Fin de siècle

aron and the end of the bipolar system

Carlos Gaspar

pp. 91-99

in: José Colen, Elisabeth Dutartre-Michaut (eds), The companion to Raymond Aron, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Abstract

The stabilization of bipolar instability,¹ based on the shared fear of nuclear war, was the requirement for the human adventure to be able to continue. The United States and the Soviet Union, "enemies by position,"² strategic adversaries and ideological rivals, transformed their relationship into a routine, particularly after the Cuban missile crisis, which preceded their joint efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons.³ The "double hegemony" of the "enemy brothers' seemed to create conditions for greater autonomy in Europe and Asia, expressed both in the Sino-Soviet split and the "Prague Spring," and in Gaullism and Ostpolitik. Decolonization accelerated the integration of Europe, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia confirmed the nature of Soviet imperialism as well as the passivity of the Western democracies and the recognition of the demarcation line between the two camps. Nevertheless, although the evolution of the Cold War corresponded to Aron's predictions, the period of relative optimism was about to end.