Detente

Superpower Detente

Superpower Detente is an outstanding assessment of the highs and lows in the relationship between the two superpowers in the 1970s, and the prospects for a continuing detente between them in the 1980s. This thorough examination of the 1970s reminds us that improvements early in that decade gave way to stalemate and the demise of detente. The early 1970s saw the most far reaching moves toward detente since the inception of the Cold War. But, Bowker and Williams suggest, the coincidence of interests between the superpowers hid divergent conceptions of what detente was and what kind of behaviour it required.

The Rise and Fall of Detente

"This paper reviews recent obstacles to progress in arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The author attributes the current status of arms control to both the situation that the Reagan Administration inherited when it came into office and to unresolved disagreements within the administration itself. He sees grounds for cautious optimism that the arms-control process can be revived but warns of the danger that the negotiations within the government, on issues such as the real negotiability of cruise missiles and strategic defenses, will continue to no avail."--Rand abstracts

Detente