The Cold War
Meeting 14. (29 April)
Brezhnev and 1970s – detente and cooperation.
Sino-Soviet Split (1956-1966)
Alliance between PRC and USSR started with the forming of PRC in 1949 and the signing of
the Sino-Soviet Alliance on 14 February 1950. Split starts in 1956 and is the result of
Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization. Initially the split remains secret, but in the 1960s it becomes
obvious to the outside world. The final break between PRC and USSR takes place in 1966, at
the same time the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) is announced by Chairman Mao Zedong.
Along with it a purge of the Chinese Communist Party began of ideological revisionists.
PRC and USSR military alliance never extended beyond simple and limited help and reached
its peak during the war in Korea.
After Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ relations cooled down, as an attack on Stalin’s cult, mean
undercutting Mao’s cult.
In spring 1957 China launches Hundred Flowers campaign to allow Party members to
complain in a limited controlled framework. Soon later, Mao starts an Anti-Rightist campaign
(summer 1957), which leads to the Great Leap Forward. Soon the domestic changes and
problems result in an aggressive, anti-American foreign policy over the conflict of the Second
Strait Crisis. Mao urges to use nuclear arms, but is stopped by Soviets, what severs their
relations for good (Fall 1958).
In April 1960 China publishes three Lenin’s articles, drastically opposed to the current Soviet
policy.
In June 1960 Chinese and Soviet leaders clash during the Romanian Party’s Congress and
Khrushchev withdraws all Soviet specialists from China in July 1960.
Bilateral relations are further weakened by: flight of 67000 people to Kyrgyzstan in 1962; by
improved Soviet relations with the West; by the 1962 missile crisis and the signing of the
Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 (China/s isolation).
In 1966 Mao refuses to send delegates to the CPSU’s XXIII Congress and breaks with USSR.
In effect the bipolar Cold War turns to be a much more polarized conflict.
1. Partial Test Ban Treaty, 1963
Limited success was achieved with the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which
banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space. Neither France nor China
signed the PTBT. However, the treaty was ratified 80 to 19.
It was signed by the Governments of the USSR (represented by Andrei Gromyko), the UK
(represented by Sir Alec Douglas-Home) and the USA (represented by Dean Rusk), named
the "Original Parties", at Moscow on August 5, 1963 and opened for signature by other
countries. It was ratified by the U.S. Senate on September 24, 1963 by a vote of 80 to 19. The
treaty went into effect on October 10, 1963.
Most countries have signed and ratified the treaty. Countries known to have tested nuclear
weapons but which have not signed the treaty are China, France and North Korea.
1964
15 October
expelled
Leonid Brezhnev becomes Secretary General of the CPSU; Khrushchev
2. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT or NNPT)
Signed on July 1st, 1968 it is a treaty in which the signatories agree not to spread nuclear
weapons. At present 189 countries have signed the treay, five of which HAVE nuclear
weapons: USA, Russia, UK, France, and PRC.
Four states refuse to sign the treaty: Israel, India, Pakistan and Norh Korea. All except Isreal
admit having these weapons, and have tested them. North Korea signed the treaty and next
withdrew. Isreal has a policy of not acknowledging and non-confirming.
The treaty was proposed by Ireland and Finland, who first signed it. In 1995 it was extended
indefinitely and without conditions.
The treaty is to have three pillars: non-proliferation; disarmament and the right to use nuclear
technology peacefully.
The impetus behind the NPT was concern for the safety of a world with many nuclear weapon
states. It was recognized that the cold war deterrent relationship between just the United
States and Soviet Union was fragile. More nuclear players reduced security for all,
multiplying the risks of miscalculation, accident or unauthorized use, or through the
escalation of a small nuclear conflict.
The NPT process was launched by Frank Aiken, Irish Minister for External Affairs, in 1958.
It was opened for signature in 1968, with Finland the first State to sign. By 1992 all five thendeclared nuclear powers had signed the treaty, and the treaty was renewed in 1995 (and
followed by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996). Several NPT signatories have
given up nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons programs. South Africa undertook a nuclear
weapons program, allegedly with the assistance of Israel in the 1970s, and may have
conducted a nuclear test in the Atlantic ocean in 1979, but has since renounced its nuclear
program and signed the treaty in 1991 after destroying its small nuclear arsenal. Several
former Soviet Republics destroyed or transferred to Russia the nuclear weapons inherited
from the Soviet Union.
1969
2 March
Border clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops on Ussuri River
8 June
The Nixon Doctrine is presented, stating that Asian nations will have to defend
themselves with their own soldiers in the future
17 November US and Soviet negotiations concerning SALT begin
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Treaties
Talks between USA and USSR to limit the production and deployment of strategic nuclear
arms were initiated in November 1969. They partly grew out of the Cuban missile crisis.
