The End of the Cold War
Detente and the End of the Cold War● Detente: French word meaning, ease of tensions● Refers to a time period, starting around 1970, when there was a lessening of tensions
between the United States and the Soviet Union● Cuban Missile Crisis/the reality of a nuclear war threat helped each country GET A GRIP
and realize the magnitude of this conflict● Nixon and National Security Advisor Kissinger favored a “multipolar world”: one in which
the Super Powers of the U.S. and Soviet Union could COEXIST. Gasp! ● Two Big Moments:
○ February 1972: Nixon visits China○ May 1972: American-Soviet Summit
Nixon Visits China/ American Soviet Summit 1972
● Richard Nixon visits Communist China in 1972● Ended several decades of wary relations between the US and China that had seen
the two countries spar in the Korean and Vietnam war● Began the long process of opening up China to the outside world after years of
isolation
During a week of summit meetings in Moscow the U.S. and the USSR reached a number of agreements: including…
● One that laid the groundwork for a joint space flight in 1975 ● Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT): limited the U.S. and the USSR to anti
ballistic missiles●
● Slowly but surely, U.S.S.R. begins to lose reigns over eastern bloc countries. ○ Gorbachev wants to reform nation as combo communism/democracy○ Radical policies abandoned and people favored more moderate approach○ Younger generations want change!
● Eastern bloc countries begin to rebel○ Independence movements (Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, etc.)○ Fall of Berlin Wall
● 1989 and 1990, borders opened, and free elections ousted Communist regimes in eastern Europe.
● Late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its component republics
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
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