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 and Southeast Asia: A Case of Strategic Surrender

1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Buszynski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
United States Policy ◽  
Global Context ◽  
The Soviet Union

Southeast Asia in United States policy fell from a region of high priority during the Vietnam war to become, after the fall of Indochina, an area of relatively minor interest. For the United States, Southeast Asia evoked memories of misperception, intensified over-commitment, and simplistic assumptions that characterized the American effort to defeat local Vietnamese national communism. Since the formulation of the Nixon doctrine of disengagement in 1969, United States policy towards Southeast Asia has been undergoing a process of long-term readjustment in recognition of the exaggerated significance that the region had assumed in American thinking. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 was a major stimulus to this readjustment as it gave the Americans compelling reasons to anticipate a reassertion of Soviet influence in the region. Successive American administrations attempted to place the region in a wider global context to avoid the dangers of extreme reaction to local national communism while developing the flexibility to coordinate a response to the Soviet Union at a global level. The main concern of American policy was to remove the basis for direct United States involvement in the region in a way that would satisfy post-Vietnam war public and congressional opinion and the demands of strategic planners for greater freedom of manoeuvre against the Soviet Union.

The Origins of the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter traces the deterioration of Soviet-American relations at the end of World War II and into the beginning of the cold war. While the United States and the Soviet Union found common cause during World War II in defeating Hitler’s Germany, their relationship began to deteriorate as the eventual defeat of Germany became more certain. The chapter emphasizes that it was growing beliefs about malign Soviet intentions, rather than changes in Soviet capabilities, that fuelled the origins of the cold war. In particular, the chapter details crises in Iran, Turkey, and Germany that contributed to U.S. beliefs about long-term Soviet intentions. As uncertainty evaporated, the enmity of the cold war took hold.

Future Forces and Future Policies

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 35-39
Author(s):  
Richard L. Garwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Great Improvement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Capital ◽  
Missile Attack ◽  
Do So

Pertinent Highlights of the SALT Agreements: The SALT I Agreements signed in Moscow May 26, 1972, were the result of more than three years of negotiation by the Nixon Administration. They provide the basis for a great improvement in national security. The ABM Treaty recognizes the technical reality that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States can defend its population or industry against ballistic missile attack and that it is not simply wasteful but counterproductive to try to do so. The treaty limits each side to a negligible defense at two sites—the national capital and another at least 800 miles away. Furthermore, it limits the number of radar complexes around the national capital to six, at most, and the number of interceptors at each of the two sites to 100, with the clear implication that not only should these defenses against missiles be penetrable but also destroyable by those missiles.

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.

The Influence of Political Culture upon Cross-Cultural Misperceptions and Foreign Policy: The United States and Germany

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Kalberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Technology Products ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Trade Sanctions ◽  
The Military

The disagreement between Germany and the United States over thewar in Iraq was massive. During the winter of 2002, many observersspoke of a long-term rift between these longstanding allies and atotal loss of credibility on both sides. No one can doubt, regardlessof recent healing overtures,1 that the German-American partnershiphas been altered and significantly weakened. It has suffered a blowfar more damaging than those that accompanied past conflicts over,for example, Ostpolitik, the neutron bomb, the Soviet gas pipeline,the flow of high technology products to the Soviet Union, the impositionof trade sanctions in 1980 against the military government inPoland, the stationing in the late 1970s of middle-range missiles onGerman soil, and the modernization of short-range missiles in 1989.

Deterrence in 1939

1977 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Alexandroff ◽  
Richard Rosecrance
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deterrence Theory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Time Perspectives ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Time Perceptions

Rather than a case where deterrence was not tried, 1939 is a case where deterrence failed. As such, it has important implications for deterrence theory. Mutual deterrence must operate on roughly the same time perceptions. Britain felt impelled to deter Germany after Prague, but could offer only a long-term deterrent. Germany's short term appeared so favorable that the long-term uncertainties posed by Britain and France failed to restrain her. The experience of 1939 also underlines the importance of political factors, particularly realignment in mutual deterrence. The Russo-German Pact tipped the balance toward war. In the contemporary setting, calculations of time perspectives between the Soviet Union and the United States are important for mutual deterrence, especially in Europe. Changes in the Sino-Soviet split hold further implications for contemporary deterrence.

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.

The Cold War and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–74

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-170
Author(s):  
Jerome Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Negotiated Settlement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Peace Settlement ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict became entangled in the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. American policymakers, particularly Henry Kissinger, believed that the Soviets wanted to exploit the Arab-Israeli conflict to drive the West from the Middle East and dominate the region. To prevent that, the Nixon administration sought to end Soviet influence there and exclude it from all efforts to reach a negotiated settlement. However, the American view was based on misperceptions about Soviet interests and objectives in the region. In fact, fearing American dominance and a war with the United States, the Soviets proposed a joint superpower-guaranteed or even imposed comprehensive peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Because the United States spurned these proposals, the Cold War was exacerbated, there were several near-confrontations between the superpowers, and important opportunities to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were permanently lost.

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.

Anglo-American Nuclear Weapons Cooperation After the Nassau Conference: The British Policy of Interdependence

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Middeke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Value ◽  
East West

The Anglo-American summit at Nassau in December 1962 did not strictly separate Britain's deterrent from the proposed Multilateral Force (MLF). As a result, Conservative governments in the 1960s tried to safeguard maximum British independence in nuclear relations with the United States. The British tried to thwart American initiatives on the mixed-manned MLF; some British officials even hoped to preserve an “independent British deterrent” through nuclear cooperation with France. For the United States, the British deterrent had political value in an intra-alliance or East-West context, but no military or political significance in itself. The MLF idea of bilateral nuclear cooperation with Britain and France was a means to contain French and German nuclear ambitions and to settle Cold War disputes with the Soviet Union. In London, however, leading officials believed that Britain's future as a great power was inextricably linked to the possession of an independent nuclear deterrent. When nuclear independence was lost, the appearance of independence became more important.

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