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Having narrowly avoided a nuclear war over Cuba, the USA and the The group of 15 communist republics formed from the Russian Empire after the revolution of 1917. began to look for ways to reduce the conflict between them. Historians refer to this as the period of Period of time in the 1970s when relations between the USA and Soviet Union improved and there was a reduction in tension. which means ‘lessening of tensions’ in French.
Reasons for éٱԳٱ
There were a number of reasons why the Soviet Union and the USA became interested in lessening tensions in the 1960s and 1970s:
- The Cuban Missile Crisis had shown both sides that talking to each other achieved much more than threatening each other. The new telephone In the 1960s, a telephone line that directly connected the US president and the leader of the Soviet Union. made this much easier.
- Both sides were interested in reducing their nuclear A collection of military equipment or weapons. as building and maintaining their An explosive device used as a weapon. The most deadly and destructive weapon developed by humankind.was very expensive. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty showed that cooperation could help them to achieve this.
- US intervention in Vietnam had failed to contain An economic system in which all means of production such as tools, factories and raw materials, are owned by the community as a whole. Each individual contributes according to their ability and receives according to their needs. This means there is no hierarchy of social class. Therefore, if the USA improved its relations with the Soviet Union, it could help the USA to negotiate a withdrawal. This was one of the reasons why President Richard Nixon visited Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, in Moscow in 1972.
- The USA and the Soviet Union were both worried about the growing power of communist China. The USA did not want to see a communist alliance between the Soviet Union and China. Closer American and Soviet cooperation could prevent this.
- The USA hoped that talks with the Soviet Union might result in more freedom for people in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union had invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put down an anti-communist uprising there. This showed that the Soviet Union would send troops in to prevent countries dropping out of the A collection of 12 communist countries that agreed to defend each other if one of them was attacked. This policy was called the The Soviet Union’s policy of sending troops into communist countries against people who opposed those governments.
Changing relations with China
President Nixon was keen to improve relations with China as well as with the Soviet Union, as he hoped to prevent the two other countries from forming an anti-American communist alliance. The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia angered the Chinese and gave Nixon his opportunity. Growing relations with China, which was supporting North Vietnam, would also be useful in American attempts to withdraw from South Vietnam.
Good relations between the Chinese and American teams at the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Japan led to the American team being invited to China. Americans had not been welcome in China since the communist takeover in 1949. As a result, the USA lifted its ban on trade with China, which had been in place since 1950. Later in 1971, the The successor to the League of Nations, the United Nations was established in 1945 as an international organisation designed to keep peace, uphold international law and set standards in human rights. officially recognised the communist government of China, which helped to improve its relations with many other countries as well. As these improving relations had begun between the table tennis teams, improving relations between the USA and China became known as ping pong diplomacy.
Chinese and American A way that countries try to avoid wars by using peaceful talks to resolve problems then began to meet regularly. In February 1972, Nixon became the first US president to visit China and had talks with the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Relations between the two countries had now returned to normal. The Chinese put pressure on North Vietnam to begin talks with the USA, which would enable America to withdraw from Vietnam.
Cooperation and the Helsinki Agreements
As well as limiting the gathering of large stocks of weapons, it was hoped that improved relations between the USA and the Soviet Union would lead to cooperation in other areas. For example, working together in science and technology resulted in the joint A joint space mission between the American Apollo astronauts and Soviet Soyuz cosmonauts. space mission, launched in 1975.
The International agreements between the USA, the Soviet Union and other countries covering a range of issues. of 1975 were another way in which the USA and the Soviet Union showed that they could cooperate. Along with 33 other countries, they agreed to a number of statements regarding issues that had caused conflict between them in the past. The issues were security, human rights and cooperation. They can be summarised as follows:
- Every country recognised the current land borders of the countries in Europe. Before this, the Soviet Union had refused to recognise the existence of West Germany.
- Every country agreed to recognise basic freedoms for its citizens, including freedom of speech and freedom of religious belief.
- Every country called for further cooperation in science, culture and trade.
Arms limitation
There were two Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreed between the USA and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
The first of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, an agreement signed in 1972 by US President Richard Nixon and Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev to begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons owned by America and the Soviet Union. was signed in May 1972.
- It meant that no new long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles Missile weapons that are able to target very long distance targets on the Earth. would be built and the number of submarine-launched missiles would be limited as well.
- It limited the number of anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs) that each side could have to shoot down the other’s missiles.
- No other weapons were included in this treaty and there were no limitations on the future development of new weapons.
It had taken three years of meetings to agree to SALT I and it was the first treaty to successfully limit nuclear weapons. It was intended to be the first of many arms limitation treaties, so negotiations continued to find other weapons reductions that the countries could agree on. The second of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Although it was signed by US President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1979, it was not ratified by the US Senate following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. was agreed between the two leaders of the US and the Soviet Union in June 1979 and would have limited the total number of missiles each side could have. However it needed to pass a vote in the A chamber of the United States Congress, which together with the House of Representatives, makes up the legislature of the United States. for it to be officially recognised, but the Senate refused to vote for the treaty after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.