The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation (Cass Series--Cold War History, 5)

399 Pages·2004·2.21 MB·English

by  Olav Njolstad

THE LAST DECADE OF THE COLD
WAR
CASS SERIES: COLD WAR HISTORY

Series Editor: Odd Arne Westad
ISSN: 1471–3829
In the new history of the Cold War that has been forming since 1989, many of the
established truths about the international conflict that shaped the latter half of the
twentieth century have come up for revision. The present series is an attempt to make
available interpretations and materials that will help further the development of this new
history, and it will concentrate in particular on publishing expositions of key historical
issues and critical surveys of newly available sources.
1. Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, and Theory, Odd Arne Westad
(ed.)
2. Rethinking Theory and History in the Cold War, Richard Saull
3. British and American Anticommunism before the Cold War, Marrku Ruotsila
4. Europe, Cold War and Co-existence, 1953–1965, Wilfred Loth (ed.)
5. The Last Decade of the Cold War: From Conflict Escalation to Conflict
Transformation, Olav Njølstad (ed.)

NOBEL SYMPOSIUM 122
THE LAST DECADE OF THE
COLD WAR
From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation
Editor:
OLAV NJØLSTAD
Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo

FRANK CASS
London and New York
First published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS 11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
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and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS 29 West 35th Street New
York, NY 10001
Copyright in collection © 2004 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
Copyright in chapters © 2004 individual contributors
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The last decade of the Cold War: from conflict
escalation to conflict transformation.—(Nobel Symposium; 122) (Cass series. Cold War history;
5) 1. World politics—1975–1985 2. World politics—1985–1995 3. Cold War 4. Soviet Union—
Foreign relations—1975–1985 5. Soviet Union— Foreign relations—1985–1991 6. United
States—Foreign relations—1981–1989 7. Europe—Foreign relations—1945– I. Njølstad, Olav
327.7′3047
ISBN 0-203-64620-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-69084-2 (OEB Format)
ISBN 0-7146-5464-7 (Print Edition) (cloth) ISBN 0-7146-8539-9 (paper) ISSN 1471-3829
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nobel Symposium (107th: 1998: Lysebu,
Norway) The last decade of the Cold War: from conflict escalation to conflict
transformation/editor: Olav Njølstad. p. cm—(Cass series—Cold War history, ISSN 1471-3829; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-5464-7—ISBN 0-7146-8539-9 (pbk.)
1. World politics—1975–1985—Congresses. 2. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1985–
1991—Congresses. 3. Perestroæka—Congresses. 4. United States—Foreign relations—Soviet
Union—Congresses. 5. Soviet Union—Foreign relations—United States—Congresses. 6. North
Atlantic Treaty Organization— Military policy—Congresses. 7. Soviet Union—Economic policy—
1986–1991— Congresses. 8. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government—1945–1989—
Congresses. I. Njølstad, Olav. II. Title. III. Series. D850.N63 1998 909.82′8–dc22 2003061313
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this
book.
Contents

Series Editor’s Preface vii
List of Abbreviations ix
Introduction: The Cold War in the 1980s xi

Olav Njølstad

PART I: THE 1980s IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1 The 1980s Revisited or the Cold War as History—Again 2

Michael Cox
2 The Beginning and the End: Time, Context and the Cold War 23

Melvyn P.Leffler
3 The European Role at the Beginning and Particularly the End of the Cold 50
War
Geir Lundestad

PART II: EXPLAINING THE SHIFT IN SOVIET THINKING AND POLICY

4 Economic Constraints and the Turn towards Superpower Cooperation in the 69
1980s
Stephen G.Brooks and William C.Wohlforth
5 Explaining the End of the Cold War: Turning Points in Soviet Security 99
Policy
Matthew Evangelista
6 The Sources of ‘New Thinking’ in Soviet Politics 113

William E.Odom
7 The Messianic Character of Gorbachev’s ‘New Thinking’: Why and What 133
For?
Jacques Lévesque

PART III: THE UNITED STATES AND THE ENDING OF THE COLD WAR

8 The US Role in Winding Down the Cold War, 1980–90 149

Raymond L.Garthoff
9 The Carter Legacy: Entering the Second Era of the Cold War 163

Olav Njølstad
10 The United States and the Transformation of the Cold War 188

Beth A.Fischer
11 Reagan’s Anti-Revolutionary Offensive in the Third World 201

Odd Arne Westad

PART IV: EUROPE IN THE LAST DECADE OF THE COLD WAR

12 Germany in the Last Decade of the Cold War 221

Hans-Hermann Hertle
13 Before the Wall: French Diplomacy and the Last Decade of the Cold War, 240
1979–89
Frédéric Bozo
14 Helping to Open the Door? Britain in the Last Decade of the Cold War 265

Sean Greenwood
15 Italy and the Battle of the Euromissiles: The Deployment of the US BGM- 277
109 G ‘Gryphon’, 1979–83
Leopoldo Nuti
16 NATO’s Northern Frontline in the 1980s 301

