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Why did relations between East and West decline so rapidly and dramatically after 1979 and illustrate this decline with some of the main developments in the period 1979-1985
In the years of 1979 to 1985 many incidents happened, which brought relationships between east and west to a further deterioration. 1979 is more or less a key year, which undoubtedly created more problems for the succeeding six years. Affirmative is the invasion of the soviet army into Afghanistan, which brought the climate to a further change. Also the change in American presidencies is also another key factor for the heating up of the cold war. Though the fact that the USA was still in a post Vietnam situation (four years after the ending of the war) definitely contributed to America’s behaviour and ways of confronting its problems.
Since the first SALT treaty of 1970, which was developed to reduce nuclear arms fare and to start increasing the communist and capitalist systems. USA president Carter believed that he was able to stop aggression between those opposing systems and to go into history as a man, who achieved better world and political conditions than in the past and in 1979 a further SALT agreement was supposed to take place. First the USSR seemed to be very cooperative, but unfortunately, to the surprise of western countries, in 1979 soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to aid communist Afghani forces struggling in many parts of the country against their defeat.
Once again the cold war started to heaten up; a Russian Vietnam was about to initiate with duration of ten years.
The western countries denied any further cooperation with the soviets and consequently the second SALT treaty was cancelled. It is to imagine that the popularity of Jimmy Carter decreased dramatically, leading in the new elections for presidency to a substitute for Jimmy Carter: new president Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Ronald demanded less government at home and an aggressive Cold War foreign policy abroad. Reagan’s severe fiscal policies worsen cultural conflicts in the body politic. He believed that America lagged behind the Soviet Union in the arms race. Therefore he started his legislature period with the idea of boosting up their technology for further developments of new arms systems. He introduced in the early 80’s the new revolutionary defence system: the “Strategic defence System” (SDI), also called “Star Wars”, which was a satellite-and ground-based weapon system, that could “destroy Soviet missiles with darts and laser beams” (notes).
His first anti communist action was during the Moscow Olympiads in 1980, which was the first time that Olympia games were held on the other side of the iron curtain. Many countries, such as the United States and 61 other countries decided to boycott the Olympics (France, Great Britain, Italy, and Sweden did not join the boycott) through refusing to participate.
They used the excuse that the USSR did not change at all, and was playing with false cards with the Americans; meaning that they were not trustful anymore and moreover did not have any interest of creating better relations and finally cool off the cold war. Also countries, which only partly participated (such as Australia) had lost many athletes, as they [next page]