President Ronald Reagan's SID, Strategic Defense Initiative

The Cold War, which took place from 1947 to 1991 had eventually altered the Latin America's relationship with the United States profoundly, as the region became a battleground between two different competing ideological systems which was capitalism and communism. Prior to the Cold War, both economic and geopolitical concerns had motivated United States policy toward Latin America. But, after the lowering of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, George Kennan, the chief architect of American foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, advocated containment to stop the spreading of communism, not just in Europe, but including the countries all around the world. The result was a bipolar world featuring proxy wars fought throughout the Third World by alternates and clients of the two superpowers. Latin American nations are historically considered to be part of "our backyard," who were not permitted to remain neutral as Washington expected the Latin American countries to ally with the United States, while the Soviet Union sought to gain access to what had been an American sphere of influence and after world war II many Latin American countries such as Cuba faced political, economic and social challenges.

American attitudes towards Latin America can be summed up as an extension of larger global directives, and the exclusion of foreign powers in the region. This was highlighted especially during the Cold War as US involvement was essentially in competition with the USSR. Latin America was therefore a mere pawn in the larger context of US-Soviet competition for global dominance. The actions and methods used are also characterized by the lack of an international authority, or an atmosphere of inter-state anarchy, which shaped their calculations in the endeavor to increase their influence over Latin America. When one analyzes the situation, it seems only rational that the United States treated its southern neighbors so, due to the geographical

The relationship between the United States of America and Latin America nations has been turbulent since the beginning of colonization. The United States had withheld a sense of superiority since its inception. Their view of Pan-Americanism is only shared by them; Canada and most Latin American nations do not share this view. They viewed Latin America’s struggle for independence as a necessity, but did not pledge their assistance until it coincided with American interests and objectives in the area. The author mentions Latin America’s one-crop economy, but they do not emphasize the role the US played in their economies or how much they were involved in their own politics. Recent events, in regards to Cuba, have made certain parts of the chapter

During the beginning of the Reagan presidency, Cold War pressure between the Soviet Union and the United States boosted. Reagan entered office deeply cautious of the Soviet Union. Reagan characterized the Soviet Union as "an evil empire" and called for a space-based missile defense system, battered by critics as "Star Wars."

He also launched a political innuendo at the Soviets, stating “We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all in the front and in public.” He wanted to let the Soviets know loudly and clearly that the United States did not operate in secrecy unlike their Soviet counterparts. And, President Reagan wanted to prevent any false speculations about the cause of the explosion or conspiracy theories about the demise of the NASA space

The political aspects of the cold war were very different for both countries. America was very worried that, since the Soviet Union had the first satellite in space, they were taking a big first step is controlling the Earth. America also felt that they didn’t have any precautions if the Soviet Union decided to attack America with any space equipment so America decided they needed to advance on the political front of the space race (Doc A.) America also realized that Russia and the Soviet Union was finally ahead of us in technology. According to document B, George E. Reedy said “… It took them four years to catch up to our atomic bomb and nine months to catch up to our hydrogen bomb. Now we are trying to catch up to their satellite.” As stated in document D, John F. Kennedy said “… I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” Kennedy wanted this so America

But the idea itself was geneous. It sounded so intimidating to the soviets that they wouldn't dare to attack us. Although this one act alone didn't equal the end to the Cold War (which is highly debated about) it still proves that point that Reagan was no dumb president. He used his strong intelligence and unique strategies to end the war in a way that would have the least amount of death and sacrifice. If it wasn't for these momentous methods, our country today could have been left in a much worse

A couple of weeks later, on March 23 1983, Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative. In his plan, Reagan believed such program would improve the security of the United States while simultaneously gaining a strategic and technological advantage over the Soviet Union.

By 1970, the Soviet Union had achieved equality with the United States in military power. (Thayer Watkins) During the Soviet Union era Reagan came up with many tactics to ensure that the Soviet Union wouldn’t be exceeding the United States in anything. He verified that the United States had enough money for missiles and military purposes. He threatened the Soviet Union in various ways to keep control of what the Soviets were trying to accomplish. In the 1970s, the Soviets had made fast advances in Asia, Africa and South America, ending with topping off the raid of Afghanistan in 1979. The Warsaw Agreement had strong prevalence over NATO in its ordinary forces. At the time Moscow had sent out and used a new generation of intermediate-range missiles, the giant SS-20s, targeted at many European cities. Reagan developed broad counteroffensive tactics. He started a $1.5 trillion military buildup -the largest in American peacetime history- which was aimed at drawing the Soviets into a competition he was convinced they could not

