Conservative goals, revolutionary outcomes: the paradox of détenteJussi M. Hanhimäki is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and Finland Distinguished Professor at Tampere University and. His most recent publications include The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004); with Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A History with Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (2003, 2004); and The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction (2008). He is currently working on a book The Rise and Fall of Détente, 1961–1979

Jussi M. Hanhimäki is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and Finland Distinguished Professor at Tampere University and. His most recent publications include The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004); with Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A History with Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (2003, 2004); and The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction (2008). He is currently working on a book The Rise and Fall of Détente, 1961–1979

Abstract

This essay maintains that détente, rather than stabilizing the international situation as many of its architects had hoped for, fundamentally altered the Cold War international system. Détente did not end the Cold War nor provide a clear road map towards 1989 (or 1991). But by bringing about an era of East-West engagement, détente was instrumental in setting in motion the many processes that ultimately caused the collapse of the international system that it was supposed to have stabilized.

Notes

Jussi M. Hanhimäki is Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and Finland Distinguished Professor at Tampere University and. His most recent publications include The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004); with Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A History with Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (2003, 2004); and The United Nations: A Very Short Introduction (2008). He is currently working on a book The Rise and Fall of Détente, 1961–1979

 [1] I did this for the best part of seven years; the end results can be learned by reading Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect. I am also happy to note that this does not make a particularly weird given that such serious scholars as Robert Dallek, Thomas Schwartz and Jeremi Suri have (or in the case of Tom are still in the process of doing so) spent their spare time in similar efforts. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger; Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century.

 [2] Mastny, ‘The New History of Cold War Alliances’, 77.

 [3] Suri, Power and Protest. For a wide-ranging discussion see the essays in: Logevall and Preston, Nixon in the World.

 [4] Address by Richard M. Nixon to the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, 29 July 1967, FRUS, 1969 –76.

 [5] Kissinger, Diplomacy, 713.

 [6] Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 274.

 [7] Nixon to the Bohemian Club.

 [8] ‘Presidential Adviser Kissinger: New Approaches to Friend and Foe’. Time, 14 February 1969.

 [9] Nixon's inaugural address, FRUS, 1969–76.

[10] Macmillan, Nixon in China.

[11] Cited in Hanhimäki, Flawed Architect, 197.

[12] Kissinger, Years of Renewal, 635.

[13] Gromyko in Dobrynin, In Confidence, 346.

[14] Thomas, The Helsinki Effect.

[15] Westad, Global Cold War, 4.

[16] Ibid. But see also Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way.