Olav Riste
17 Playground of Superpowers, Poland 1980–89: A View from Inside 311

Andrzej Paczkowski
18 Did Gorbachev Liberate Eastern Europe? 336

Vojtech Mastny

Index 355
Series Editor’s Preface

Understanding the Cold War means understanding its endings as well as its beginnings.
Although we are still far away from accessing the key source materials for the 1980s, this
innovative volume begins a necessary re-evaluation of that crucial decade, and especially
of the final period of Cold War confrontation from 1980 to 1985. The task that Olav
Njølstad and his contributors have undertaken here is a very important one, not least
since we know today that with exception of the final years of the Stalin era and the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis, we never came closer to a military confrontation between the
superpowers than we did during this period. That in itself will be enough of a reason for
future historians to pay particular attention to the early 1980s.
When they do so, these historians will be bound to deal with three key questions,
which also dominate the contributions to the present volume. One is the origins of the
early 1980s crisis—unlike the Korean War or the conflict over Cuba, the extreme tension
of the late Cold War era does not seem to have one immediate cause. Then there is the
character and the form of the Soviet crisis—what was it that happened to the Soviet
Union sometime in the late 1970s that gave origin to the sense of decline that seemed to
be everywhere within the system in the years that followed? Finally, there is the role of
the Reagan presidency—was this leader, so often sneered at by intellectuals during his
time in office, the man who not only saw us safely through a period of intense
confrontation, but also, when time was ripe, saw to it that the Cold War could be ended
peacefully?
To judge from this volume, the keys to understanding the intensity of the 1980s
confrontation must be sought in the previous decade, but at several diflferent levels of
international history. One is the dissolution of Richard Nixon’s détente project into
mutual recrimininations, threats and counter-threats during Jimmy Carter’s time in office.
The Soviet leaders clearly came to believe that Carter wanted a return to a more
confrontational policy, while the President—with a sense of righteousness bordering on
the sanctimonious—accused the Soviets in a series of mini-crises (Ethiopia, Afghanistan)
of subterfuge and dishonesty. Then there is the gradual turn to the right in US public
opinion, created in part by increased distrust of government following Nixon’s
disgraceful exit and by the forceful critique of détente formulated by the neo-conservative
wing of the Republican Party. And then—most dangerous of all—towards the end of the
1970s, there is the collapse of trust between the two superpowers in strategic and military
terms, a process that led directly to the Soviet war scare of 1983.
The effect of the new Reagan Administration anti-Soviet rhetoric and its dedication to
a military build-up was therefore to heighten already existing tension to a harmful level.
But the effect of the Reagan victory would probably not have been as serious in the
Kremlin if it had not been for an already existing notion that the Soviet Union was losing
the Cold War. One reason for this were the difficulties in the economy—all too visible to
the leadership from the early 1980s on. Another was the crisis in Poland, which the
Soviet leaders believed had come to only a temporary halt with the introduction of
martial law in December 1981, and the lack of political or military results after the
intervention in Afghanistan. And then there was the increasing lethargy and
indecisiveness of the geriatric Soviet leadership, unable to formulate clear strategies and
unwilling to resign and let younger people take over.
Reagan, then, in many ways got lucky, as he did so often during his career. When he
came to office, instead of the threatening Soviet bear that he had fully expected to find,
he found an elderly badger, still dangerous and determined, but wary, afraid and
preoccupied with its own ailments. What set Reagan apart was the degree to which he
was willing to adjust his policies to the new realities as he perceived them—that the
Soviets, eventually, would come around to a new process of limited cooperation (but this
time without the concessions from the US side that the right had criticised in the previous
decade).
In the end, as we know, Reagan did not have to offer any concessions. With the new
course set by Mikhail Gorbachev after his first year in office, the Soviet Union was more
than willing to offer one-sided concessions, if only the United States was willing to pay
lip-service to Gorbachev’s vision of a new age of superpower cooperation. The 1980s in
Cold War terms, therefore, become two stories, rather than one. The first is about the
road to the edge of the precipice, the other is about finding the way back, after the
weather had cleared. The international group of scholars who have contributed to this
volume provides us with good starting points for mapping both.
Odd Arne Westad
Series Editor
List of Abbreviations
ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile (treaty)
BMD Ballistic Missile Defence
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CSBMs confidence and security-building measures
CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
CWIHP Cold War International History Project
DDR/GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
DIA Defense Intelligence Agency (US)
EDC European Defence Community
EEC European Economic Community
EMU European Monetary Union
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FDR/FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States
GATT General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
GKChP State Emergency Committee (USSR)
ICA International Communication Agency (US)
ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
INF Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
IRBM Intermediate-range Ballistic Missiles
JCL Jimmy Carter Library
LRTNF Long-range Theatre Nuclear Forces
MAD Mutual Assured Destruction
MFN Most-Favoured Nation
MIRV Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles
MNCs Multinational Companies
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NIE National Intelligence Estimate (US)