[And] by the time Jimmy Carter professed to have learned more about the Soviet Union than he had ever known before, Reagan and his fellow conservatives in both parties had laid the intellectual foundation for the military buildup of the 1980s.” At this critical juncture, the United States was in a desperate need of a strong, non-compromising president that could not only restore the United States’ image, power, and prestige, but also take the fight to the Soviets, instead of remaining in Carter’s visage as subservient. In January, 1981 the United States chose such a president as Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. Reagan would embark on a three-prong strategy over the course of his two terms, spanning the next eight years. His plan would consist of initially restoring the United States’ military power, and then constructing and using his Strategic Defensive Initiative (SDI) strategy as a fulcrum, by which would enable him to be finally in a bargaining position with the Soviets via rapprochement. These three components (military buildup, SDI, and rapprochement) were interconnected, and it is with such mobility, flexibility, and vision – in addition to a slight amount of assistance from the Soviet Union’s president, Mikhail Gorbachev – that allowed Ronald Reagan to ultimately bring an end to, and thus win, the Cold

At the time the deal was regarded as the best deal of the century! All that Reagan had to do was accept the offer and our country would celebrate, have festivities, and hold parades in his honor. The only thing that was holding him back was a condition made by Gorbachev, the condition stated that Reagan had to fully abandon the Strategic Defense Initiative (which was also referred to as SDI or its nickname Star Wars). This had not been a dilemma or a hard decision for Reagan to make. He had already been shown multiple scenarios by the Pentagon regarding what would happen to the U.S. if a nuclear bomb were to hit our country, the effect would be tragic. He had known that our nation was not yet ready to withstand any form of a nuclear attack. His goal was to have true safety for the whole world and he strongly believed that the only way to achieve that was to make all nuclear ICBM’s fully and completely irrelevant. At this point Reagan knew he could not accept the offer, because although it would help him out quite a bit in the next presidential elections, he knew it was wrong. When Reagan declined the offer, he also pledged to share the SDI technology with the entire

To deal with the situation, Mr. Reagan’s task for the U.S was to make a massive U.S army with many troops and weapon. Strategic Defense Initiative was announced in 1983. It’s a plan for a development on space-based weapons to protect America from nuclear missiles by the Soviet Union. In October 1983, a little more than one year from when Mr. Reagan sent 800 U.S. Marines to Lebanon on June 1982, they were attacked by suicide bombers, at Beirut Barracks, killing 241 American Marines. During the same month of October, Mr. Reagan ordered the invention of the Caribbean island. On Mr. Reagan’s second term, America and the Soviet Union signed a agreement to eliminate nuclear missile use in 1987. A little later in that same year, Mr. Reagan spoke at the Berlin wall, challenged Soviet Premier Gorbachev to tear down the walls. Two years later, Gorbachev allowed the people to dismantle the remaining walls and that ends the cold

Ronald Reagan expresses his views by saying, “For the first time in history, the language of ‘arms control’ was replaced by ‘arms reduction’”. President Reagan goes on to declare that the complete elimination of nuclear missiles took conventional wisdom, patience, determination, and commitment. Reagan was thankful for the treaty, and he believed that this treaty would create a working relationship between the Soviets and the United States. He wanted this relationship to take on other urgent issues such as, strategic offensive nuclear weapons, the balance of conventional forces in Europe, the destructive regional conflicts of the world, and the respect for the human and natural rights granted by God to all people. Similarly, General Secretary Gorbachev’s opinion of the treaty was equivalent to Reagan’s. He claimed, “We can be proud of planting this sapling, which may one day grow into a tree of peace.” Gorbachev felt that this treaty was the birth of a relationship between the US and Soviet Union. He thought that they had reached a breakthrough in the Cold War. The General Secretary also states, “...move together toward a nuclear-free world, which holds out for our children and grandchildren and for their children and grandchildren the promise of a fulfilling and

Ronald Reagan served from January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989 as President of the United States he is remembered as one of the best Presidents that the United States has ever had, He is vastly recognized because he served as president at the end of the Cold War, he was known as the president that “ended it”(the cold war). Though, the question remains in how? How was Reagan able to accomplish the ending of something that had lasted so long (the Cold war)? Thus was a task only accomplished by him because; he had a strong perseverance, intellectuality and held a strong desire for the destruction of all nuclear weapons. All of these elements combined took him to the decision and policy’s implemented during his terms as president. Reagan Started by taking a “Defense Policy” and his creation of SDI (The Strategic Defense Initiative) was all a part of a plan to disregard the MDA (Mutual Assured Destruction). Reagan came to these plans in despair to prevent any future nuclear wars with the SU (Soviet Union), “According to Weinberger, the idea that one was safe from nuclear attack only if vulnerable to it ‘repelled’ Reagan. Meese told the author that Reagan felt that MAD was politically and diplomatically, militarily, and morally flawed.’ ”( Steinberg, 39). Whit that being said Weinberger lets us know how Reagan felt about MAD.

The United States and the Soviet Union competed against each other during the Cold War in the second half of the 20th Century like a chess game, with the world as their chessboard and countries as pawns in their game. For the Russians, a critical part of the chessboard was Cuba and Latin America. The Russians believed that if they could align themselves with countries in the western hemisphere, America’s “backyard”, it would help the Soviet Union counter the strong political influence and military presence America had in Europe, which made the Russians feel threatened. The Soviet Union tried to align itself politically, militarily, and economically with as many Latin American countries as it could. In