V o L u m e I : a d

reinforced these sentiments. In political terms, anti-Americanism corre-

sponded with the diminution of West European power on a global level, due

not only to the Cold War constellation but also to the end of the colonial era

in which European powers such as France and Britain had been major players.

In cultural terms, anti-Americanism resulted from the rapid and pervasive

Americanization of West European societies and their economies in the

aftermath of World War II. Criticized by some historians as American cultural

imperialism, the American model for modernization was often lambasted for

its overreliance on individualism and glorification of mass consumerism and

attendant homogeneity.

Anti-Americanism was particularly strong within the political Left in

Western Europe, especially in countries such as France and Italy. It inter-

acted with a preference toward socialist or communist models of modern-

ization, along Soviet, Maoist, or Trotskyist lines. This was at times actively

supported by communist regimes, in particular the Soviet Union and China.

Leftist anti-Americanism became increasingly widespread during the 1960s

in the context of escalation of the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, however,

East-West détente had been translated into arms limitation agreements and

peaceful coexistence, which tended to take the wind out of the sails of anti-

Americanism among the West European Left.

Anti-Americanism outside Europe frequently reflected and accelerated

trends that predated the Cold War. In the nonaligned world, particularly

Latin America, widespread animosity toward the United States across vari-

ous strata of society frequently represented a reaction to American economic

and military hegemony and exploitation that manifested itself well before

1945. Events of the Cold War that conformed to preexisting perceptions of

the nature of American foreign policy, such as the 1954 CIA-backed coup

in Guatemala, American opposition to Fidel Castro, or efforts by President

Ronald Reagan’s administration to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua,

both reinforced and fueled anti-Americanism.

Even in Canada, traditionally a close American ally, the anti-Americanism

that existed there was based on pre–Cold War concerns about American eco-

nomic and cultural domination. Perceived American injustices, such as the

Vietnam War, only served to reignite these feelings.

Maud Bracke and Steven Hewitt

See also

Americas; Canada; Castro, Fidel; Cuba; Détente; Europe, Eastern; Europe, Western;

Guatemalan Intervention; Nicaragua; Non-Aligned Movement; Sandinistas;

United States; Vietnam War

References

Ellwood, David. Anti-Americanism in Western Europe: A Comparative Perspective. Johns

Hopkins University, Bologna Center, Occasional Paper, European Studies

Seminar Series, No. 3, 1999.

Granatstein, J. L. Yankee Go Home? Canadians and Anti-Americanism. Toronto: Harper-

Collins, 1996.

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Anti-Americanism

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Hollander, Paul. Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad, 1965–1990. New

York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Lacorne, David, Jacques Rupnik, and Marie-France Toinet, eds. The Rise and Fall of

Anti-Americanism: A Century of French Perception. London: Macmillan, 1990.

Soviet-American agreement limiting antiballistic missiles (ABMs). Develop-

ments in ABM technology in the 1960s prompted fears of a new arms race in

defensive weapons that might undermine nuclear deterrence. Such concerns

led to negotiations on their limitation. The ABM Treaty emerged from the

first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and was signed by President Richard

Nixon and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin on 26 May 1972 during the

Moscow Summit.

The agreement banned the nationwide deployment of ABM systems

by either party but permitted each side a limited deployment of one hun-

dred fixed ABM launchers at each of two sites: the national capital and one

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

139

Anti-Ballistic

Missile Treaty

(1972)

President Richard Nixon and a Soviet official sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty on 26 May 1972. Soviet

President Leonid Brezhnev stands in the background. The ABM Treaty was the first significant arms limitation treaty

between the United States and the Soviet Union and represented a major, if temporary, thaw in the Cold War. (National

Archives and Records Administration)

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intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) base. These deployments were

considered small enough to be insufficient to defend against a massive offen-

sive strike, thus preserving deterrence. The treaty also banned ABM sys-

tems based on technologies other than interceptor missiles as well as ABM

systems that were “sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based.”

It further forbade rapidly reloadable and multiple-missile ABM launchers and

prohibited the upgrading of other air defense systems to ABM capability.

The agreement also placed restrictions on nonsite radar systems to limit

their utility in an ABM capacity.

Verification of the agreement was to be through national-technical

means. Thus, compliance of one side would be determined through a variety

of sensor systems, to include satellites, radars, and seismographs operated by

the other party. This was necessary because of Soviet rejection of provisions

for on-site inspection. Finally, the ABM Treaty established the Standing

Consultative Commission in Geneva to oversee implementation of the agree-

ment and resolve any disputes that may arise. The treaty was to be of unlim-

ited duration, although either party could withdraw after six months’ notice

should it deem the treaty a threat to its “supreme interests.”

The ABM Treaty was ratified by both signatories, and entered into force

on 3 October 1972. A protocol to the ABM Treaty, signed in Moscow on

3 July 1974, reduced the number of ABM sites allowed each side from two

to one, with a total of one hundred launchers. The site could protect either

the national capital or an ICBM base, but not both. The USSR opted to keep

its site outside Moscow. The United States maintained its site at Grand Forks,

North Dakota, but later deactivated the site in 1976.

Compliance with the agreement was excellent, with the notable excep-

tion of the Soviet construction of a phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk in 1983,

which was ultimately dismantled after U.S. protests. President Ronald Rea-

gan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) presented a serious challenge to the

treaty’s ban on the development of ABM systems based on technologies other

than missiles. As a result, the Americans reinterpreted the agreement to per-

mit the development and testing, but not the deployment, of ABMs based

on lasers, particle beams, and other “exotic” technologies. This approach was

rejected by Congress, although Reagan and President George H. W. Bush

continued to press for revision of the treaty to permit SDI technologies.

Problems with many of these technologies combined with President Bill

Clinton’s commitment to the ABM Treaty provided a reprieve throughout the

1990s, but President George W. Bush’s push for a National Missile Defense

Program, an updated SDI, prompted U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty

effective 13 June 2002.

Steven W. Guerrier

See also

Bush, George Herbert Walker; Kosygin, Alexei Nikolayevich; Missiles, Antiballistic;

Moscow Meeting, Brezhnev and Nixon; Nixon, Richard Milhous; Nuclear Arms

Race; Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Treaties;

Strategic Defense Initiative

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Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

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