To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power by Sergey Radchenko

Author:Sergey Radchenko [Radchenko, Sergey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Eastern, Political Science, History & Theory, International Relations, General
ISBN: 9781108477352
Google: 2Uv_EAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0CTHR6613
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2024-05-29T19:00:00+00:00

The Summit

The Moscow summit (May 22–29, 1972) was a highlight of Brezhnev’s career, the moment he shone on the international stage as the leader of a superpower, a global statesman. It was a historic occasion: the first time a sitting American president visited the Soviet Union since Roosevelt’s parley with Stalin in wartime Yalta. (Nixon massaged Brezhnev’s bottomless ego by proposing, in their first meeting, that the two of them have a relationship similar to that which Roosevelt and Stalin had in their time). For Brezhnev, sitting across the table from an American president, engaging him in serious conversation and trivial banter, sharing caviar and exchanging toasts meant basking in glory, rising head and shoulders above his Kremlin colleagues, and winning for the Soviet Union that international recognition as America’s equal that the Soviet leaders craved above all else. “There is an old saying,” Brezhnev said, explaining his approach to the United States, that “he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.” This meant speaking from strength, because “force is the language the American imperialists understand best.” But whether Brezhnev had a long spoon to show for it, he certainly was not going to miss the supper.90

The summit occasioned the signing of different agreements, including the hard-bargained Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT-I), and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Aimed at curbing the nuclear arms race, these agreements were major breakthroughs that took years of painstaking effort to negotiate. Brezhnev justified both treaties internally by saying that they would benefit the Soviet Union. The ABM Treaty would prevent the United States from protecting itself against the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, while the restrictions on the build-up of offensive armaments would help save money badly needed for economic development. Most importantly, as Brezhnev told the party leaders “in strict confidence,” the arms limitation agreements “would in any case not obstruct in any way the implementation of the previously envisioned measures to strengthen our country’s defense.”91 In Brezhnev’s assessment, the Soviet Union benefited from the agreements more than the United States did, which was how he was able to sell them to the reluctant military.

But to say that Brezhnev pursued arms control agreements for military advantage is to entirely misconstrue what he was trying to do. True to his heartfelt commitment to world peace, Brezhnev proclaimed that his goal was nothing short of saving civilization itself or, to be more precise, European civilization. As he put it in candidly racist terms, “Our countries have a great quantity of weapons. As President Nixon once said, you can destroy us seven times over, and we can destroy you seven times over. I told him in response that after this happens, the whites will be gone, only the blacks and the yellows will remain.”92

On the subject of China, Brezhnev was quite tight-lipped, although Gromyko had supplied him with a three-page litany of complaints. For example, Brezhnev did not use his opportunity to chastise Nixon once again for his inappropriate toast about the United

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