Why no hot war

- no fronts - Long Telegram (Kennan). Suggested that 'they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it'. BUT 'highly sensitive to the logic of force'. Frank Roberts - Britain. 'the Soviet Union [is] not, like Hitler, out to destroy us'. Perception that as long as you maintain strength - stability. Even in Russia - policy-makers such as Molotov, + Nikolai Novikov, ambassador to USA, worried about American expansionism, but suggested that they were better served by a policy of restraint. Increase in technocratic/advisor-led government (especially with Nixon) after war much more rational choice, game theory, etc. Not in either's interest/tactics to fight. -> detente Bernard Brodie, the American nuclear strategist had noted that thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on, its chief purpose must be to avert them Cuban Missile Crisis - discourages brinkmanship. U2s being shot down. General Thomas Power escalating to DEFCON 2. Easy to go over the edge - neither side actually wants that. Similarly - both sides want to avoid ABM systems. Both sides reach effective stockpile/industrial parity by the 1970s. Fear of adventurist PRC among Soviets - courted by USA, threatens to break up bipolarity. USA - stuck in Vietnam. Both USSR (seen as saviours of Vietnamese) and US (war weariness) benefit from withdrawal. Bretton-Woods system weakened. Easing of nuclear tension. Early nuclear treaties - Partial Test Ban Treaty 1963,

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 1968, Outer Space Treaty 1967. Mostly prevent 'horizontal' proliferation to other nations. After detente - reducing 'vertical' proliferation. SALT, ABMs. Helsinki Accords, Ostpolitik - affirming borders. Helps reduce Europe's potential as a flashpoint. Wars continued elsewhere - Vietnam, Angola, Zaire, Ethiopia, etc. Continue war by other means.