The Penguin History of the World

In return for the implicit recognition of Europe’s post-war frontiers (above all, that between the two Germanys), the Soviet negotiators had finally agreed in 1975 at Helsinki to increase economic intercourse between eastern and western Europe and to sign a guarantee of human rights and political freedom. The last was, of course, unenforceable. Yet it may well have had more importance than the symbolic gains of frontier recognition to which the Soviet negotiators had attached much significance. Western success over human rights was not only to prove a great encouragement to dissidents in Communist Europe and the USSR, but side-stepped old restraints on what had been deemed interference in the internal affairs of Communist states. Gradually there began to arise public criticisms that were in the end to help to bring about change in eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the flow of trade and investment between the two Europes began almost at once to increase, though also very slowly. It was the nearest approach so far to a general peace treaty ending the Second World War, and it gave the Soviet Union what its leaders most desired – assurance of the security of the territorial settlement that was one of the major spoils of victory in 1945.

For all that, Americans were very worried about world affairs as 1980, the year of a presidential election, approached. Eighteen years before, the Cuban crisis had shown the world that the United States was top dog. It had then enjoyed superior military strength, the (usually dependable) support of allies, clients and satellites the world over, and the public will to sustain a world diplomatic and military effort while grappling with huge domestic problems. By 1980, many of its citizens felt the world had changed and were unhappy about it. When the new Republican president, Ronald Reagan, took office in 1981, his supporters looked back on a decade of what seemed increasing American powerlessness. He inherited an enormous budgetary deficit, disappointment over what looked like recent advances by Soviet power in Africa and Afghanistan, and dismay over what was believed to be the disappearance of an American superiority in nuclear weapons enjoyed in the 1960s.

In the next five years President Reagan surprised his critics; he was to restore the morale of his countrymen by remarkable (even if often cosmetic) feats of leadership. Symbolically, on the day of his inauguration, the Iranians released their American hostages (many Americans believed the timing of the release to have been stage-managed by the new administration’s supporters). But this was by no means the end of the troubles the United States faced in the Middle East and the Gulf. Two fundamental difficulties did not go away – the threat posed to international order in that area while Cold War attitudes endured, and the question of Israel. The war between Iran and Iraq was evidence of the first danger, many people thought. Soon, the instability of some Arab countries became more obvious. Ordered government virtually disappeared in the Lebanon, which collapsed into civil war disputed by bands of gunmen patronized by the Syrians and Iranians. As this gave the revolutionary wing of the PLO an even more promising base for operation than in the past, Israel took to increasingly violent and expensive military operations on and beyond her northern borders. There followed in the 1980s a heightening of tension and ever more vicious Israeli–Palestinian conflict. More alarming still to Americans, Lebanon descended further into anarchy in which, following the arrival of United States marines, bombs exploded at the American embassy and its marines’ barracks, killing over 300 people in all.

The United States was not alone in being troubled by these enduring ills. When the Soviet Union sent its soldiers to Afghanistan (where they were to stay bogged down for most of the next decade), Iranian and Muslim anger elsewhere was bound to affect Muslims inside the Soviet Union. Some thought this a hopeful sign, believing the growing confusion of the Islamic world might induce caution on the part of the two superpowers, and perhaps lead to less unconditional support for their satellites and allies in the region. This mattered most, of course, to Israel. Meanwhile, the more alarming manifestations and rhetoric of the Iranian revolution made some think that a conflict of civilizations was beginning. Iran’s aggressive puritanism, though, also caused shivers among conservative Arabs and in the oil-rich kingdoms of the Gulf – above all, Saudi Arabia.