LINKAGE NOUN (POLITICS)

The linking together of quite different political issues in international negotiations by declaring that progress on one front is relevant and necessary to progress on other fronts. Etymology: A specialized use of linkage in the sense 'connection, the act or process of linking together'. History and Usage: Linkage emerged in the US in the context of US-Soviet relations in the mid and late sixties, when it was used by senior White House officials in order to establish a link between nuclear arms control and general East-West political relations; in practice, it became associated with the way that Cold War tensions were eased by a bargaining process in which one side made concessions in a given area in return for a promise on arms control or other concessions in a different area. Linkage remained an important concept in the seventies and eighties--as, for example, the US demand in 1987 for progress on arms control in return for Soviet movement on human rights and withdrawal from Afghanistan--but it acquired an especial currency after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein and his allies sought unsuccessfully to place the Palestinian question firmly on the agenda for any negotiations about Iraq's withdrawal. Mr. Kissinger's version of d÷tente included a strategy of 'linkage' designed to deter the Russians from misbehaving. The idea was that Moscow would not risk the loss of favorable arms agreements...by engaging in risky adventures around the world. US News & World Report 29 Mar. 1976, p. 17 Many speculate that the message carried by Hussein will only be a repeat of Saddam's call for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and Syria to leave Lebanon. The State Department has dismissed this proposal out of hand, calling it 'false linkage'. USA Today 16 Aug. 1990, section A, p. 2