The Long Détente. Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s
The Long Détente. Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s–1980s
Contributor(s): Oliver Bange (Editor), Poul Villaume (Editor)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, History, Recent History (1900 till today), International relations/trade, Security and defense, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: Central European University Press
Keywords: National security;Foreign relations 1945-; European History;20th century;International cooperation;Great Powers;East and West;Cold
Summary/Abstract: The present volume presents a collection of pieces of evidence, which—taken together—lead to an argument that goes against the grain of the established Cold War narrative. The argument is that a “long détente” existed between East and West from the 1950s to the 1980s, that it existed and lasted for good (economic, national security, societal) reasons, and that it had a profound impact on the eventual outcome of the conflict between East and West and the quintessentially peaceful framework in which this “endgame” was played.By offering new, Euro-centered narratives that include both West and East European perspectives, the combined contributions of this volume point to critical inconsistencies and inherent problems in the traditional U.S.-dominated narrative of the “Victory in the Cold War.” Yet, rather than aiming at replacing this understanding entirely, the argument of a “long détente” demonstrates that this superpower narrative can, and needs to be, augmented with the plentitude of European experiences and perceptions. After all, it was Europe—its peoples, societies, and states—that stood both at the ideological and military frontline of the conflict between East and West, and it was here that the struggle between liberalism and communism was eventually decided.
- E-ISBN-13: 978-963-386-129-5
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-963-386-127-1
- Page Count: 370
- Publication Year: 2017
- Language: English
East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente
East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente
(East-West Conflict: Short Cold War and Long Détente)
- Author(s):Gottfried Niedhart
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:19-30
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:Cold War;East-West conflict;Détente
- Summary/Abstract:This essay proposes a correction to the habit of using Cold War as a synonym for East-West conflict. Furthermore, the author argues that détente, though not a linear process, was a new method of conflict behavior that saved theworld from a relapse into hostile confrontation.
- Price: 4.80 €
The Long Détente and the Soviet Bloc, 1953–1983
The Long Détente and the Soviet Bloc, 1953–1983
(The Long Détente and the Soviet Bloc, 1953–1983)
- Author(s):Csaba Békés
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:31-49
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:cold war; detente; Helsinki process
- Summary/Abstract:There are several interpretations of détente, but the prevailing idea in mainstream scholarship is that it was the period between 1969 and 1975 when the relaxation of tension in East-West relations produced spectacular results. This included the settlement of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the Soviet Bloc states; U.S.-Soviet agreements on arms limitation and bilateral cooperation; and the convening of a pan-European conference on security and cooperation, eventually culminating in the signing of the Helsinki Final Act.
- Price: 7.60 €
Soviet Snowdrops in the Ice Age?
Soviet Snowdrops in the Ice Age?
(Soviet Snowdrops in the Ice Age?)
- Author(s):MIkhail Lipkin
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, International relations/trade, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:53-75
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:economic Détante;Economic Conference;Economic Cooperation;Moscow International Economic Conference (MIEC);Trade agreement;
- Summary/Abstract:If one types the keywords “economic détente,” “peaceful coexistence,” or“tourism in the USSR” into any search engine, results will likely lead to a historical narrative with such key events as the 1955 Geneva Conference,Nikita Khrushchev, and the Moscow Youth Festival of 1957. Yet new evidence from Russian and foreign archives shows that the first massive“general rehearsal” of the Soviet Union opening itself to the world happened from April 3 to April 12, 1952. This is the story of the Moscow International Economic Conference (MIEC).
- Price: 9.20 €
European Long-Term Investments in Détente
European Long-Term Investments in Détente
(European Long-Term Investments in Détente)
- Author(s):Werner D. Lippert
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Political history, International relations/trade, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:77-93
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:Cold War;East-West trade;Economic cooperation
- Summary/Abstract:Considering such agitation against East-West contact by the Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev over the unrest in Czechoslovakia,Brezhnev’s strong advocacy of trade with the West in his efforts to clinch a deal in the context of the Conference on Security and Cooperation seems all the more remarkable. Such vacillations between political confrontation and pro-trade approaches were not Brezhnev’s alone, but played out in Western capitals as well, and speak to the amorphous balance sheet trade with an adversary can have on a country’s foreign policy.
