This article analyzes détente as an attempt to engage new international dynamics that limited the exercise and impact of both U.S. and Soviet power by the advent of the Nixon Administration. Efforts by the superpowers to find a modus operandi were continuously eroded by inherent contradictions in the policy's goals and ideological tensions from the outset. This piece explores the Nixon administration's détente policies, as well as the countervailing forces—both domestic and international—that curtailed the ability of government leaders in Washington and Moscow to find a new footing for global relations in the early 1970s.