Détente

this is a good one to kick the can on too.

Just let's have Dayton for a while and let's just get along well and let's create stability for the rest of the world.

And in the meanwhile, let's use that time to catch up or acquire capabilities from the other side even.

And right now there's a lot more capability, acquisition capability coming US bound than down the other way.

But it wasn't just placating coal.

People have to understand that there was this bizarre situation after detente fell apart And Detente was dead as Dillinger, really even before Reagan took the oath of office, okay? And a few things owed to that, which are kind of outside the scope of our immediate discussion here.

But such that it was, the Cold War was back on in earnest.

The Bundesrepublik had a military draft.

[coughs] So to begin, I'm gonna go back to the last sort of conflict cycle of the Cold War.

Very briefly to speak on détente.

Détente was born of two things.

For those that don't know, détente was...

It was a, it was an ex- it was an explicit and series of implicit agreements between the United States and Soviet Union Warsaw Pact to not engage in direct strategic competition.

Um, meanwhile, it really kinda had the United States' number in terms of its war-fighting doctrine, in terms of its strengths and weaknesses.

You know, and, uh, while, uh, America was, you know, uh, while America was taking heavy casualties in Vietnam, you know, and, uh, and, um, and, uh, and, and, and [coughs] and people were losing confidence in the dollar and things, um, you know, the Soviet Union was really, was, was, uh, was, was under, had undertaken its own kind of revolution in military affairs, you know? But it had done so without, you know, like, paying any costs in blood.

And, uh, Laird had a good point there, and, uh, this became very evident, um, post-Détente, I think.