Most Effective Foreign Policy In Ending The Cold War

When the world famous liberal thinker Francis Fukuyama in his masterpiece declared that we were witnessing the end of the history, he was greeting the new political structure and also the new international environment, which is peaceful[1]. However, developments that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union showed us that the dissolution of the Soviets was unexpected. The international society was not ready for peace and Fukuyama’s optimistic assumptions were far from becoming real. Moreover, the international society currently started to realise that the tension and the potential of mass destructive war during the Cold War era had provided a

One of Reagan's views as president was to achieve "peace through strength". In his plans to increase the defense budget, Reagan rose the spending from $144 billion in 1980 to $290 billion in 1988. Furthermore, while Reagan was president, the national debt almost tripled from $1 trillion to almost $3 trillion. But, close to his later presidential years, he negotiated a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear misses with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. If Reagan hadn't done that, the national debt would have been much higher than it already was because of higher defense spending to protect the country from nuclear

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."

Over many years, many presidents have come and gone. All of them typically have done something to “define” them or something that makes them different or to stand out from all the others. But Ronald Reagan was different. His impact was possibly the most controversial of them all. Some argue that many of the problems in the world today have been caused by him.

There was no doubt that the most controversial and dangerous branch of people in the world was the Soviet Union. Coming to fame after World War II, the USSR was a state that ruled with communism and tyranny, and was a threat to the United States. Reagan wanted to end this association as quickly as he could. Known as the greatest achievement of his career, President Reagan ended the Cold War, and brought an end to communism.

President Reagan’s many actions helped to end the Cold War. He communicated with Gorbachev. When there is communication through the two leaders there is mutual respect. They drafted up the INF treaty. This shows that they are willing to work together try to create peace between the two countries. In a New York Times article called A President Who Listened it said, “his second term as president emphasized a different set of goals. I think he understood that it is the peacemakers, above all who earn a place in history.”

However, before we get carried on talking about the Policys during Reagans president years and the cold war let’s talk about the way he felt towards the Soviet

U.S. Leaders in the Cold War As World War II ended in 1945, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began a decades long struggle for global supremacy known as the Cold War, which lasted until 1991. During this 46 year period of time, the United States had the following Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush. For the purpose of this essay I’m going to focus on three of the more influential Presidents: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. All three of these Presidents played crucial, but very different roles during the Cold War.

President Ronald Reagan’s Doctrine was supposed to sponsor anti-communist guerillas who were trying to overthrow pro-Soviet regimes (Roskin 58). President Reagan supported anti-communist groups, and Reagan argued that the American economy was on the move again, while the Soviet Union had become stagnant. President Reagan had morally opposed nuclear weapons since 1945, and he quietly worked to make the world safer from the threat of nuclear war. Under Reagan’s administration, the Reagan Doctrine was implemented by the United States to oppose global influence of

Reagan was not scared of the Soviet Union so he wanted a military to confront them. The pentagon spent over 3.4 million dollars

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

Reagan saw the Soviets at the heart of every international dispute, from revolution in Central America to international terrorism in the Middle East. To thwart the Soviets, Reagan called for the largest and most expensive peacetime military buildup in American history (reaganfoundation).

The cold war was considered to be a geopolitical tension after World War II which involved the Soviet Union fighting against America and the NATO forces. One argument Historians have found to be a potential reason the cold war ended how it did, is that the cold war was won by economic power not military power. The United States of America won the cold war through President Ronald Reagan who introduced policies that overextended the financial resources of the Soviet Union. At the time of the cold war the United States had a much stronger economy than the Soviet Union which led to an increase in the funding of the military ultimately ending up spending an estimated $8 Trillion over the 44-year period in which the cold war took place. President Ronald Reagan could be considered one of the reasons the US won the cold war on economic power.

The Reagan Doctrine was an aggressive foreign policy from 1981-87 in his first term as President he designed a plan to roll back Communism at its weakest points, and weaken the U.S.S.R by targeting the overthrow of its marginal allies in the non-industrialized World. Many pundits argue that it was a smashing success and dramatically undermined the power of the U.S.S.R, forcing it to retreat, and collapse by 1989. Reagan 's foreign policy could be stated by his view of the U.S.S.R as the "Evil Empire" that is an illegitimate state. He rejected the détente policy that Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had pursued until 1979, when the U.S.S.R invaded Afghanistan proved its failure. Reagan long had opposed the containment strategy. Reagan instead proposed Rollback, a strategy to steadily reduce and eventually eliminate the Communist threat.

In the minds of many Americans Ronald Reagan is the president that ended the Cold War, but is this view accurate? They claim Reagan's unprecedented military spending forced the Soviets to crumble. However, many critics of the president's outspending theory claim that the Russian economy would have imploded without such spending, and a military buildup of that kind did nothing but delay peace. Although, Reagan's willingness to negotiate was a clear factor in ending the Cold War, his aggressive arms race may have done more to forestall peace than abet it. The ascendance of Mikhail Gorbachev to power, the stagnating economy of Russia, and the personal friendship forged between Gorbachev and Reagan were the clear factors that contributed to