Political Policies Between The United States And The Soviet

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that détente would achieve more were held by both powers. It was the failure to satisfy these expectations which led to its demise. Kissinger suggested that "détente, with all its weaknesses, should be judged not against some ideal but against what would have happened in its absence. Détente did not cause the Soviet arms build-up, nor could it have stopped it. However, it may have slowed it down or made it more benign" (Garthoff 1994:1123). Perhaps détente could be viewed, not as a method of preventing or deterring tension which might lead to war, but as a way of postponing their effect until the United States could more effectively deal with them. By 1976, détente was a controversial term with both left and right hands of the disagreement criticizing its development. With the Administration of Jimmy Carter, a campaign for restoring confidence in government institutions and reforming American foreign policy was implemented (Froman 1991:74). ...

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placed extreme pressure on détente's success.
In the midst of these events the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 placed human rights high on the political agenda. America began to place pressure on the USSR's domestic policy in regards to the treatment of Russia's minority groups. Carter's crusade to liberalize Communist societies through external pressure actually jeopardized American-Soviet relations. The already inflamed détente was further compromised by the Jackson Amendment of 1974, which fought Moscow to open emigration of Soviet Jews. This event humiliated the Soviet Union by the interference of the United States in Soviet internal affairs producing a ...

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