- Price: 6.80 €
No End to “Political Ideological Diversion”
No End to “Political Ideological Diversion”
(No End to “Political Ideological Diversion”)
- Author(s):Oliver Bange
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:97-125
- No. of Pages:29
- Keywords:Stasi;East Germany;Warsaw Pact
- Summary/Abstract:This chapter analyzes the ongoing détente process in Europe between the late 1960s and the end of the 1980s via the lens of the Stasi mechanism in East German society. By examining the workings of the Stasi during this time—their modus operandi and their ways of circumnavigating multilateral agreements—we observe a kind of “negative exposure” that demonstrates the continuing impact of East-West détente on both East European societies and the autocratic regimes within the Warsaw Pact.
- Price: 11.60 €
New Security Concepts and Transnational Party Networks, 1976–1983
New Security Concepts and Transnational Party Networks, 1976–1983
(New Security Concepts and Transnational Party Networks, 1976–1983)
- Author(s):Rasmus Mariager
- Language:English
- Subject(s):International relations/trade, Security and defense, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:127-152
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:Cold war;US-Soviet relashions;Socialist International;Security
- Summary/Abstract:This chapter has presented general survey of common perspectives influencing the security thinking and security policies of a number of European Social Democratic parties in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A more comprehensive analysis of developments within Social Democratic security thinking will need to focus on the influence of security policy think tanks and the antinuclear weapons movement of the late 1970s and early1980s, in particular the END (European Nuclear Disarmament) movement.99Also, a comprehensive investigation should focus on the security thinking among liberal conservative parties, not only in Europe but also in the United States.
- Price: 10.40 €
Continuity and Transformation
Continuity and Transformation
(Continuity and Transformation)
- Author(s):Laura Fasanaro
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Political history, International relations/trade, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:155-182
- No. of Pages:28
- Keywords:Détente;Italy;Italian Communist Party;Cold war;
- Summary/Abstract:The question of what East-West détente has meant for middle-sized powers within the Atlantic Alliance in particular remains an open chapter in the history of the Cold War.This chapter analyzes the differences between the détente policies of the government and that of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), from the economic Ostpolitik of the former in the 1960s, championed by both the Christian Democracy Party (DC) and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), to the ideological challenge of the latter in the 1970s, which eventually culminated in political confrontation between the PCI and Moscow in the1980s.
- Price: 11.20 €
Perception of the Other: “Kremlinologists” and “Westerners”
Perception of the Other: “Kremlinologists” and “Westerners”
(Perception of the Other: “Kremlinologists” and “Westerners”)
- Author(s):Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, International relations/trade, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:183-201
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:East and West Germany;foreign policy;European Security;
- Summary/Abstract:The perceptions held by East and West German foreign policy experts of political research institutions regarding their respective counterparts under went significant changes beginning in the early 1970s and lasting until1990, especially from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. The focus shifted from dissociation from contacts from the other side to well-structured trans-bloc contacts. After becoming chancellor of West Germany in October1969, Willy Brandt pursued a new policy (Neue Ostpolitik) towards the states in Central and Eastern Europe. The Neue Ostpolitik forged new and much more intense contacts between East Berlin and Bonn, resulting in a more precise and more humane picture of the other side. Eventually,the Helsinki Final Act of August 1975 brought about international recognition of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a legitimate second German state.The institutional, yet clandestine contacts between East and West German institutes for political analysis helped to stabilize East-West détente when the deterioration in superpower-relations threatened to throw Europe back to the Cold War years of the 1950s. Beyond these years of crisis, the continuing exchange on security issues across the German-German frontline of the blocs sufficiently watered down harmful images and stereotypes to establish a much more refined, accurate, and humanized picture of the other. This eventually invited a new thinking on security and military policies, resulting in a concept for a common European security system—which took on its own dynamic in the second half of the1980s.
