From the Truman Doctrine to the Second Superpower Detente

This article provides an overview of the Cold War from its origins in 1947 to the present day. It begins with a discussion of the balance of power after the war and asks why - if the USSR was as weak as many assumed - did a very powerful United States regard it as a threat to the West's vital interests. This discussion is then followed by an examination of the Cold War as a `system' which concludes that for both superpowers bipolarity was an acceptable foundation upon which to base their security in the postwar period. The article then examines the crisis of the Cold War in the late 1960s and how Kissinger tried and failed to resolve the problem of world order through the strategy of superpower detente. This brings the discussion to the second Cold War. Here the author explores both the coherence of the Reagan strategy and the degree to which Reagan succeeded where Kissinger failed in establishing a more stable international system. The analysis then concludes with an examination of the origins and implications of the second superpower detente and poses and seeks to answer the difficult question: will the end of the Cold War also mean the end of the `Long Peace

China · Cold war · Doctrine · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Superpower · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law

• The Global East and the Globe

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• Religion and the Cold War Politics

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• Whatever Happened to American Decline? International Relations and the New United States Hegemony

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• Political geography

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• The Bush administration and the ‘end’ of the cold war

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• Rethinking the End of The Cold War

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• Hamas is deterred” as wishful thinking

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• The New Geo-Economics of a "Rising" India

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• The tragedy of American diplomacy

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• Beyond the Cold War

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• The Tragedy of American Diplomacy

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• Between Two Ages

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• Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised

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• Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution

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• Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised

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• The Marshall Plan

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• The Nature of World Power in American History

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• The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War

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• For the Record

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• Discussions and Reviews

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• From Detente to the 'New Cold War

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• The Long Peace

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• Stalin's Postwar Army Reappraised

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• The Contours of American History

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• The ‘Reagan Doctrine’ and its prospects

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• Detente and Confrontation

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• The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy

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• Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised

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• The Politics of War

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• Preparing for the Next War

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• Writing History and Making Policy

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• Peddlers of Crisis

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• Europe between the Superpowers

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• The Marshall Plan. America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952

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• The Rise and Fall of the ‘Soviet Threat

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• The Transformation of American Foreign Policy

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• Origins of the Cold War

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• Strategy in the Decade of the 1980s

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• Can the Soviet Union Reform

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• Russia, America and Détente

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