Outline the circumstances leading to Detente.

Answer:

Detente, the relaxation of Cold War tension from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, arose from mutual recognition that nuclear confrontation was intolerably dangerous and from economic and strategic pressures on both superpowers.

The nuclear factor

• The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
• A hotline was installed in 1963 and the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed.
• The Soviet Union achieved rough nuclear parity by the late 1960s.
• Mutual assured destruction made both sides seek predictable limits.

Economic and political pressures

• The arms race imposed a heavy burden on both economies.
• The United States was exhausted and divided by the Vietnam War.
• The Soviet economy was slowing and needed western grain and technology.
• European Ostpolitik under Willy Brandt sought normalisation with the east.

Strategic realignment

• The Sino-Soviet split gave Washington the opportunity of an opening to China.
• Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972 alarmed Moscow into seeking accommodation.
• SALT I and the ABM Treaty were signed in 1972.
• The Helsinki Accords of 1975 recognised borders and affirmed human rights.

Detente therefore emerged from nuclear fear, economic strain and shifting strategic alignments rather than from any ideological reconciliation. As historians note, it managed rather than ended the Cold War, and it collapsed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 revived confrontation.