President nixon's strategy of détente was designed to

force the soviet union to recognize the americans' superior nuclear weapons.

relax tensions between the united states and the soviet union.

protect the united states in light of the soviet union's superior weapons technology.

provide a new name for what was really the status quo.

The correct answer is

relax tensions between the united states and the soviet union.

It was a series of negotiations and deals between the US and the Soviet union which began when Nixon started visiting Leonid Brezhnev who was a Soviet official. Their idea was to ease the relations between the two countries and reduce the cold war tension.