The Arrival of Detente

The arrival of detente is irretreivably tied up with the growth of the Soviet Union as an imperialist superpower. It is the Soviets that initiated detente and currently it is the Soviets who gain most by the continuance of detente.

The capitalist degeneration of the Soviet Union and its consequent emergence as an imperialist superpower in the late sixties profoundly altered the world situation. There is no doubt that today the Soviet Union is a global power. Naval manouvres such as Okean 1 and 2 (the latter encompassing the major oceans of the world and aimed at breaking key shipping routes to Europe in event of war), the huge airlift of men and supplies to Ethiopia in December last year and the logistic ability to maintain 40,000 Cuban Ghurkas on permanent station in Africa testify to this.

This unbridled expansion of Soviet military potential and its increasing employment (starting in 1968 in Czechoslovakia) is the primary characteristic of the Brezhnev era. US policy has increasing been forced to come to grips with the rise of a superpower rival in the form of Soviet social-imperialism.