Superpower Detente - RIIA Author:Mr Michael Bowker, Phil Williams Have the lessons of the 1970s been learnt as the superpowers move once again towards a more cooperative relationship? This thorough examination of the 1970s reminds us that improvements early in that decade gave way to stalemate and the demise of detente.The early 1970s had seen the most far reaching moves toward detente since the inception of t... more »he Cold War. But, Bowker and Williams suggest, the coincidence of interests between the superpowers hid divergent conceptions of what detente was and what kind of behaviour it required.These divergences were overlooked during 1972 and 1973 as the United States and the Soviet Union reached agreement on arms control, the normalization of relations in Europe, expanded trade and a code of conduct for their rivalry in the Third World. Bowker and Williams reveal that it was the Soviet success in competition with the USA in the Third World which helped to sour detente.The book analyses the Soviet and American domestic debates over detente and concludes that the major shift in attitude occurred in Washington rather than Moscow. By 1979 the Carter Administration's commitment to detente was under severe pressure from domestic critics. A new Cold War was finally crystallized by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.In conclusion, the book points to the lessons that the experience of the 1970s hold for the success of the new detente of the 1980s.« less