Detente and its End

A kiss in Vienna, a coup in Kabul

On 18 June 1979 Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT 2 treaty in Vienna and, to the surprise of the cameras, Brezhnev kissed the American president on both cheeks. It was the high point of detente, the relaxation of tension that had begun when Richard Nixon flew to Moscow in May 1972 and signed the first arms-control agreement of the Cold War. On 27 December 1979 Soviet special forces stormed the presidential palace in Kabul and shot Hafizullah Amin, the communist president of Afghanistan, while 80,000 Soviet troops crossed the border to install a more obedient one. Within a month Carter had withdrawn SALT 2 from the Senate, stopped grain sales to the Soviet Union, and told Congress that any attempt to control the Persian Gulf would be met by force. Within a year Ronald Reagan had been elected promising to rebuild American power. The Second Cold War had begun. The exam asks why detente happened, what the agreements said, why Afghanistan destroyed it, and what came next. This module gives you the dated evidence for each, and the three question shapes the period study uses.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in an 8-mark answer.

From Moscow to Kabul, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Nixon visits Moscow and signs SALT 1 and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
• An Apollo capsule and a Soyuz capsule dock in orbit, and the Helsinki Final Act is signed a fortnight later
• Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT 2 in Vienna
• NATO decides to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe unless the Soviets withdraw their SS-20s
• Soviet forces invade Afghanistan and kill President Amin
• Carter announces the Carter Doctrine and the United States boycotts the Moscow Olympics

Why did the superpowers want detente?

In 1962 the superpowers had nearly gone to war over Cuba; ten years later they were signing treaties. Which explanation best accounts for detente?

• Both sides had reasons to pause: the arms race was costing the Soviet Union around a quarter of its budget and the United States was bogged down in Vietnam; the Cuban crisis had shown that nuclear parity made war unwinnable; Nixon wanted Soviet help to leave Vietnam and had just opened relations with China, which frightened Moscow into talking; and Brezhnev wanted Western grain and technology for a stalling economy.
• Nixon and Brezhnev were personal friends who trusted each other.
• The Soviet Union had given up communism and wanted to join the West.
• The United Nations ordered both sides to disarm.

What detente achieved, and what it never touched

The importance question may ask how far detente changed the Cold War. Have both columns ready, because the answer is that it managed the rivalry without ending it.

Why the Soviets invaded Afghanistan

Five statements about 1978 to 1980. Tap the TWO that give reasons why the Soviet Union invaded, as opposed to consequences of the invasion.

• The communist government that had seized Kabul in April 1978 was collapsing under a rural revolt, and its leader Amin, who had murdered his predecessor Taraki in September 1979, was suspected in Moscow of talking to the Americans.
• Carter stopped the sale of 17 million tons of American grain to the Soviet Union in January 1980.
• The Iranian revolution of 1979 had put an Islamic government on the southern border of the Soviet Union, and the Politburo feared that an Islamic Afghanistan would unsettle the Muslim republics of Soviet Central Asia.
• Around 65 countries stayed away from the Moscow Olympics in July 1980, and the Soviet bloc boycotted Los Angeles in 1984 in return.
• The CIA supplied the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan with weapons that eventually included Stinger missiles, and the war cost the Soviet Union around 15,000 dead before it withdrew in February 1989.

The American response

Select the THREE statements that are true of how the United States responded to the invasion.

• Carter asked the Senate on 3 January 1980 to shelve SALT 2, so the treaty signed in Vienna six months earlier was never ratified.
• In the Carter Doctrine of 23 January 1980 the president declared the Persian Gulf a vital interest to be defended by force, and he raised defence spending and reintroduced registration for the draft.
• The United States led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics of 1980 joined by around 65 countries, stopped grain and technology sales, and began arming the mujahideen through Pakistan.
• American troops were sent to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
• The UN Security Council ordered a Soviet withdrawal.
• Carter threatened a nuclear strike on Moscow.

Was Afghanistan the cause, or the last straw?

The importance question on this bullet asks what the invasion of Afghanistan meant for superpower relations. The strong answer decides whether it killed detente or merely finished it off, and uses the dates to show which. The case that detente was already dying. The Senate had tied trade to emigration in 1974. Soviet and Cuban troops had gone into Angola in 1975 and Ethiopia in 1977 while the treaties were being negotiated. The SS-20s had been aimed at Europe since 1977, and NATO had voted to answer them on 12 December 1979, a fortnight before the invasion. Carter had called Soviet human rights abuses a moral issue from his first month in office. Afghanistan did not start any of this. The case that Afghanistan was decisive. It was the first time since 1945 that Soviet troops had invaded a country outside the Warsaw Pact, and it did what none of the earlier strains had done: it made SALT 2 unratifiable, put an American doctrine behind the Gulf, ended grain sales, emptied an Olympic stadium, and gave the mujahideen a superpower sponsor. This meant that the framework built since 1972 collapsed within a month, and Reagan inherited a Cold War already restarted. A judgement that gives the earlier strains the weakening and Afghanistan the ending will reach the top level.

