At the Crossroad of Diplomatic and Social History

The Nuclear Revolution, Dissent, and Détente

Author(s): Andreas Wenger, Jeremi Suri
Journal Title: Cold War History
Volume: 1
Issue: 3
Pages: 1-42
Publisher(s): Routledge
Publication Year: 2001

This article narrates interactions between diplomacy and social protest. Section 1 examines the international political and military pressures that elicited the little détente of 1963. Section 2 focuses on reforms within alliances and domestic institutions during the early 1960s. Section 3 looks at the long-term shortcomings of détente, especially in light of the near global revolts of 1968 and successive years. Comparative differences in political structure made alliance and domestic challenges more debilitating for the Soviet Union than for its Western counterparts. After 1968 the United States and its West European allies entered a dark period of political suspicion and recrimination, but they managed to persevere. The Kremlin, in contrast, confronted deep, and ultimately irreparable, decline.

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