During the cold war tension was very high, yet when Stalin died in 1953, his replacement Nikita Khrushchev spoke of peaceful co-existenceand de-Stalinisation which meant that tension eased as neither side was expecting asurprise attack.
Detente.
The Thaw.
The easing of tensions between the west and USSR.
Gorbachev--s.w
Gorbachev--s.w
Gorbachev--s.w
in 1955
1955, part of the cold war against communist expansion.
The cold war was refrozen with the U-2 incident. In 1960, an American U-2 Spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. At first the U.S. tried to deny the spy mission, but was forced to admit it when faced with evidence. This event broke the already tenuous relationship down.
The event that refroze the thaw in the Cold War was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. This aggressive action ended the period of détente, as it heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In response, the U.S. increased its military spending, supported anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, marking a significant escalation in Cold War hostilities.
U 2 incident
he sent the u.s. military to the Vietnam in 1955