Paper 2: Criteria for Change in US-Soviet Relations
Paper 2 thematic essay, 45 minutes. Question: 'Evaluate the extent of change in relations between the USA and the USSR between 1945 and 1991.' Your timeline: Potsdam 1945; Berlin Blockade 1948-49; Cuban Missile Crisis 1962; detente and SALT 1972; INF Treaty 1987; collapse of the USSR 1991. You write: 'Relations changed a lot because there were crises and then the Cold War ended.' The teacher says you need explicit criteria for change and continuity - for example, communication channels, arms-control agreements, ideological competition, and the number of proxy wars - and that a turning point is not the same as fundamental change. You have four minutes to plan and must sustain a judgement across the whole period.
1. Define three criteria for measuring change and apply them to the period 1962-1972.
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Criteria: (1) level of communication and diplomacy; (2) institutionalised arms control; (3) ideological competition and proxy conflict. Applying 1962-1972: communication changed significantly - the Cuban Missile Crisis produced the Moscow-Washington hotline and a norm of summitry; arms control became institutionalised with the Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), NPT (1968), and SALT I (1972). But ideological competition continued: Vietnam, the invasion of Czechoslovakia 1968, and competition in the Third World. So change is real in the mechanisms of managing the Cold War, but continuity persists in the underlying antagonism. The judgement is therefore qualified: the period saw a change in the rules of the game, not an end to the game.
2. Reach a judgement about the extent of change across the whole period, explaining why one turning point matters more than another.
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Judgement: the extent of change is uneven; 1989-91 represents fundamental change, while detente was change within the Cold War framework. 1989-91 altered the units (the USSR dissolved), the ideology (communist monopoly ended), and the security architecture (Warsaw Pact dissolved). Detente altered communication and arms control but preserved the bloc system and ideological competition. Therefore the later turning point matters more because it changed the system itself, not just its temperature. This does not make earlier changes insignificant; it distinguishes surface change from systemic change.