Archie Brown, Thomas W. Simons, Ivan Kurilla, Andrea Graziosi, Louis D. Sell, Vladislav Zubok
Editor's Introduction: The disintegration of the Soviet Union in late December 1991 was one of the most remarkable events of the twentieth century. The Cold War had ended two years earlier, in 1989, with the collapse of East European Communism, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991 made clear that the Cold War was truly over and that a new phase of international politics had begun. To be sure, the advent of the post–Cold War era did not mean that the whole nature of the global system had changed. Rivalries and severe tensions between great powers continued to arise after the demise of the Soviet Union (most acutely in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the brutal war that ensued), and numerous states in various parts of the world continued to use military force to pursue their objectives. In other respects as well, basic features of the Westphalian order were preserved. Nevertheless, the dissolution of the Soviet Union did ensure that the three defining features of the Cold War were gone for good and would almost certainly not return in combination at any point in the future: (1) a bipolar international system, with two superpowers that were (and were seen as) much stronger than all other countries; (2) a fundamental ideological clash pitting liberal capitalist democracy against Marxism-Leninism; and (3) the division of Europe, East Asia, and much of the rest of the world into broad spheres of influence of the two superpowers.The breakup of the Soviet Union was such a dramatic and consequential event—an event that once seemed totally implausible—that it was bound to inspire voluminous scholarship. Countless books and articles have appeared over the past three decades that collectively explore almost all aspects of the Soviet Union's demise, including the political, social, and economic factors that helped bring it about, the specific developments that contributed to the outcome, and the role of external actors and the external environment. This outpouring of scholarship has been hugely facilitated by the release of crucial archival evidence in Russia and most of the fourteen other countries that were once part of the USSR and by the publication of many important memoirs. Ironically, the quantity of primary sources that have become available is greater for the 1985–1991 period than for the 1965–1984 period. Scholars such as Archie Brown, William C. Taubman, Svetlana Savranskaya, Timothy J. Colton, Serhii Plokhii, Robert Service, Chris Miller, David Marples, and many others (including me) have been able to draw on the immense amount of archival evidence that has been released, greatly enriching their work.Vladislav Zubok, a well-known scholar of Soviet history and Soviet foreign policy, has now published his own lengthy account of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union, with Yale University Press. His book, too, has benefited from the abundance of archival documents and memoir
{"title":"Evaluating the Demise of the Soviet Union","authors":"Archie Brown, Thomas W. Simons, Ivan Kurilla, Andrea Graziosi, Louis D. Sell, Vladislav Zubok","doi":"10.1162/jcws_c_01162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_c_01162","url":null,"abstract":"Editor's Introduction: The disintegration of the Soviet Union in late December 1991 was one of the most remarkable events of the twentieth century. The Cold War had ended two years earlier, in 1989, with the collapse of East European Communism, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991 made clear that the Cold War was truly over and that a new phase of international politics had begun. To be sure, the advent of the post–Cold War era did not mean that the whole nature of the global system had changed. Rivalries and severe tensions between great powers continued to arise after the demise of the Soviet Union (most acutely in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the brutal war that ensued), and numerous states in various parts of the world continued to use military force to pursue their objectives. In other respects as well, basic features of the Westphalian order were preserved. Nevertheless, the dissolution of the Soviet Union did ensure that the three defining features of the Cold War were gone for good and would almost certainly not return in combination at any point in the future: (1) a bipolar international system, with two superpowers that were (and were seen as) much stronger than all other countries; (2) a fundamental ideological clash pitting liberal capitalist democracy against Marxism-Leninism; and (3) the division of Europe, East Asia, and much of the rest of the world into broad spheres of influence of the two superpowers.The breakup of the Soviet Union was such a dramatic and consequential event—an event that once seemed totally implausible—that it was bound to inspire voluminous scholarship. Countless books and articles have appeared over the past three decades that collectively explore almost all aspects of the Soviet Union's demise, including the political, social, and economic factors that helped bring it about, the specific developments that contributed to the outcome, and the role of external actors and the external environment. This outpouring of scholarship has been hugely facilitated by the release of crucial archival evidence in Russia and most of the fourteen other countries that were once part of the USSR and by the publication of many important memoirs. Ironically, the quantity of primary sources that have become available is greater for the 1985–1991 period than for the 1965–1984 period. Scholars such as Archie Brown, William C. Taubman, Svetlana Savranskaya, Timothy J. Colton, Serhii Plokhii, Robert Service, Chris Miller, David Marples, and many others (including me) have been able to draw on the immense amount of archival evidence that has been released, greatly enriching their work.Vladislav Zubok, a well-known scholar of Soviet history and Soviet foreign policy, has now published his own lengthy account of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union, with Yale University Press. His book, too, has benefited from the abundance of archival documents and memoir","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the mid-1950s, Atoms for Peace provided a crucial boost for the study of nuclear physics in Hungary, a country that fell under Communist rule and Soviet domination after World War II. Several small, insulated centers of nuclear research already existed, but after President Dwight Eisenhower's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 3 December 1953, calling for the development of Atoms for Peace programs, Hungary's efforts began to grow quickly. In the glow of the moment, with significant support from the government and the ruling Communist party, Hungarian physicists established new research centers, bought and constructed instruments, published specialized books and journals, held conferences, and organized university courses and programs to train experts both at home and in the USSR. These activities constituted a new, vibrant nuclear culture encompassing diverse areas of life (agriculture, medicine, and some parts of industry) and eventually some cooperative links with Western and Soviet-bloc scientific communities.
