Reaching New Limits Reagan to many, was seen as, and still credited as one of the most important presidents in the current history of the United States. What made Reagan so great? Many say it was his ideas and personality. Reagan was the governor of California, and he was an actor as well. He had inherited a problem, a war that could lead to destruction with a misunderstanding and a lift of a finger, that was the Cold War. The Cold War began after World War II, and sparked by debates between the U.S. and Soviet Union over what to do with Germany, and their presence in the world. This debate worsened the relationship between the two nations. The presidents beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt had to deal with impending interference with other …show more content…
That was difficult as not a lot of people agreed with what Reagan would do, or were against his party. America’s success is derived from being the top of anything, and everything. Take it in economics, even down to sports, it was a competition to come out on top. The Cold War made it extra special. Many, including Reagan believed that the Soviet Union was becoming too powerful, and threatening the economy of the U.S. as well as their relationship with the rest of the world. As the situation seemed, “In each case, Reagan blocked Soviet influence, but the damage done to local communities and to the international reputation of the United States, as in Vietnam, was great” (Henretta 992). Reagan thought it was dangerous for the Soviet Union to keep growing as an influence around the world. Communism was influencing many countries and ruining their relations with the US. because they refused to help Communism grow. He saw this ideology as an evil, that oppressed the people. In his Farewell Address to the nation Reagan said, “It reminded me that while the man on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and human rights differently”(Ronald Reagan). In part, Reagan also believed that it was America’s mission to help those “oppressed” and break them out of the chains of Communism. Throughout history, it is important to realize that this idea, of “helping” other countries causes even more conflict, because it leads to more division from those who want help and the others who do not like foreign countries meddling in their own
This essay will focus on the Reagan Administration which spanned from January 1981 to January 1989. When Reagan became President, he had only one clear, defined foreign policy goal – containment of the Soviet Union, or the “evil empire” as he referred to it. He primarily wanted to stop the USSR from growing larger and to keep other non-Communist countries from becoming Communist. In the past, American presidents had used a theory called the “Domino Theory” to justify the need for intervention around
Reagan is considered a strong president because of his Rollback policy, which ended the Cold War. The Cold War was a huge deal back then. Many policy were made to stop this War, but none were successful. Until Reagan’s rollback policy which was more effective undermining the Soviet Union than the previous policies of containment or detente .
During his entire Presidency, Reagan had to deal with the Cold War. The Reagan Doctrine was created and Reagan went to work trying to begin the collapse of the communist government in Africa, Asia, and
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union was plagued with a stagnant economy – it had no incentive to promote communism in Central America. Ignoring the USSR’s economic weakness, Reagan asserted squashing the Salvadoran rebels would stem the spread of communism and would reestablish American preeminence in Central America. Reagan believed that enforcing anti-communist ideology would protect American national security interests by protecting the United States from its Bolshevik enemies.
Reagan did not hold back when it came to providing freedom for people who weren’t as privileged as those in the US. Due to this being the case he believed that military intervention was the answer to gaining certain people their freedom, Hence the Reagan Doctrine. The Reagan doctrine allowed the United States to grow in size as all of a sudden they had insurgent fighters believing in anticommunism on their side. The Reagan doctrine allowed the US to support those who were going to rebel against the Soviet Union. This Doctrine placed the Soviets Under even more of a strain as they Soviet Union now had to combat these pockets of insurgents which ultimately became more cost worthy than the Soviets had planned it to be.
Ronald Reagan is the president who emphasizes making the United States as free and affluent society (Park 2016). He wants people live together in free and peaceful world (Park 2016). However, in Reagan’s opinion, the Soviet is a threatening country to make world peace, so he decides to confront the Soviet (Park 2016). He has a somewhat positive attitude that the Soviet could support his foreign policies to reach world peace because he is basically welcome change and openness and he believes that freedom and security could move on together (ReaganFoundation 2009). For instance, Reagan says that the Soviet is still limited but recognizes an importance of freedom because he confirms that the Soviet promotes new reform and improvement policies
After running and being elected president in 1981, Reagan became a popular president. Domestically, Reagan cut taxes and increased defense spending. Yet, what he did to contribute to the next phase was the most significant. Reagan negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring the end to the Cold War by limiting the Soviet natural gas exports which denied the Soviet Union currency, exploiting Soviet economic difficulties, and more.
