In the course of the 1960s and '70s, however, the bipolar struggle between the Soviet
and American blocs gave way to a more-complicated pattern of international
relationships in which the world was no longer split into two clearly opposed blocs.The 1970s saw an easing of Cold War tensions as evinced in the Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks (SALT) that led to the SALT I and II agreements of 1972 and 1979,
respectively, in which the two superpowers set limits on their antiballistic missiles and
on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.The rise to power of democratic governments in
East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia was quickly followed by the
unification of West and East Germany under NATO auspices, again with Soviet
approval.