Cold War in Europe in the 60s and 70s
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 452.
Despite the tensions and fear of nuclear war, the Cold War division between East and West proved surprisingly stable after 1961. There was instead a conflict on the global stage, with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. For much of the 60s and 70s a program of “détente” was followed, a long series of talks which made some success in stabilizing the war and equalizing arms numbers. The fear of mutually assured destruction helped prevent direct conflict.
Amidst the Cold War, a series of treaties was issued under the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty to curtail the buildup of nuclear weapons. SALT I, as it is commonly known, was the first of the Strategic Arms Limitation talks between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev met with U.S. President Richard Nixon in November of 1969 to come up with a treaty that would contain the arms race. The negotiations lasted until January of 1972, and by May 26 of that same year the treaty was finalized.
In late 1972, negotiations began for SALT II and continued for seven years. Finally on June 18, 1979, in Vienna, Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter signed the SALT II treaty. Since the two countries had developed different strategies, specifications of the previous treaties had to be changed. SALT II set more specific regulations on the different missiles. The Treaty was sent to the Senate to be ratified, but due to tensions between the two countries, it was never ratified. Tensions continued up until the end of the Cold War, but war never broke out again and the race to stockpile weapons finally ended in the early 1990's.
Reagan's Star Wars
By the 1980s Russia appeared to be winning the US-Soviet confrontation, with a more productive economy, better missiles and a growing navy, even though the system was really corrupt and built on propaganda. America, once again fearing Russia's domination, moved to re-arm and build up forces, including deploying many new missiles in Europe (not without local opposition). In 1983 President Reagan proposed the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an ambitious project that would construct a space-based anti-missile system. This program was immediately dubbed "Star Wars."
This system would tip the nuclear balance toward the United States. The Soviets feared that SDI would enable the United States to launch a first-strike against them. Critics pointed to the vast technological uncertainties of the system, in addition to its enormous cost.
Although work was begun on the program, the technology proved to be too complex and much of the research was cancelled by later administrations.
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