ABSTRACT
The period from 1969 to mid-1975 is a distinctive and interesting one in world politics in which the two dominant agendas were redrawn. The North-South agenda acquired a new visibility as Southern states adopted more confrontational tactics. The South politicized issues relating to energy and economic equity in an increasingly open struggle to use international institutions to promote Southern interests. The global agenda included latent international economic issues and some conflict resolution problems. The motivations for a change in US strategy stemmed from a general impression that the United States had overextended itself and that it should manage its power and international obligations more carefully. The hazards of East-West competition were amply demonstrated through a number of indirect superpower confrontations in the Third World. Detente was a policy choice, a strategy selected by East and West because of perceptions on both sides that a change to a nonconfrontational relationship could serve important foreign policy goals.
