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Is Détente Inevitable?
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11176 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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Date : |
3 / 1986 |
7,798 Words |
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Richard C. Thornton
Richard C. Thornton is a professor of history and international
affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs at
George Washington University in Washington, D.C. |
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he depicted the Soviet Union as an "Evil empire," while then Soviet leader Leonid Bezhnev portrayed the United States as a warlike nation bent on spurring the arms race. Four years later, both states have reversed their positions by 180 degrees. President Reagan now professes détente and arms reduction, not merely arms control, as priority goals for his second term, while Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev avows a determination to accomplish the same goals. This essay explains the underlying factors which have produced the changes in both countries' position and also suggest where it all might lead.
The Soviet Union in Strategic Crisis
The current Soviet predicament is the net result of a fundamental strategic choice made some twenty years ago. At that time, after removing Nikita Khrushshchev from power, the Soviet leadership under Leonid Brezhnev embarked upon a long-term effort to achieve military superiority over the United States. Two assumptions underlay the choice: the first was that military superiority was a necessary and sufficient condition to alter the existing geopolitical balance to advantage, and the second was that the cost of attaining that condition could be borne without inflicting undue hardship upon the Soviet people. Unfortunately for the Soviet leadership, a combination of circumstances highlighted by miscalculation, poor planning, Western responses, and plain bad luck progressively raised the costs of the military program while reducing Soviet ability to pay for it.
Rather than scale back the disproportionately large share of the gross national product being consumed by the
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