In president nixon’s first inaugural address, he outlined a foreign policy strategy based on a. optimism. b. negotiation. c. increasing tensions. (it is not c) d. confrontation.

b. negotiation. :) just took the quiz

Correct  b. negotiation

Context/detail:

Richard Nixon had already announced this shift from confrontation to negotiation in his acceptance speech as the presidential nominee at the 1968 Republican National Convention. He addressed this idea specifically to the Cold War enemies of the United States.  Here's a snippet of Nixon's convention speech where he spoke on this subject:

"And now to the leaders of the Communist world, we say: After an era of confrontation, the time has come for an era of negotiation. Where the world's super powers are concerned, there is no acceptable alternative to peaceful negotiation. Because this will be a period of negotiation, we shall restore the strength of America so that we shall always negotiate from strength and never from weakness."

the treaty of brest-litovsk was a peace treaty signed on 3 march 1918 between the new bolshevik government of russia and the central powers (german empire, austria-hungary, bulgaria, and the ottoman empire), that ended russia's participation in world war i.