Ch6-4 · 综合：1979–85——谁更该为重启的冷战对抗负责？

How accurate is it to say that it was the USA that was more responsible for the renewed Cold War confrontation with the USSR in the years 1979–85?

25 分 · Section B（分析 + 评估 + 判断）· 需结合本单元知识与前述 Extracts。

• 苏联责任：① 阿富汗入侵是催化剂，军事行动持续升温 Gulf 紧张；② 苏联领导层内斗不稳促其展现对抗性修辞；③ 东欧卫星国（尤其波兰）不稳使其更对抗；④ 部署新型战场核武器显著挑衅欧洲；⑤ 1983 击落韩国民航机（有美国议员在机）加剧紧张。
• 美国非主因：⑥ 里根其实"比预期更少对抗"，1985 戈尔巴乔夫上台后他显得愿外交。
• 结构因素：1979–85 经济挑战、海湾不稳、民族主义等为对抗奠基；其他相关材料均给分。

第一段：先表态——"部分准确，但非主因"。第二段：美国责任（里根军备/SDI/里根主义/欧洲导弹），承认题干有道理。第三段：苏联责任（阿富汗 1979 早于里根、第三世界扩张、SS-20、KAL 007、老人政治），这是更深根因。第四段：结构因素 + 1985 后里根转向外交，证明对抗非美国单方面。结尾：程度判断——美国"加剧"而非"发动"对抗。

It is partly accurate to hold the USA primarily responsible for the renewed Cold War confrontation of 1979–85, but the assertion overstates American agency: the breakdown rested at least as heavily on Soviet actions and on structural tensions that predated Reagan's presidency.

There is ground for the claim. Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981 with a strident anti-communist rhetoric and secured unprecedented defence increases — 13 per cent in 1982 alone. The Strategic Defense Initiative (1983), by threatening to escape the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction, was viewed even by Western analysts as destabilising, and the Reagan Doctrine extended aid to anti-communist insurgents worldwide. The deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe, paired with the "Evil Empire" speech, raised the temperature of the confrontation and, alongside the Soviet downing of KAL 007 in 1983, made 1983 the most dangerous year of the decade. From this perspective the USA did intensify and institutionalise the renewed hostility.

Yet the Soviet Union bears at least equal responsibility, and arguably more. The invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 — before Reagan took office — was the catalyst for the collapse of détente and sustained a bloody war that kept East–West tension high, particularly in the Gulf. Moscow's expanding influence in the Third World (Angola, Ethiopia) and its deployment of a new generation of battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe were provocative irrespective of US policy. Domestically, the instability of Soviet leadership — the rapid succession of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, a "gerontocracy" — produced an inflexible, internally defensive foreign policy that expressed itself in confrontational rhetoric, especially as unrest in satellite states such as Poland frightened the Kremlin. The shooting down of KAL 007 in 1983, with a US congressman aboard, was a Soviet act that intensified tension.

Moreover, the Indicative Content notes that Reagan's presidency was "less confrontational than had been expected" and that from 1985, with Gorbachev in power, he proved open to diplomacy (Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington summits). This undercuts the idea that the USA was the prime mover: confrontation was structural, fuelled by economic challenges, Gulf instability and resurgent nationalism, not merely by American belligerence.

In conclusion, the statement is only partially accurate. The USA intensified the renewed confrontation through its military build-up and doctrine, but the Soviet Union initiated the decisive break (Afghanistan), supplied the deeper structural causes, and shared the escalatory logic. The renewal of the Cold War was a mutual, structurally driven process rather than the responsibility of one superpower.

• ☐ 开头有没有直接回应"How accurate"给出程度判断？
• ☐ 有没有同时写美国责任 AND 苏联责任（MS 双向）？
• ☐ 有没有用"阿富汗早于里根上任"这个关键时序反证？
• ☐ 有没有引 MS 的"里根 less confrontational than expected"？
• ☐ 结尾是不是"mutual, structurally driven"而非一边倒？