Ronald Reagan, President of the United States from 1981 through 1989, created economic policies throughout his presidency that aimed to pull the United States out of a recession. His policies, called Reaganomics, reduced government spending and reduced tax rates in order to foster economic growth. Reagan also appointed many conservative judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts in order to shift ideologies to the right. Because of this, Reagan was both underrated and overrated as a president.
Reagan was also able to move the US further to the right politically because the American people loved him and thought the world of him and also because he was a great salesman. Reagan was able to persuade the American people that less government,
Reagan called all the people in the Soviet Union, east Berlin, and even their capital city Moscow to search for a better way for their government. He told the leaders of the soviet union to tear down the wall, he told the people on each side of the wall that there was another better way of doing things. He blatantly told the prime minister of the soviet union to tear down the Berlin wall. Reagan negotiated that both sides would reduce the amount of nuclear arms. The amount of guts it took to stand toe to toe with one of the most powerful countries in the history of the world and dared them to defy him without demanding. Reagan was the John Wayne of the political world, he didn’t use fanciful language to deceive the people. He spoke plainly and openly about what he thought and didn’t need to please everyone, He was just a loved president and should be up there with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. He knew what it was like to have to work for everything he owned. His use of the call to action was perfect and urged the people to search for
With his telegenic features and extensive experience in front of a camera from his career in Hollywood, Reagan was ideally suited for politics in a growing media age. Though intellectually unambitious and often disengaged in his leadership style, he brilliantly articulated themes of patriotism, individualism, and limited government that resonated with millions of Americans. The President worked tirelessly in effort to propel his campaign for a second term. Reagan's victory in the 1984 presidential election underscored his political popularity. Through his speeches he reiterated his anti-Communist rhetoric, that Soviets and Communism, as a whole, would
Critics remarked that Ronald Reagan tended to perceive things in terms of black and white, and his attitude toward Soviet concerns was no different. The organizing principle of Reagan's defense and foreign polices was anti-Communism, and Soviet policy to him pervaded every part of the globe. Each of Reagan's predecessors, from 1945 onwards, had been occupied with the possible Soviet threat towards America but Reagan was obsessed with it. Unlike his predecessors, too, he saw no possibility of compromise with the USSR, simply discounting communism as "a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written" (Dallek, 129).
In other words the principal reason regarding the formulation of the Reagan Doctrine was to hamper the Soviet Union’s growth of communism in diverse parts of the world (“Feb 6, 1985: The “Reagan Doctrine” is announced”, n.d.).
For more than 30 years before Reagan took office, the United States and its allies had tried unsuccessfully to rein in communism. Reagan believed that communism in the Soviet Union was eroding and ready to crumble, expecting its collapse if competitively challenged by America. An arms race had been ongoing between the U.S. and Russia for some time. Reagan, however, was determined to put an end to it. Reagan began the competition with a very costly project known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, aimed at neutralizing incoming Soviet missiles. This shocked the Soviet Union, which was economically unable to match this rapid escalation of the arms race (CITE).
It was the main objective of the Reagan administration to limit and restrain the footprint of the Soviet Union’s political agenda and power. Ronald Reagan also did what he could to see to it that the supporting nations of his doctrine that deployed “freedom fighters” that were sent to battle the Soviet Union’s spread of communistic views. Freedom fighters were from all sorts of democratic nations and held the same belief and ideologically of the Reagan Doctrine to eliminate the expansion of the Soviet backed communist movement.