{"title":"Constructing Nuclear Culture under Soviet-Style Communism: The Hungarian Experience","authors":"Gábor Palló, Matthew Adamson","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01160","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the mid-1950s, Atoms for Peace provided a crucial boost for the study of nuclear physics in Hungary, a country that fell under Communist rule and Soviet domination after World War II. Several small, insulated centers of nuclear research already existed, but after President Dwight Eisenhower's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 3 December 1953, calling for the development of Atoms for Peace programs, Hungary's efforts began to grow quickly. In the glow of the moment, with significant support from the government and the ruling Communist party, Hungarian physicists established new research centers, bought and constructed instruments, published specialized books and journals, held conferences, and organized university courses and programs to train experts both at home and in the USSR. These activities constituted a new, vibrant nuclear culture encompassing diverse areas of life (agriculture, medicine, and some parts of industry) and eventually some cooperative links with Western and Soviet-bloc scientific communities.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"270 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although Yugoslavia was not a major power, it played a significant role in the Cold War. The West initially perceived Josip Broz Tito, who became the country’s leader in the wake of its partition and occupation by the Axis, to be the most loyal follower of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. But Stalin soon came to perceive Tito as a rival and expelled Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) in 1948, hoping to precipitate Tito’s downfall. Yugoslavia, facing economic ruin and fearing a Soviet invasion, had no choice but to turn to the West. U.S. officials believed that Yugoslavia’s geographic location could make a significant contribution to the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and they assisted the country in its battle to survive Soviet pressure. Tito took full advantage of his position and became adept at playing the United States and the USSR against each other to enhance his country’s economic and political security and to develop new initiatives at home and abroad. Yugoslavia’s importance as a Communist state resisting Soviet imperialism, as a champion of a “third way” between the capitalist and Communist camps, and as a model for a different kind of state-managed economic system enabled the country to “punch above its weight” in international affairs (p. 256). By the 1970s, Yugoslavia’s position had become more precarious. In this wellresearched monograph, Milorad Lazic analyzes the challenges to Yugoslavia’s stability posed by several internal and external factors. Tito in the final years of his life was increasingly concerned about how the country would handle the transition to a new leader. Unity and cohesion at home had always been viewed as essential to Yugoslavia’s survival, but internal divisions, both ethnic and political, had accelerated. These developments magnified what the Yugoslavs saw as a constant external threat, namely, meddling or outright invasion by the Soviet Union. Tito had always been adept at balancing his country between the United States and the USSR, but Lazic posits that Tito viewed their détente in the early 1970s as a threat to that policy and hence to his country’s existence. Was détente merely a façade for a spheres-of-influence agreement, “a new Yalta” (p. xvi) that would leave Yugoslavia at the mercy of the Soviet Union? The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which Tito had championed as an alternative to a bipolar international order, was also vulnerable because of the efforts by Fidel Castro’s Cuba, encouraged by Moscow, to bring the NAM into the Soviet camp.
