The Soviet Union and the wider world, the Brezhnev years: crushing the Prague Spring and the failure of reform

During the Brezhnev years, the Soviet Union’s relationship with the outside world began to change significantly. The Kremlin now accepted that an armed clash with the West was unlikely, provided the Soviet Union was strong enough to ensure that war would prove suicidal for both sides. It was paradoxically also an era of rapid growth in nuclear-missile armaments.