6. Star Wars and beyond

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-103
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Public Imagination

‘Star Wars and beyond’ focuses on the various anti-missile shields proposed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. By the 1960s, both the United States and the Soviet Union, looking for alternatives to the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, found themselves caught up in an offensive and defensive arms race. Would an anti-missile shield respond effectively to the complex demands on it? Was the American arsenal enough of a deterrent to discourage rivals from striking first? Would the ‘shield’ approach reignite the arms race? Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (christened ‘Star Wars’ by critics) did not at first capture the public imagination, but its legacy continued in later administrations and is still felt today.

6. Star Wars and beyond

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Environment ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Stability

By the 1960s, both the United States and the Soviet Union found themselves caught up in an offensive and defensive arms race that threatened the stability of an embryonic nuclear deterrence system. ‘Star Wars and beyond’ looks at how domestic politics and the desire to stabilize the nuclear environment played a major role in American and Soviet anti-ballistic missile decisions after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Would rival nations fear that the United States might flaunt its strategic arsenal as a means of encouraging states to behave? Would US missile defences cause an opponent to feel compelled to strike first? Would this impede strategic arms-limitations efforts? Or would US missile defences renew the strategic arms race?

15. The Return to Confrontation, 1979–80

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Short Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.

Berlin and the Quadripartite Agreement of 1971

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Günther Doeker ◽  
Klaus Melsheimer ◽  
Dieter Schröder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Divided Germany

The present legal status of Berlin after the conclusion on September 3, 1971 of the Quadripartite Agreement between France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States can only be understood in terms of its own historical development and the context of the international politics of the 1960s. Although any legal and political analysis of divided Germany and Berlin must take into account a period of history dating back to the 1940s, it is assumed here that the essential facts are sufficiently well known to serve as a background for the following analysis.

First Steps toward SALT, 1966–1969

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
White House ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union

The chapter analyzes the Johnson administration’s failure to begin substantive strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. Johnson and McNamara were overly optimistic regarding the USSR’s willingness to concede nuclear superiority to the United States, believing that the strain of an arms race on the Soviet economy would be too great. The chapter argues that this economic determinism based on a US-centric model of modernization that privileged living standards over other goals was similar to that which underpinned the administration’s bombing strategy in the Vietnam War. Rather than being a completely separate initiative, Johnson’s strategy of détente with the USSR based on arms control stemmed from the same outlook as that which underpinned Vietnam. When Soviet willingness to enter talks failed to materialize, the Johnson White House was unable to agree to talks that would be based on strategic parity, fearing the domestic political consequences of doing so.

Soviet Income Maintenance Policy for the 1970s

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernice Madison
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Maintenance Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Income Maintenance ◽  
The 1960S

The ‘rediscovery’ of poverty in the 1960s in the United States and the rising welfare expectations all over the world have sharpened a continuing debate about the relative merits of a variety of proposals for dealing with want. A discussion of the Soviet approach may provide a useful perspective for us and for other countries. Income maintenance programmes in the Soviet Union, as they had developed up to 1968, have been studied by this author. In this paper, an attempt is made to bring developments up to date, focusing on what they suggest in regard to policy for the 1970s.

The Cuban Missile Crisis: An Analysis of Soviet Calculations and Behavior

1964 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold L. Horelick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Television Interview ◽  
And Behavior

In A television interview not long after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy observed that both the United States and the Soviet Union had made serious miscalculations in the Cuban affair. “I don't think we expected that he [Khrushchev] would put the missiles in Cuba,” he said, “because it would have seemed such an imprudent action for him to take He obviously thought he could do it in secret and that the United States would accept it.”

Nixon's Back Channel to Moscow

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Moss ◽  
James USN (Ret.) Stavridis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
White House ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
International Environment ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
The 1960S

The changing international environment of the 1960s made it possible to attain détente, a relaxation of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Back-channel diplomacy—confidential contacts between the White House and the Kremlin, mainly between National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin—transformed that possibility into reality. This book argues that although back-channel diplomacy was useful in improving U.S.-Soviet relations in the short term by acting as a safety valve and giving policy-actors a personal stake in improved relations, it provided a weak foundation for long-term détente. This book traces the evolution of confidential channels during the Nixon administration and examines certain flashpoints in U.S.-Soviet relations, such as the 1970 Cienfuegos crisis, Sino-American rapprochement, and the Indo-Pakistani War in 1971. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Moscow’s support for Hanoi remained constant irritants in U.S.-Soviet relations. The back-channel relationships allowed both sides to agree to disagree and paved the way for the Moscow Summit of May 1972. This focused examination of U.S.-Soviet back-channel diplomacy mitigates some of criticisms levied against Nixon and Kissinger in their secretive conduct of diplomacy by showing that back channels were both necessary and an effective instrument of policy. However, back channels worked best when they supplemented rather than replaced more traditional diplomacy.

The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Politics of Opposites

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 452-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miroslav Nincic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Conciliatory Behavior

The notion that the attitudes of the American public vis-a-vis the Soviet Union are driven essentially by emotion, and that they are more extreme and volatile than those of the government itself, is widely believed but may not be valid. While the public typically desires a combination of tough and conciliatory policies, it also tends to express, at any given moment, particular concern about whichever of the two it feels is most slighted in U.S. policy. Thus, the public will tend to seek conciliatory behavior from hawkish administrations while preferring a tough stance from administrations it deems dovish. By so doing, the public is likely to have a moderating effect on official behavior toward Moscow. The proposition is tested with reference to shifts in public approval of presidential Soviet policy, and certain implications are suggested for the manner in which political leadership perceives of its mandate.

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