In the shoes of the Politburo and the President

Four decisions between 1972 and 1980. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice led to.

• Spring 1972. You are Nixon. You have just been to Beijing, the first American president to visit communist China, and Moscow is alarmed. What do you do with the moment?
• 1975. You are Brezhnev. The West will recognise the borders of 1945, which you have wanted for thirty years, but only if you sign a basket on human rights. What do you do?
• December 1979. You are in the Politburo. The Afghan communist regime is losing to rural rebels, Amin has murdered Taraki and may be dealing with Washington, and Iran has just gone Islamic. What do you do?
• January 1980. You are Carter, with SALT 2 awaiting ratification, American hostages held in Tehran, and an election in November. Soviet troops are in Afghanistan. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because Nixon had opened relations with _____ in February 1972, Brezhnev was anxious to deal, and SALT 1 was signed in Moscow in May. Because the Soviets wanted the borders of 1945 recognised, they accepted the human rights basket at _____ in 1975. Because SALT limited launchers rather than _____, the arsenals kept growing under the treaties. Because the Afghan regime was collapsing and Iran had gone Islamic, the Politburo sent 80,000 troops in December _____. And because that was the first Soviet invasion outside the Pact since 1945, Carter withdrew SALT 2 and announced that the _____ would be defended by force.

The SALT 1 ceilings

SALT 1 froze land-based missile launchers at 1,054 for the United States and 1,618 for the Soviet Union. How many more launchers was the Soviet Union allowed to keep?

The 8-mark consequences question

Question 1 might read: Explain two consequences of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Each consequence is marked as a consequence plus supporting detail, for 4 marks. Which answer scores all four marks for ONE consequence?

• One consequence was the end of detente. Carter withdrew SALT 2 from the Senate on 3 January 1980, so the treaty signed at Vienna the previous June was never ratified, and in the Carter Doctrine of 23 January he committed the United States to defend the Gulf by force, which meant that the arms control and cooperation built since 1972 were replaced by confrontation within a month.
• One consequence was that the Cold War got worse and the Olympics were boycotted.
• One consequence was that the Afghan government was collapsing and the Soviets feared an Islamic state on their border.
• On 24 December the troops crossed, on 27 December Amin was killed, and Karmal was installed.

A narrative paragraph, marked

Question 2: Write a narrative account analysing the key events of detente in the years 1972 to 1979. You may use: SALT 1; the Helsinki Agreement. Detente began in earnest when Nixon flew to Moscow in May 1972, three months after his visit to Beijing, and signed SALT 1 and the ABM Treaty with Brezhnev on 26 May. Because the Soviets feared an American alliance with China, they accepted a freeze on missile launchers at 1,054 for the United States and 1,618 for themselves, and the two sides signed a statement of Basic Principles promising to avoid confrontation. This led to a wider thaw: the two countries traded grain and technology, and in July 1975 Apollo and Soyuz crews docked in orbit. As a result of that momentum, 35 states signed the Helsinki Final Act on 1 August 1975, in which the West accepted the borders of 1945 and the East promised to respect human rights. The turning point came after Helsinki, because from 1975 Soviet and Cuban forces went into Angola and then Ethiopia, and each intervention made the treaties harder to defend in Washington. What earned the marks: events in sequence with dates; each event linked to the next by because, this led to and as a result, so that the account analyses rather than lists; and the turning point named. One more paragraph, from SALT 2 in June 1979 through the NATO dual-track decision to the invasion of Afghanistan in December, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the narrative account

Write a narrative account analysing the key events of detente in the years 1972 to 1979. You may use the following in your answer: SALT 1; the Helsinki Agreement. You must also use information of your own.

• The span: from the Moscow summit of 1972 to the invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979
• Detail that counts: a name, a number or a place
• Events of your own: the opening to China, Apollo-Soyuz, Angola, SALT 2, the SS-20s or the NATO dual-track decision

The importance question

Question 3 might read: Explain the importance of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for relations between the superpowers. Which answer best explains the importance, rather than describing the event?

• The invasion was important because it turned a weakening detente into open confrontation: it was the first Soviet invasion outside the Warsaw Pact since 1945, and within a month it had killed SALT 2, produced the Carter Doctrine over the Gulf, and set the United States arming the mujahideen. This meant that Reagan took office in 1981 with the arms race already restarted, and the Second Cold War of boycotts, missile deployments and SDI followed from a decision the Politburo had expected to be a short operation.
• The invasion was important because 80,000 troops crossed the border on 24 to 27 December 1979, Amin was killed and Karmal installed.
• The invasion was important because the war lasted until 1989 and killed around a million Afghans.
• The invasion was important because it caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.