The Theory of International Regimes and US-Soviet Cooperation during the Cold War

Abstract

The main question examined in this paper is whether the cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War can be explained by Robert O. Keohane's theory of international regimes, based on his analysis of international regimes and cooperation in his book After Hegemony. My answer is no. In order to explain the reasons, this paper is mainly divided into two parts. The first part summarizes the relationship between international regimes and international cooperation as Keohane sees it through an examination of chapters three to six of After Hegemony. The core task of the second part is to explain why the theory of international regimes is not consistent with U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the Cold War, and to show that realpolitik can explain U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the Cold War better than the theory of international regimes by explaining cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the areas of arms control and trade and commerce, using the 1970s, the second period of détente between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as the time frame.