- Price: 7.60 €
Pathfinders and Perpetuators of Détente
Pathfinders and Perpetuators of Détente
(Pathfinders and Perpetuators of Détente)
- Author(s):Poul Villaume
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Military history, International relations/trade, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:205-234
- No. of Pages:30
- Keywords:Cold war; Denmark;wet front;Danish foreign policy;NATO
- Summary/Abstract:Denmark may well be characterized as both a pathfinder and a perpetuator of European détente during the last decades of Cold War. At times this was explicitly appreciated by Denmark’s strongest ally, the United States, and could also account for the State Department’s 1975characterization of Denmark as “a sophisticated NATO ally.”
- Price: 12.00 €
Owercoming the Crisis of Détente, 1979–1983
Owercoming the Crisis of Détente, 1979–1983
(Owercoming the Crisis of Détente, 1979–1983)
- Author(s):Christian Wenkel
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:235-251
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:Cold War;East and West;France;Franco-German relations;Franco-Brittish relations
- Summary/Abstract:The lack of substantial U.S. détente policy in 1979 and 1980, and the external pressure of the crisis of East-West relations, forged a certain convergence of views between Paris, Bonn, and London, not only on Cold War issues but also on the development of European integration and the European role at the international arena. A concrete result was a temporary coordination of détente policies during the peak of this crisis of international relations and especially during the transition-period between the Carter and the Reagan administrations. Even if there was no direct impact of Cold War tensions on the European integration process as in the 1950s,the initiatives for deepening the political integration since the mid-1980scan well be interpreted as a result of this rather short intermezzo of intense European policy coordination efforts. The idea of a common Franco-German Ostpolitik, however, a French political purpose since 1963, had to remain an illusion only. At the end of the Cold War, the fundamental differences between France and the FRG with regard to the underlying concepts and objectives of détente in Europe became fully clear once again,as the numerous misunderstandings during the process of Germany’s reunification in 1989/90 bore out
- Price: 6.80 €
Lyndon B. Johnson and the Building of East-West Bridges
Lyndon B. Johnson and the Building of East-West Bridges
(Lyndon B. Johnson and the Building of East-West Bridges)
- Author(s):Gry Thomasen
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:255-279
- No. of Pages:25
- Keywords:Cold war;National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 304;
- Summary/Abstract:There is strong evidence that elements of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s bridge-building policies toward the Eastern bloc between 1963and 1966 were largely crafted as a response to the early European East-West détente efforts. Primarily, the Johnson administration’s détente policies were about stabilizing the military relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as influencing and facilitating political developments in Eastern Europe in order to transform the sociopolitical systems in the East; however, U.S. détente policies were also about accommodating the West European allies’ aspirations and demands for more equality in the alliance and a move toward a joint transatlantic détente effort with the East. The latter perspective is unfolded in this chapter. While West European aspirations and interests were diverse, the Johnson administration’s response was about aligning those aspirations to those of the United States and about preserving the cohesion of the alliance.In effect, this effort resulted in a substantial West European influence on the Johnson administration’s bridge-building policies from 1963to 1966
- Price: 10.00 €
Between Power Politics and Morality
Between Power Politics and Morality
(The United States, the Long Détente, and the Transformation of Europe, 1969–1985)
- Author(s):Stephan Kieninger
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Diplomatic history, Political history, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
- Page Range:281-313
- No. of Pages:33
- Keywords:Cold war;US;Ostpolitik;US Transformation Policy
- Summary/Abstract:Détente seemed to prolong the division of Europe. It seemed to be un-American. From the perspective of its many critics, détente allowed for the Soviet Union’s strategic buildup in the 1970s and it precipitated America’s decline in the wake of Vietnam. Even worse, by preaching moral equivalence between Communism and Western democracy, détente allegedly made the United States lose sight of its mission. Only when Ronald Reagan started to abandon détente could the U.S. win the “Cold War endgame.” This is the traditional narrative. This chapter tells a different story by arguing that the U.S. policy of peaceful change could only thrive in a sustainable security framework that the United States and its Western European allies built through détente,dialogue, and engagement with the Soviet Union.
- Price: 13.20 €