Introduction

This chapter investigates the longevity of détente in Europe and the emergence of cooperative security entailing a move from "traditional" security policy strategies based upon coercion and confrontation toward a strategy that attempted to find solutions for security problems in cooperation even with potential enemies. The traditional Cold War narrative depicts a superpower battle and it pits a victorious United States against the evils of Communism arguing that the United States forced the Soviet Union to succumb. There is an enormous amount of literature on the end of the Cold War and on the détente of the early 1970s. However, there is less study pertaining to the phase in between entailing the crisis years of détente. The construction of the Urengoy pipeline was perhaps the most visible sign for the relevance of trade and the survival of détente. In July 1982, NATO's internal squabbles were the most immediate issue on Helmut Schmidt and George Shultz's agenda.