In Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War Stephenson makes the purposely provocative argument that the Cold War ended in the early 1960s. (For anyone interested in his argument, most of it can be read here through Google Books, beginning on page 19). Stephenson sees the Cold War as solely an American construct centered specifically on the Soviet Union and Europe. The beginning of detente in 1969 was perhaps the most obvious signal that the Cold War had already ended several years prior, with the two superpowers easing their antagonistic relationship and instead cooperating with each other to, among other things, ease domestic unrest. In other words, while most historians see detente as an anomaly in Cold War history, Stephenson sees it as the end result of an American perspective on global affairs that had changed in the early 1960s--detente was not a break with the past but instead a continuation. With that in mind, it can then be assumed that Reagan's aggressive foreign policy in the early 1980s is the true anomaly in the Cold War, and "Reagan's detente" from late 1984 to the end of his presidency represented a slide back into traditional, normalized U.S. relations with the Soviet Union.
I first read this article around a year ago and absolutely loved it. It'd be great to hear some other opinions on Stephenson's conclusions, and perhaps get a debate going on what people think the Cold War actually was.
You can always make periodization arguments if you want — "the Cold War" is not a "natural" category so you can always argue about it. Some have said it was from 1917-1991, some treat "Cold War I" as 1945-1972 and "Cold War II" as 1983-1989, some say the Cold War never really ended, some put the Cold War as part of an extended "short twentieth century" of war, etc. If you want to get really out there you can argue that the Anglo-US/Russia thing goes back waaaay earlier. If you are a clever person and you know your history you can do quite a lot when it comes to fitting together events and themes into a single narrative.
The question is not whether you can make the argument compellingly. The question is, what is to be gained from this periodization? Does it help us see trends we might have otherwise missed? Does it thematically pull together seemingly unrelated events? And for whatever good it does, does it do negative things, like causing us to overlook entire regions of the world where a lot of otherwise important things were taking place?
I don't know Stephenson's book so I can't answer for him. I can see advantages to emphasizing that the early period of the Cold War, pre-detente, was its own discrete thing from the later portions. I think saying that Reagan was somehow an anomaly kind of distracts more than it helps — Reagan was tapping into the same concerns and fears that existed prior to detente, and it is just as easy to say that detente was the anomaly. Especially since ending one's definition of "Cold War" in the early 1960s misses quite a lot of things that happen in the third world.
I prefer a rather simple periodization of "the Cold War" as ranging from 1945 through 1991, with the added caveat that as with all things in history, it didn't come out of nowhere, and it didn't really abruptly end. This is a moderate, boring, non-provocative stance, where Stephenson is trying to sound interesting by saying something different, which is fine by me so long as he makes it worth our time to read and think about. What I do not tolerate is people saying, "this is when it happened, full stop, so nobody can say otherwise" — periodization is, again, not a natural category, so we always have to be willing to let people periodize things differently if they have a good reason to.
I don't think it's very valid. Even at a simple viewing of the matter, you'd have to say that the Cold War lasted at least through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ('79-'89). There, the Soviets were actively trying to support socialism, as was the stated goal of the Brezhnev Doctrine by invading whilst the CIA supported the Mujahideen as yet another puppet force. The Cold War is as much about detente and nuclear hostility as it is about undeclared, shadow warfare.
I think Stephenson misses the point of the Cold War. Technically there was no war. The fact that we speak of the cold war implies that something different from shear politics is happening. The cold war 'came to be' because of fear for the other (the unknown). What basically happened is that both the USSR and the US started guarding themselves against their fear for the other. In my opinion, the fear for the other lasted far beyond the 60's and the politics were aimed towards containing the source of that fear. I do think Stephenson makes an interesting point, but it is a bit blunt to state that the cold war is over as soon politics change as drastically as the beginning of detente.