Great Powers in a Restrictive International Environment

Abstract

Why did Sino- American and American- Soviet engagement make greater strides in the 1969 to 1979 period than in any earlier period, resulting in significant US-Soviet negotiations on arms control, including SALT, the basic principles agreement, the Helsinki agreement, the agreement on the prevention of nuclear war, and the normalization of Sino-American relations?One explanation is thatthe United States engaged the Soviet Union and China to restore the balance between America's financial capabilities and its global commitments.2 As Henry Kissinger argues, the intent of detente was a desire to relate ends to means and our commitments to our capacities.3 Detente from this perspective was part of a broader American grand strategy to lower the cost of containment through a reduction in the number of adversaries (as Britain had done prior to World War I and World War II); negotiation on substantive issues of arms control; linkage politics to connect progress in separate issue-areas, exploiting the divisions in SinoSoviet relations; and territorial retrenchment, including the Nixon doctrine, building up regional surrogates such as Iran, and retreating from President Kennedy's two-and-a-half standard to a lesser one-and-a-half standard.The problem with this explanation is that it ignores two important aspects of this period that facilitated engagement. First, for different reasons, the leadership in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing perceived a more restrictive international environment. Had any of the leaders perceived a more permissive environment, less progress would have been made. In this environment, the strong systemic imperative meant greater clarity of the identity, magnitude, and timing of the threats, and clearer guidance about the optimal response. For the United States, engagement would lower the cost of hegemony. Engaging China would allow for retreat from Vietnam (while the US was also waging the costly war on poverty), and engaging the Soviet Union in an era of growing Soviet nuclear strategic parity would reduce the risk of a costly nuclear arms race with Moscow.For the Soviet Union, engaging the United States would lock in its emerging nuclear strategic parity, especially in long-range missile technology. Moreover, engagement would lower the threat emanating from the western European theatre, so as to allow Moscow to concentrate on the increasingly hostile Sino- Soviet front and growing instability in eastern Europe. Finally, for China, engaging the United States would create an ally to confront an ever-menacing Soviet Union. These threats included the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the subsequent Brezhnev doctrine, which established the right to intervene in another socialist state, including China; the 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes; and the 1978 treaty of friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which opened a second front and included the sale of military technology and the stationing of 4000 Soviet advisors on the Chinese border.4Second, American, Chinese, and Soviet leaders believed that through engagement policies (commercial, political, strategic, and military) they could enable a favourable foreign policy coalition in the other states or disable an unfavourable one.5 American leaders identified pro-western reformers, moderates, and internationalists in the political leadership or wings of power in China and the Soviet Union who were engaged in leadership struggles with hardliners. Moreover, American leaders sought to increase the size, power, and position of the moderates' domestic supporters in order to boost their domestic win-set. By enabling a favourable foreign policy coalition, Washington sought to assist the moderate leaders in realigning the foreign policies of Beijing and Moscow away from massive arms spending, extreme autarky, and war preparation.Beijing and Moscow had an interest in enabling a favourable foreign policy coalition in Washington too, though not the same coalition. …