Csce Policy Of The U.s. Government Expedition (1969-1975)

This thesis tries to take advantage of the declassified documents of the U.S. government and recent researches at home and abroad, to inspect the U.S. government policies assessment, formulation and implementation of the CSCE in1969-1975, to explore its underlying reasons, foreign strategic concept and historical influence on the end of the Cold War. Over the years, the academia regards CSCE as the pinnacle of the East-West detente during the Cold War. The "Helsinki Process" leading to CSCE and its follow-up meetings had a profound impact on the U.S. foreign policies, the US-Soviet relations as well as the end of the Cold War, it also accelerated the national democratic consciousness in the Eastern Europe, contributed to the growth of the reformist forces in these areas and played an important role in triggering Drastic Change in the Soviet and Eastern Europe along with the end of bipolar system. However, compared with such great importance, the attitudes and policies of the United States during the whole sessions were not so positive, and these had a direct relationship with the Nixon-Ford administration's European security policies. Among them, Kissinger's individual European security concept made remarkable influence on the authorities'policies of CSCE.The full text consists of five parts:The first part describes the origin and development of CSCE as well as the parties' countermeasures, focusing on analysis of the Soviet government's CSCE motivation and the attitude of the NATO allies. Soviet initiatives of CSCE were designed to seek to the international recognition of the post-war boundaries of Europe, to infiltrate the wedge between the United States and Europe, to engage in economic cooperation with west Europe countries. However, Russians'propose repeatedly been rejected by the West, this was closely related to international environment of the beginning Cold War and the Soviet Union's strategy. When Soviet-U.S. had not receded in a hostile and ease did not open, the U.S government could not easily bring CSCE into bilateral or multilateral dialogue. Europe was in the assistance of the Marshall Plan with high dependence on the United States, impossible to get rid of the U.S to pursue an independent foreign policy. However, with the recovery of west Europe as a whole in the1970s, Europeans began to make their voices between the Soviet Union and the U.S. The opportunity to hold CSCE was immature but slowly changed.The second part focuses on the preliminary formation process of CSCE policy in the Nixon administration during the detente period. Driven by the Europe detente wave, the initiative of convening CSCE was gradually accepted by the west Europe countries. When Nixon-Kissinger came to power, they revised the policies towards Europe. According to the linkage theory, the U.S. government successively proposed quadripartite talks in Berlin as well as convened date of co-balanced Disarmament as the conditions of convening CSCE. During this period, the Americans'main policy was to obtain strategic interests, such as the summits.The third part focuses on the position of the United States during the preparatory meetings process. During this period, the U.S. government CSCE policy was further in formation and development. With the launching of the agendas of preparatory meetings, the divergence among the United States, the Soviet Union and the European Political Committee was increasingly prominent. Under the Nixon administration's guidance of the principles governing relations with Europe, the Nixon administration successfully achieved the convening of preparatory meetings for the association with the co-balanced Disarmament. At the same time, Sonnenfeldt's limit damage theory towards CSCE had become the basic position of the United States during the formal meetings.The fourth part focuses on the advancement and implementation of policy on the CSCE. At this stage, the divergence between the Soviet Union and the European countries led to fairly lengthy duration of the meetings, the negotiations were even deadlocked. Because of the need to consider the delicate relationship with allies, and urged by the Soviet Union along with public opinion to questioning, Kissinger had to mediate strongly. After the Watergate, President Ford took office. Under the guidance of the National Security Council led by Kissinger, the United States and the European Political Committee still maintained effective communication. After a long period of bargaining, Kissinger's mediation led to a final agreement reached.The fifth part is the conclusion. The signing of Helsinki Agreement is the attempt of the collective security treaty, it is also the confrontation between the idealists and the realists, short-term history has proved this point. This agreement is more about the affirmation of European detente, to ascertain a balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States. In fact, the Helsinki Accords did not prevent the Soviet's invasion to Afghanistan, and there was no effective implementation. But in the long run, the personnel, information and cultural exchange in the third basket of the Helsinki Accords gave the West a good opportunity to disintegrate Soviet Union, to accelerate the collapse of the Soviet bloc in twenty years, which was Nixon, Kissinger and other policy-makers never expected.