On 26 May 1972, after almost three years of negotiations the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
was signed in Moscow. The treaty reflected belief of both sides, that limiting of deployment
of antiballistic missile system is necessary.
1970
30 April
US and South Vietnamese troops intrude Cambodia
12 August
West Germany and USSR sign a non-aggression pact
7 December A Polish-West-German border pact
12-18 December
Price raise announced in Poland leads to protests, strikes and street
demonstrations; Gomułka decides to use force against the ‘hooligans’ inspired from abroad;
in effect the army and the militia fire at workers peacefully heading towards their places of
work in Gdańsk; large number of workers is killed (precise number remains unknown till
today, but it was close to 50);
20 December Władysław Gomułka is replaced by Edward Gierek as the 1st Secretary of the
Polish United Workers’ Party
1971
15 July
Nixon announces a planned visit to Communist China
1972
21 February Nixon begins visit to PRC
26 May
Nixon and Kosygin sign the SALT 1 treaty as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty (ABM)
3 June
An agreement between USA, Britain, France and USSR resolving the problem
of Berlin
21 December A Basic Treaty is signed between the two Germanys establishing mutual
relations between the two countries
3. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I (SALT I): 1972. Limited the growth of US and
Soviet missile arsenals.
SALT I is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement, also known
as Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile
launchers at existing levels, and provided for the addition of new submarine-launched ballistic
missile (SLBM) launchers only after the same number of older intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM) and SLBM launchers had been dismantled.
Negotiations lasted from November 17, 1969 until May 1972 in a series of meetings
beginning in Helsinki, with the U.S. delegation headed by Gerard C. Smith, director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and
Helsinki. After a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an
agreement was reached over ABM systems. Further discussion brought the negotiations to an
end on May 26, 1972 in Moscow when Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty.
4. Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM): 1972. Entered into between the U.S. and
USSR to limit the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against
missile-delivered nuclear weapons; ended by the US in 2002.
1973
27 January
Vietnam peace agreement is signed
3 July
The Helsinki Conference on European Security begins
6 October
The beginning of the ‘October”, ‘Yom Kippur’, or Ramadan war between
Israel, against Egypt and Syria
5. Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement:
1973. Committed the U.S. and USSR to consult with one another during conditions of nuclear
confrontation.
1974
27 June
Nixon-Brezhnev summit
23-24 November
Gerald Ford agrees with Brezhnev on a draft of SALT II agreement
1975
17 April
30 April
1 August
Cambodia falls to the hands of Red Khmers and genocide begins
Fall of Saigon; end of Vietnam War
Helsinki Accords are signed by 35 nations
6. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (1979)
It was a controversial experiment of negotiations between Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev
from 1972 to 1979 between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which sought to curtail the
manufacture of strategic nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the progress made during
the SALT I talks. SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in
strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides. SALT II helped
the U.S. to discourage the Soviets from arming their third generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19
and SS-18 types with many more MIRVs. In the late 1970s the USSR's missile design bureaus
had developed experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38
thermonuclear warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M
production to thirty aircraft per year and not to give them an intercontinental range. It was
particularly important for the US to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) rearmament area. The SALT II Treaty banned new missile programs (a new
missile defined as one with any key parameter 5% better than in currently deployed missiles),
so both sides were forced to limit their new strategic missile types development although US
preserved their most essential programs like Trident and cruise missiles, which President
Carter wished to use as his main defensive weapon as they were too slow to have first strike
capability. In return, the USSR could exclusively retain 308 of its so-called "heavy ICBM"
launchers of the SS-18 type.
An agreement to limit strategic launchers was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was
signed by Leonid Brezhnev and President of the United States Jimmy Carter. In response to
the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the treaty, a young member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, met with the Soviet Foreign
Minister Andrey Gromyko, "educated him about American concerns and interests" and
secured several changes that neither the U.S. Secretary of State nor President Jimmy Carter
could obtain.
1979
12 December Leonid Brezhnev decides to send the army into Afghanistan (fear of Soviet lost
of prestige in the world; fear of too strong Muslim, anticommunist guerillas who could
destabilize Soviet border zones inhabited by Muslims.
24 December Soviet forces cross the border into Afghanistan
27 December Soviet troops enter Kabul killing Amin and installing their puppet government
under Barak Karmal. (Moscow claims their troops were invited to Afghanistan).
28 December US President, Jimmy Carter, publicly denounces Soviet action
1980
3 January
Carter asks Senate to delay consideration of SALT II
23 January and later – Carter Doctrine: any effort to dominate the Persian Gulf would be
considered as an attack on American interests and would be rebuffed if necessary
November
Reagan wins elections against Carter
1981
SDI launched by Reagan