente, confrontation and pressure remained high in the form of proxy wars in Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East. The two superpowers continued to back and provide financial and military support to their spheres of influence and respective entities.
The United States and the Soviet Union signed SALT II on June 18, 1979; however, they never ratified it. Détente was shattered following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979, and the United States responded by boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
The new president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, largely based his election campaign on an anti-détente narrative, outlining that the Soviet Union had utilized American policy to advance its interests. During his conference in January 1981, Reagan claimed, “Détente’s been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its aims.”
