Crisis prevention and the Austrian State Treaty

Much has been written about how the United States and the Soviet Union have managed crises since World War II, avoiding dangerous escalation and war; little on how the two superpowers have avoided confrontations. In part scholarly neglect of the question of crisis avoidance reflects the acute suspicion and hostility of the cold war. When U.S.-Soviet rivalry was perceived as a struggle between incompatible ideologies and ways of life, it was unthinkable that the superpowers might have any common interests, much less that they could collaborate, even tacitly, to control the conflict in their relationship.