From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, the Cold War was highlighted by a period known as “détente” – a welcome easing of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. While the period of détente resulted in productive negotiations and treaties on nuclear arms control and improved diplomatic relations, events at the end of the decade would bring the superpowers back to the brink of war.
Use of the term “detent”— French for “relaxation”— in reference to an easing of strained geopolitical relations dates back to the 1904 Entente Cordiale, an agreement between Great Britain and France that ended centuries of off-and-on war and left the nations strong allies in World War I and thereafter.
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