Objective and Subjective Premises of Detente

Pastusiak attempts to identify the objective and subjective factors that have made the United States enter the road of coexistence and détente with socialist countries. The main objective factors are: changes in the balance of power between East and West; changes in the balance of power within the West; transformations in the configuration of the contemporary world; nuclear parity between USSR and USA; fiasco of previous US policy toward socialist countries; the rising role of domestic priorities in the United States; growing economic interdependence of the American economy; and last but not least the détente policy of the socialist countries which constantly offers the capitalist world the idea of cooperation and coexistence.The factors of subjective nature are: constructive changes in attitudes of American public opinion toward socialist countries, and the traditional pragmatism of the American establishment. Pastusiak also discusses various reservations raised by the critics of détente in the United states.Pastusiak comes to the conclusion that objective factors play the most important role in shaping US policy toward détente and thus the process of relaxation of tension between East and West tends to be more durable.