Peaceful coexistence

Peaceful coexistence is a policy of avoiding war between states with different political and economic systems while permitting competition, diplomacy, and exchange.

Nikita Khrushchev: Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and promoted peaceful coexistence with capitalist states. He made peaceful coexistence a central element of Soviet foreign policy after Stalin's death.
Deterrence theory: A strategy that seeks to prevent an action by threatening costs that would outweigh its expected gains. Mutual fear of catastrophic retaliation helped make restraint between rival powers credible.
Cuban Missile Crisis: The 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba that brought the United States and Soviet Union close to war. The crisis exposed how fragile coexistence could become under nuclear pressure.
Containment: A United States strategy of restricting the expansion of Soviet influence and communism. Containment sought to limit the rival system, while coexistence accepted continuing interaction with it.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks: U.S.–Soviet negotiations that produced agreements limiting certain strategic nuclear weapons in the 1970s. The talks translated coexistence into negotiations over the weapons central to superpower rivalry.
20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: The 1956 congress at which Khrushchev denounced Stalin's rule and outlined changes in Soviet policy. Its emphasis on avoiding world war helped frame coexistence as compatible with continued ideological struggle.
Nuclear brinkmanship: The practice of using threats and escalation risks to pressure an adversary during a crisis. Coexistence aimed to prevent rivalry from crossing into the nuclear brinkmanship that could trigger war.
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: A 1963 treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. The agreement demonstrated that rival powers could cooperate on a limited security issue.
Rollback: A policy of actively reversing an adversary's territorial or ideological gains rather than merely containing them. Rollback represents a more confrontational alternative to accepting long-term rivalry.
Nuclear risk: The possibility that nuclear weapons will be used accidentally, deliberately, or through escalation. Avoiding direct war did not eliminate the danger created by nuclear arsenals and crisis miscalculation.

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