The Cold War 1972-1991

• Détente


  The relaxing of tension between the East and West
• The 1970s saw the USA, the USSR and China making an effort to improve relations
• The arms race was expensive


  Sides began to realise that money for nuclear weapons would be better spent to improve living conditions at home
• The new US President, Richard Nixon, knew the war in Vietnam needed to be brought to an end
• The relationship between the USSR and China, the world's most important communist nations, had soured (the Sino-Soviet split)
• For the USA it meant it was easier to establish diplomatic relations with China
• Nixon made a symbolically important visit to China in 1972, which showed that he was trying to improve relations with the communist superpower
• Nixon hoped that the Chinese would help push the North Vietnamese to a resolution in Vietnam
• SALT I (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
• The agreement restricted the number of ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) both sides could have, but was criticised by some for not limiting the production of new nuclear weapons
• In 1975 American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts met and symbolically shook hands in space
• In 1975, the Helsinki Agreement was signed by 35 countries including the USA and the USSR
• Helsinki Agreement


  Countries were signing up to recognise the European borders established after World War Two as well as to some basic human rights such as freedom of speech
• This effectively meant that the Western Allies recognised Soviet control over Eastern Europe
• It also meant that, after decades of communist dictatorship, the Soviet Union had signed up to a basic human rights agreement
• In 1977, a new US President, Jimmy Carter, entered the White House
• Carter was a Democrat and had a different view on the USA's foreign relations and place in the world, and he criticised the USSR for its human rights abuses
• Between 1977 and 1979 the USSR began to replace its out-of-date nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe with SS-20 missiles
• These were a new type of battlefield nuclear weapon, leading many in the West to believe that the Soviets had not abandoned the idea of nuclear war or expansionism in Europe
• The USA responded by developing Cruise Missiles and deploying its own battlefield nuclear weapons to Europe
• With the arms race apparently on again, and then the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the US Congress refused to ratify SALT II, a second agreement of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
• Afghanistan bordered some of the southern Soviet republics of the USSR, making it easy for Moscow to support a communist-led government led by Taraki when it seized power in Kabul in April 1978
• This was because as far as they could see the USSR had broken its commitment to limiting the creation of new nuclear weapons
• Many ordinary Afghans rejected the new communist government because its atheism was at odds with their Muslim faith
• The communists imprisoned, tortured and murdered many Muslim religious leaders
• Mujahideen


  A militant Islamic group who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
• In September 1979 the Afghan politician, Amin, arranged for the murder of the communist Prime Minister, Taraki, and Amin seized control
• Amin entered into discussions with the US, which alarmed the USSR who didn't want American influence on their Southern border
• On 24 December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan
• Amin was assassinated and a pro-Moscow leader, Babrak Karmal, was installed in his place
• Challenges faced by the Soviet Army in Afghanistan

  • The Soviet Red Army was ill-prepared for the desert and mountain landscapes of Afghanistan
  • The Mujahideen had expert local knowledge and used the deserts and mountainous terrain to their advantage
  • The Mujahideen were extremely motivated as they were fighting for their homeland and their religion against a foreign invader
• Seeing the situation in Afghanistan as an extension of the Cold War, the US supported the Mujahideen against their old enemy, the USSR, and refused to sign SALT II
• Carter Doctrine


  The US President, Jimmy Carter, announced that the US was extending its policy of containment to the Middle East and was prepared to use force to stop any country from gaining control over the oil rich states of the Middle East
• Carter formed an alliance with China and Israel to support the Mujahideen rebels against the USSR, and the CIA secretly provided the Mujahideen with weapons and funds
• The USA also imposed economic sanctions on the Soviet Union and abolished most US-Soviet trade, which led to deterioration in diplomatic relations between the superpowers
• In 1980 the USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest at the invasion of Afghanistan
• Afghanistan became the Soviet Union's Vietnam: an expensive, embarrassing war with little hope of victory, where they were beaten by local guerrilla forces
• It dragged on until 1988 when the Soviet leader, who by then was Mikhail Gorbachev, signed a deal to end the war and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989
• Ronald Reagan


  Ex-Hollywood actor, elected President of the United States in 1980
• Mikhail Gorbachev


  Ukrainian-Russian from a peasant farming background with a law degree from Moscow State University, became leader of the USSR in 1985