Routledge

Chapter Resources

Chapter 11: From Cold War to Détente 1962–79

Debates

Debating the Cuban Missile Crisis

Debating the rise and collapse of détente

Discussion Questions

  1. How significant was the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis on Soviet–American relations?
  2. Did the virtual parity in Soviet and American nuclear weapons make the world a more stable place?
  3. Were there similarities in inter-allied relations in the Eastern and Western blocs in the 1960s? What were the differences?
  4. Why did the Nixon administration commence so-called triangular diplomacy?
  5. Why did the Soviet engage in détente with the United States?
  6. Was the decline of détente in 1974–76 a result more of the crisis in US domestic politics or of the sudden surge of Soviet activity in the Third World?
  7. Why and with what consequences did the USSR invade Afghanistan?
  8. Was the American reaction a result of a misunderstanding of Soviet motivations?
  9. Can one detect elements of continuity in US foreign policy after the 1976 elections?

Weblinks

http://www.cubacrisis.net/
This gives geography, the key political players and Act I and Act II of the drama that unfolded.

http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/
Audio files and descriptive notes on President Kennedy's Oval Office conversations with his advisors

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/
This is the companion site to CNN's Cold War series, the first major international documentary on the subject. Links to all twenty-four episodes and their scripts, timelines, biographies, interactive maps and more. The part on the Cuban Missile Crisis is particularly rich.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/
The National Security Archives website offers unprecedented access to recently declassified documentation on the Cold War. Although the emphasis is on American documents there are occasional Russian, Latin American and other documents available.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/
Perhaps the easiest gateway to accessing primary documents from US archives. This is a digitalized version of the Foreign Relations of the United States series, divided by country or region and year(s). Numerous volumes deal with US policy in this period.