Trade-Economic and Scientific-Technical Relations Between the USA and the USSR during the Years of Detente

Abstract

The topic of cooperation between the USSR and the USA in the economic, scientific and technical fields during the years of detente in bilateral relations (1969–1979) has been developed by American and European historians, political scientists, economists and experts in international relations theory for 50 years. This review describes the main stages of evolution of the foreign historiography on this problem. The authors consider the development of trade relations, technological exchanges and cooperation in the field of science as a coherent whole due to their “multilayered nature” and cumulative impact on the overall dynamics and final results of the Cold War. It is noted that from the very beginning, the formation of investigative issues was greatly influenced by theoretical works, as well as memoirs and diaries of American statesmen, Presidents, Secretaries of State, Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs, who were direct participants in the events. It is proved that in modern foreign studies, there is a tendency to belittle the significance of the experience of detente as a special model of relations between the East and the West. There is an attitude to the achievements of the exploratory programs implemented in those years as something situational and insignificant. Another conclusion concerns the difference in the emphasis of domestic and foreign authors regarding the choice of research issues. While the former tend to pay attention to the potential, implemented and missed opportunities of scientific and technical cooperation between the two superpowers during the period of relative thaw, the latter focus on studying the U.S. trade policy, but the transfer of technologies and high-tech products is considered in the context of discriminatory restrictions caused by the logic of the Cold War. While Russian authors, as a rule, emphasize the equal and mutually beneficial nature of cooperation in the scientific and technical sphere, American and European historians point to the USSR lagging behind in the development and introduction of new technologies into production by the mid‑1970s, a greater interest in cooperation and, as a result, a more vulnerable position in the negotiation and bargaining.