Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
1980 was not a good year for detente. The year began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing state of East-West relations was reflected at the year's end in a deadlocked C.S.C.E. Review Conference in Madrid. The second phase of the Conference began with a sombre declaration by the United States' delegate that ‘detente does not today exist’ though it remains ‘an objective to be sought’. The invasion of Afghanistan gave sustenance to those who had been arguing for some time that detente was merely, in the words of Senator Jackson, ‘appeasement in its purest form’. For many indeed, like Mr. Kampelman, Afghanistan signalled the final end of detente. Others could argue however that the fact that the Madrid Conference could take place at all in such a political atmosphere, thus maintaining the momentum of the ‘Helsinki process’, is a clear indication that detente is at least alive if not well.
1. Guardian, London, 28 January 1981.Google Scholar
2. Finley, D. D., ‘Detente and Soviet-American Trade: An Approach to a political Balance Sheet’, Studies in Comparative Communism, viii (1975), p. 67.Google Scholar
3. It should also be noted that the article will focus on Western usage.
4. Hassner, P., ‘Eurocommunism and Detente’, Survival, xix, 6 (1977), p. 251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Webster's Third New English Dictionary. The derivation of the word adds little to an understanding of modern political usage. See Clemens, W. C., ‘The Impact of Detente on Chinese and Soviet Communism’, Journal of International Studies, xxviii (1974)Google Scholar; Seabury, P., ‘On Detente’, Survey, xix (1973).Google Scholar
6. P. Hassner, op. cit. p. 251.
7. Finley offers a rather different classification of meanings or ‘images’ of detente; see op. cit. pp. 67–79.
8. See, for example, Windsor, P., Germany and the Management of Detente (London, 1971), ch. 1Google Scholar; Fontaine, A., History of the Cold War (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.
9. Gati, C., ‘East Central Europe: Touchstone for Detente’, Journal of International Affairs, xxviii (1974), p. 158.Google Scholar
10. P. Hassner, op. cit. p. 251.
11. Shulman, M.‘Toward s a Western Philosophy of Coexistence’, Foreign Affairs, 51 (1973), p. 36 ff.Google Scholar
12. P. Seabury, op. cit. p. 62.
13. Rosecrance, R., ‘Detente or Entente’, Foreign Affairs, 55 (1975), p. 464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Hoffman, S.‘Will the Balance Balance at Home?’, Foreign Policy, (Summer, 1972), p. 61.Google Scholar Interestingly, George Kennan argues that ‘no new word’ is necessary to describe contemporary Soviet-American relations. See his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on Detente, 20 August 1974 (Hereafter S.F.R.C. Hearings).
15. Finley notes the variety of theories, including convergence and modernization, that are compatible with this ‘image’ of detente. Op. cit. pp. 67–70.
16. W. C. Clemens, op. cit. pp. 134–5. See, especially, Figure 1.
17. R. Rosecrance, op. cit. p. 481.
18. Shulman, M.Beyond the Cold War (New Haven, 1966), p. 58.Google Scholar
19. Draper, T., ‘Detente’, Commentary, (June, 1974), p. 33.Google Scholar
20. Rubinstein likens detente to the mating of two elephants ‘… a great deal of activity takes place at a very high level amidst great fanfare and bellowing, but with very little to show for a long period of time’, Rubinstein, A. Z., ‘The Elusive Parameters of Detente’, Orbis, (Winter, 1976), p. 1358.Google Scholar
21. Clemens reminds us that the Chinese use ‘detente’ pejoratively and in quotation marks to indicate the ‘sham’ nature of the relationship between the superpowers, op. cit. p. 134.
22. See, for example, Urban, G. R., Detente (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Draper, T., op. cit. and ‘Appeasement and Detente’, Commentary, (February, 1976), pp. 27–38Google Scholar; also a series of articles in Survey between 1973 and 1976.
23. See Larrabee, S., ‘Moscow, Angola and the Dialectics of^Detente’, The World Today, 32, 5 (1976), p. 181.Google Scholar
24. Conquest, R.et al., ‘Detente – An Evaluation’, Survey, (Spring/Summer, 1974), 20: 2–3, p. 1.Google Scholar
25. Quoted in Draper, T., ‘Detente’, op. cit. p. 39.Google Scholar
26. S.F.R.C. Hearings, 19 September 1974. Reprinted in Kissinger, H. A., American Foreign Policy (New York, 1977), p. 144.Google Scholar