{"title":"<i>Unmaking Détente: Yugoslavia, the United States, and the Global Cold War, 1968–1980</i> by Milorad Lazic","authors":"Lorraine M. Lees","doi":"10.1162/jcws_r_01153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_r_01153","url":null,"abstract":"Although Yugoslavia was not a major power, it played a significant role in the Cold War. The West initially perceived Josip Broz Tito, who became the country’s leader in the wake of its partition and occupation by the Axis, to be the most loyal follower of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. But Stalin soon came to perceive Tito as a rival and expelled Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) in 1948, hoping to precipitate Tito’s downfall. Yugoslavia, facing economic ruin and fearing a Soviet invasion, had no choice but to turn to the West. U.S. officials believed that Yugoslavia’s geographic location could make a significant contribution to the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and they assisted the country in its battle to survive Soviet pressure. Tito took full advantage of his position and became adept at playing the United States and the USSR against each other to enhance his country’s economic and political security and to develop new initiatives at home and abroad. Yugoslavia’s importance as a Communist state resisting Soviet imperialism, as a champion of a “third way” between the capitalist and Communist camps, and as a model for a different kind of state-managed economic system enabled the country to “punch above its weight” in international affairs (p. 256). By the 1970s, Yugoslavia’s position had become more precarious. In this wellresearched monograph, Milorad Lazic analyzes the challenges to Yugoslavia’s stability posed by several internal and external factors. Tito in the final years of his life was increasingly concerned about how the country would handle the transition to a new leader. Unity and cohesion at home had always been viewed as essential to Yugoslavia’s survival, but internal divisions, both ethnic and political, had accelerated. These developments magnified what the Yugoslavs saw as a constant external threat, namely, meddling or outright invasion by the Soviet Union. Tito had always been adept at balancing his country between the United States and the USSR, but Lazic posits that Tito viewed their détente in the early 1970s as a threat to that policy and hence to his country’s existence. Was détente merely a façade for a spheres-of-influence agreement, “a new Yalta” (p. xvi) that would leave Yugoslavia at the mercy of the Soviet Union? The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which Tito had championed as an alternative to a bipolar international order, was also vulnerable because of the efforts by Fidel Castro’s Cuba, encouraged by Moscow, to bring the NAM into the Soviet camp.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Produced and distributed at subsidized prices by national nuclear establishments, radioisotopes provided the earliest non-military application of nuclear energy. Starting in the late 1940s, thanks to their multiple uses in medicine and research, they were ubiquitous in conceptions for peaceful nuclear programs. In the 1950s, Atoms for Peace initiatives encouraged nuclear establishments to develop industrial applications of radioisotopes, stressing the economic benefits of their use. However, the spread of radioisotopes in industry turned out to be more problematic than envisaged, as it had to confront an increasing awareness of radiation risks. In this sense, the main effect of Atoms for Peace seems to have been the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the major actor in dealing with isotopes and their commercial distribution.
{"title":"The “Bounties of Our New Servant”: Isotopes, Industry, and Economy before and after Atoms for Peace","authors":"Néstor Herran","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01157","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Produced and distributed at subsidized prices by national nuclear establishments, radioisotopes provided the earliest non-military application of nuclear energy. Starting in the late 1940s, thanks to their multiple uses in medicine and research, they were ubiquitous in conceptions for peaceful nuclear programs. In the 1950s, Atoms for Peace initiatives encouraged nuclear establishments to develop industrial applications of radioisotopes, stressing the economic benefits of their use. However, the spread of radioisotopes in industry turned out to be more problematic than envisaged, as it had to confront an increasing awareness of radiation risks. In this sense, the main effect of Atoms for Peace seems to have been the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the major actor in dealing with isotopes and their commercial distribution.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Fiat's nuclear activities began in the immediate postwar period, when the company financed initiatives meant to reconstruct applied and theoretical research on nuclear physics in Italy. However, its actual industrial involvement originated in the framework of the Atoms for Peace initiative, which provided the opportunity for the purchase of an American Machine and Foundry pool-type reactor for a research center founded by Società Ricerche Impianti Nucleari (SORIN), a joint-venture created in 1956 by Fiat and the Italian chemical company Montecatini. SORIN developed know-how and technology in the electromechanical and biomedical industries. The SORIN center was the first private initiative within the Atoms for Peace framework. This article is a first attempt to assess Fiat's involvement in the nuclear sector, shedding light on the reception of Atoms for Peace in Italy and the way various actors on the Italian nuclear scene used it to pursue their own objectives during the Cold War.
{"title":"Atoms for Industry: The Early Nuclear Activities of Fiat and the Atoms for Peace Program in Italy, 1956–1959","authors":"Barbara Curli","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01159","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Fiat's nuclear activities began in the immediate postwar period, when the company financed initiatives meant to reconstruct applied and theoretical research on nuclear physics in Italy. However, its actual industrial involvement originated in the framework of the Atoms for Peace initiative, which provided the opportunity for the purchase of an American Machine and Foundry pool-type reactor for a research center founded by Società Ricerche Impianti Nucleari (SORIN), a joint-venture created in 1956 by Fiat and the Italian chemical company Montecatini. SORIN developed know-how and technology in the electromechanical and biomedical industries. The SORIN center was the first private initiative within the Atoms for Peace framework. This article is a first attempt to assess Fiat's involvement in the nuclear sector, shedding light on the reception of Atoms for Peace in Italy and the way various actors on the Italian nuclear scene used it to pursue their own objectives during the Cold War.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The articles in this special issue shed light on the influence of the Eisenhower administration's “Atoms for Peace” proposal on the civilian nuclear programs of five European countries, including Italy and France, which were member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which were part of the USSR's Communist bloc; and Spain, which did not become a member of NATO until nearly three decades later. Based on detailed archival research, the articles analyze the commercial, scientific, practical, and cultural aspects of nascent nuclear research programs in these five countries. The authors demonstrate that all five acted early on to pursue peaceful nuclear activities for their own economic benefit.
{"title":"Atoms for Peace in the 1950s: Lessons from the Spread of Nuclear Technology in the Early Cold War","authors":"Paul R. Josephson","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01156","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The articles in this special issue shed light on the influence of the Eisenhower administration's “Atoms for Peace” proposal on the civilian nuclear programs of five European countries, including Italy and France, which were member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which were part of the USSR's Communist bloc; and Spain, which did not become a member of NATO until nearly three decades later. Based on detailed archival research, the articles analyze the commercial, scientific, practical, and cultural aspects of nascent nuclear research programs in these five countries. The authors demonstrate that all five acted early on to pursue peaceful nuclear activities for their own economic benefit.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"301 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Because of how heavy water is produced and used, it has a unique business history and structure. In the late 1940s and 1950s, heavy-water reactors offered the dream of nearly inexhaustible quantities of nuclear power generation. This was because they could operate using natural uranium and also produce plutonium that could be used as fuel in breeder reactors (and also as fissile material for nuclear weapons). Several of the processes and materials used in synthetic fertilizer production could also be used, in somewhat modified form, in the production of heavy water. Yet the production costs for heavy water are exceedingly high, requiring copious amounts of electricity and the infrastructure of an advanced chemical industry. This article suggests that in several countries the fertilizer and heavy-water industries had a close relationship. The governments in those countries, seeking to increase the national trade in fertilizers and to develop domestic nuclear programs, supported both industries. The case of the Spanish Nuclear Board and Energía e Industrias Aragonesas in Sabiñanigo is instructive in this regard.
由于重水的生产和利用方式，它具有独特的商业历史和结构。在20世纪40年代末和50年代，重水反应堆提供了几乎取之不尽的核能发电的梦想。这是因为他们可以使用天然铀，也可以生产钚，钚可以用作增殖反应堆的燃料(也可以作为核武器的裂变材料)。在合成肥料生产中使用的若干方法和材料，也可以以稍加改进的形式用于生产重水。然而，生产重水的成本非常高，需要大量的电力和先进化学工业的基础设施。在一些国家，化肥与重水工业有着密切的关系。这些国家的政府寻求增加国内化肥贸易和发展国内核计划，支持这两个行业。西班牙核能委员会和Energía e Industrias Aragonesas在Sabiñanigo的案例在这方面具有指导意义。
{"title":"From Global to Local: The Development of Heavy Water in International Nuclear Programs (1945–1970)","authors":"Gloria Sanz-Lafuente","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01158","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Because of how heavy water is produced and used, it has a unique business history and structure. In the late 1940s and 1950s, heavy-water reactors offered the dream of nearly inexhaustible quantities of nuclear power generation. This was because they could operate using natural uranium and also produce plutonium that could be used as fuel in breeder reactors (and also as fissile material for nuclear weapons). Several of the processes and materials used in synthetic fertilizer production could also be used, in somewhat modified form, in the production of heavy water. Yet the production costs for heavy water are exceedingly high, requiring copious amounts of electricity and the infrastructure of an advanced chemical industry. This article suggests that in several countries the fertilizer and heavy-water industries had a close relationship. The governments in those countries, seeking to increase the national trade in fertilizers and to develop domestic nuclear programs, supported both industries. The case of the Spanish Nuclear Board and Energía e Industrias Aragonesas in Sabiñanigo is instructive in this regard.