#lrb# In any case, perhaps détente, as a steady state in superpower relations, was a long shot. For one thing, there was the tendency, particularly in Washington, ‘to view the international power struggle as a zero-sum game’, as Zubok puts it, ‘where each side could either win or be defeated’. The American political system, with its regular election campaigns and talk of the US ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ on specific issues, made this hard to finesse, especially for administrations on the defensive following the success of the Soviet space programme and widespread domestic criticism of America’s role in Vietnam.