Welcome to this deck on the end of the Cold War, covering the years 1970 to 1991. In this final chapter of the superpower struggle, you'll learn how the intense rivalry of the 1960s gave way to a period of cooperation, before tensions flared up again. We will explore the key events that led to the dramatic collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, bringing the Cold War to a surprising and sudden end.

The early 1970s saw a new phase in superpower relations known as détente. This was a period of easing tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union. Both sides had reasons to pursue this policy. They were frightened by how close they had come to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and both were spending vast amounts of money on the arms race, which their economies could no longer sustain.

The most significant achievement of détente was the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT. The first agreement, SALT 1, was signed in 1972 by US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. For your exam, it's important to know that this was the first agreement to place limits on the number of nuclear weapons each side could have. Specifically, it limited Anti-Ballistic Missiles and placed a temporary freeze on the number of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs.