Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China

by Hal Brands

Two other important things happened as the United States crossed the danger zone. One was that America could downshift: It could move from an extremely high-cost strategy geared toward meeting a point of maximum peril to a somewhat lower-cost strategy geared toward meeting a less acute but ongoing challenge. By the end of the 1950s, American defense spending had fallen to around 9 percent of gross national product. On average, it continued to fall over the rest of the Cold War.56 The other development was that it became possible to occasionally decrease U.S.-Soviet tensions. Stalin’s death in March 1953 brought the period of greatest Soviet hostility to the West to an end. By the mid-1950s, the superpowers had started negotiations to control the arms race. During the 1960s and after, Moscow and Washington would agree to limit nuclear testing, cap their nuclear arsenals, and reduce the chances of confrontation in a few hot spots. They would even cooperate to eradicate smallpox and limit the spread of nuclear weapons.