Curated playlist
Cold War treaties
- NATONATO's promise that an attack on one is an attack on all was invoked only once.
- Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic RelationsOne Chinese verb in the 1978 US-China communiqué did not match its English version. Both texts went out anyway.
- PactomaniaPactomania is the nickname for a burst of American treaty-making between 1945 and 1955, and the word itself first appeared in an article in The New York Times in 1955. In those years the United States concluded or ratified a striking…
- Reykjavík SummitReagan asked Gorbachev if he would refuse a historic chance over a single word. The 1986 Reykjavík Summit then ended.
- Warsaw PactThe Warsaw Pact's only two military actions targeted its own members. Hungary's 1956 exit bid was crushed.
- Outer Space TreatyNo country can claim the Moon, Mars or any asteroid under the Outer Space Treaty. Rivals signed it in 1967.
- ANZUSNew Zealand's 1985 refusal of the destroyer USS Buchanan cracked the ANZUS treaty.
- START IA 13,000-pound steel blade sliced apart 375 B-52 bombers under the START I arms treaty.
- Strategic Arms Limitation TalksSix months after SALT II was signed, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The US Senate never ratified the treaty.
- Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956The Soviet Union promised Japan two islands in 1956, but only after a peace treaty that was never signed.
- Stalin NoteIn March 1952, Stalin offered to reunify Germany if it stayed neutral. Konrad Adenauer refused to test the offer.
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear WeaponsNorth Korea became the first state ever to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in April 2003. It had joined in 1985.
- North Atlantic TreatyThe North Atlantic Treaty sat unseen in the bottom drawer of a diplomat's safe.
- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces TreatyReagan and Gorbachev signed a 1987 treaty to destroy a whole class of nuclear missiles.
- Southeast Asia Treaty OrganizationOnly two of SEATO's eight member nations were actually in Southeast Asia. The alliance was meant to be Asia's NATO.
- Antarctic Treaty SystemTwelve rival nations signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, the first arms control deal of the Cold War.
- Helsinki AccordsThe Helsinki Accords were not legally binding, yet dissidents used them. Thirty-five nations signed in 1975.
- Partial Nuclear Test Ban TreatyIn 1957, underground nuclear tests could not be told apart from earthquakes. That complicated a full test ban.
- Treaty of San FranciscoCeylon gave up its right to war reparations from Japan at the 1951 San Francisco peace conference.