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"158 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The First Counterspy: Larry Haas, Bell Aircraft, and the FBI’s Attempt to Capture a Soviet Mole by Kay Haas and Walter W. Pickut","authors":"Steven T. Usdin","doi":"10.1162/jcws_r_01106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_r_01106","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"215-217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42956237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This interpretive essay explores the multiple, changing faces of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. When SALT I was being negotiated in the early 1970s, it was generally viewed as the product of contemporary arms control theory that stressed the value of crisis stability. The U.S. national security adviser at the time, Henry Kissinger, justified the talks in those terms while also positioning them as part of a broader attempt to forge a détente with the Soviet Union. But after the Cold War ended, Kissinger claimed that he had really been engaging in a holding operation to buy time for the U.S. government to rebuild support for a more assertive policy. Declassified documents reveal that he and President Richard Nixon hoped that technological innovations would yield military and political advantages. The two of them believed that previous administrations had failed to overcome dangerous military vulnerabilities and that the United States could get a better deal because the USSR was more anxious for an agreement than Nixon and Kissinger were. In the end, however, this did not prove to be the case, and SALT was little different from the sorts of policies Nixon and Kissinger had scorned. But SALT I was a centerpiece of détente and a symbol of U.S. and Soviet leaders’ recognition that each side had a legitimate interest in the other's military posture.
{"title":"The Many Faces of SALT","authors":"R. Jervis","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01105","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This interpretive essay explores the multiple, changing faces of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. When SALT I was being negotiated in the early 1970s, it was generally viewed as the product of contemporary arms control theory that stressed the value of crisis stability. The U.S. national security adviser at the time, Henry Kissinger, justified the talks in those terms while also positioning them as part of a broader attempt to forge a détente with the Soviet Union. But after the Cold War ended, Kissinger claimed that he had really been engaging in a holding operation to buy time for the U.S. government to rebuild support for a more assertive policy. Declassified documents reveal that he and President Richard Nixon hoped that technological innovations would yield military and political advantages. The two of them believed that previous administrations had failed to overcome dangerous military vulnerabilities and that the United States could get a better deal because the USSR was more anxious for an agreement than Nixon and Kissinger were. In the end, however, this did not prove to be the case, and SALT was little different from the sorts of policies Nixon and Kissinger had scorned. But SALT I was a centerpiece of détente and a symbol of U.S. and Soviet leaders’ recognition that each side had a legitimate interest in the other's military posture.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"198-214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41800578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) played a key role in U.S.-Soviet relations in the early 1970s. This article reassesses some aspects of the SALT process in the light of important evidence that has become available in recent years. The key question is whether U.S. policy in the SALT negotiations was rooted in strategic stability theory—that is, in the idea that both major powers should work out an arrangement that would guarantee the survivability and effectiveness of both sides’ strategic nuclear forces, thereby reducing whatever incentive either of them might have to strike first in a crisis. The notion that U.S. policy on SALT was rooted in that theory is essentially a myth—although a myth that had important political consequences. The SALT process of the 1970s, as shaped by decisions made during the administration of Richard M. Nixon, helped pave the way for the hardening of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union in the early 1980s—scarcely the result supporters of nuclear arms control had been hoping for a decade earlier.
{"title":"The United States and Strategic Arms Limitation during the Nixon-Kissinger Period: Building a Stable International System?","authors":"Marc Trachtenberg","doi":"10.1162/jcws_a_01104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_01104","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) played a key role in U.S.-Soviet relations in the early 1970s. This article reassesses some aspects of the SALT process in the light of important evidence that has become available in recent years. The key question is whether U.S. policy in the SALT negotiations was rooted in strategic stability theory—that is, in the idea that both major powers should work out an arrangement that would guarantee the survivability and effectiveness of both sides’ strategic nuclear forces, thereby reducing whatever incentive either of them might have to strike first in a crisis. The notion that U.S. policy on SALT was rooted in that theory is essentially a myth—although a myth that had important political consequences. The SALT process of the 1970s, as shaped by decisions made during the administration of Richard M. Nixon, helped pave the way for the hardening of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union in the early 1980s—scarcely the result supporters of nuclear arms control had been hoping for a decade earlier.","PeriodicalId":45551,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cold War Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":"157-197"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48697076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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