27. S.F.R.C. Hearings, 18 September 1974.
28. Korbel, J., Detente in Europe (Princeton, 1972), p. 36.Google Scholar
29. See Girling, J. L. S., ‘Realism or Ideology? Carter's Foreign Policy’, The World Today, (November, 1977), p. 423.Google Scholar
30. See, for example, C. Gati, op. cit. p. 158.
31. For conflicting views, see Korbel, J., ‘Detente and World Order’, Journal of International Law and Policy, vi (1976), pp. 9–18Google Scholar and West, D., ‘Detente in Trouble – or is it?’ New Zealand International Review, (Jan./Feb. 1978), pp. 29–33.Google Scholar
32. Draper, T., ‘Detente’ op. cit. pp. 32 ff.Google Scholar
33. Weede, E., 'Threats to Detente: Intuitive Hopes and Counter-intuitive Realities, European Journal of Political Research, v (1977), pp. 407–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34. S.F.R.C. Hearings, August, 1974.
35. C. Gati, op. cit. p. 168.
36. Etzioni, A., ‘The Kennedy Experiment’, Western Political Quarterly, xx (1967), p. 370.Google Scholar Etzioni and others regarded U.S. detente policy as the conscious testing of certain psychological theories of conflict resolution. See also Etzioni, A., The Hard Way to Peace (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Osgood, C. E., An Alternative to War or Surrender (Urbana, 1962)Google Scholar; W. C. Clemens, op. cit. p. 139.
37. S.F.R.C. Hearings, September, 1974.
38. See Urban, G. R. (ed.), Detente, op. cit. pp. 263–264.Google Scholar More recently, it has become more difficult to differentiate the Kissinger and Brzezinski positions on detente. There appears to have been some stealing of clothes. See Schweigler, G., ‘Carter's Detente Policy: Change or Continuity?’ The World Today (March, 1978).Google Scholar For the ‘new’ Kissinger line, see his evidence to the Senate Hearings on the SALT II treaty. Guardian, London, August 1979.Google Scholar
39. Adam Ulam pinpoints the August 1953 speech by Malenkov as initiating Soviet detente policy. ‘Detente under Soviet Eyes’, Foreign Policy, 22, (Fall, 1976), p. 149.Google Scholar There is some debate about the significance of ‘peaceful coexistence’ in Leninist thought prior to 1953. Marantz, Contrast P., ‘Prelude to Detente: Doctrinal Change under Kruschchev’, International Studies Quarterly, xix (1975), pp. 501–527CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and R. Conquest et al., ‘Detente’, op. cit.
40. For a useful overview of Soviet detente policy, see Shulman, M. D.‘Towards a Western Philosophy of Coexistence’ op. cit. p. 40 ffGoogle Scholar; see also Vernon, G. D., ‘Controlled Conflict: Soviet Perceptions of Peaceful Coexistence’, Orbis, xxiii (1979).Google Scholar
41. Northedge, F. S., Descent from Power: British Foreign Policy 1945–73. (London, 1974), p. 265.Google Scholar Clearly, a detente policy coexisted uneasily with the more central collective defence policy.
42. See his Memoirs, in particular, Pointing the Way 1959–1961 (London, 1972).Google Scholar
43. See Schlaim, A., ‘Britain's Quest for a World Role’, International Relations, (May, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44. See J. Korbel, op. cit. pp. 36–37.
45. Macmillan, H., At The End of the Day (London, 1973), p. 158.Google Scholar Anthony Sampson pays tribute to Macmillan's role in the negotiations which led to the Partial Test Ban Treaty. ‘Macmillan had succeeded, through the years of distrust, in keeping the lines open, and keeping the object in sight; and he had argued the case passionately and effectively’. Sampson, A.. Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity (London, 1967), p. 235.Google Scholar
46. Macmillan, H., The End of the Day, op. cit. p. 151.Google Scholar
47. Urban, G., Detente, op. cit. p. 264.Google Scholar
48. Macmillan, H., At The End of the Day, op. cit. p. 158.Google Scholar
49. P. Marantz, op. cit. p. 526.
50. Shulman, M., ‘Towards a Western Philosophy of Coexistence’, op. cit. p. 35.Google Scholar
51. Ball, G. W., Diplomacy for a Crowded World (London, 1976), p. 85.Google Scholar
52. G. D. Veraon, op. cit. p. 211.
53. Senator Frank Church warned that U.S. administrations were in danger of overselling the idea of detente, generating quite unrealistic expectations which cannot be realized. See S.F.R.C. Hearings, August, 1974.
54. Draper, T., ‘Appeasement and Detente’, op. cit. p. 34.Google Scholar
