SALT I and the Era of Détente
On May 26, 1972, President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreement in Moscow, the first bilateral nuclear arms control treaty between the superpowers. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at current levels and limited anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems, institutionalising the principle of mutual assured destruction by ensuring neither side could build a complete shield against the other's missiles. The treaty was signed at the Moscow Summit, the first visit by a sitting US President to Moscow since WWII. SALT I was the centrepiece of Nixon and Kissinger's policy of détente — a deliberate strategy of managing superpower competition through negotiation, trade, and mutual restraint rather than confrontation. Détente rested on the calculation that the USSR was now a status quo power that could be engaged constructively, and that reducing tensions in Europe and on the nuclear front would benefit both sides. The Helsinki Accords of 1975, which traded Western recognition of Soviet-imposed borders in Eastern Europe for Soviet commitments to human rights, was another pillar of détente. Critics on the right argued détente was appeasement that legitimised Soviet domination of Eastern Europe; critics on the left noted it did nothing to stop proxy wars in the Third World.
- Year: 1972 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
