Ronald Reagan Failures

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, was a very simple and relatable man from Plains, Georgia. His ideals appealed to the Southern democrats. Washington was in chaos after the resignation of Nixon and the citizens of America were tiered of the government’s drama. This is what made Carter so popular in the 1976 election. Carter appealed to America because he was an outsider to Washington. He also wanted to comply with what the people wanted for America; “Carter sought to portray himself as a man of the people” (“Jimmy Carter”, 2009). He used the Watergate scandal to his advantage. He promised America he would always be honest with them: “I’ll never tell a lie”. (“Jimmy Carter”, 2009). This seemed to win over America for the moment because he won

Reagan became president in 1981, which means that he was president of the U.S. during a time in which the Cold War began to draw to a close. (Fischer, 1997, p.477). Whereas his predecessors used détente, a more relaxed approach in order to reduce tension between the U.S. and USSR, Reagan and his advisers rejected this strategy (Authors, People and a Nation, p.833). This led to a turning point in the Cold War. Even though the Cold War ended in 1991, two years after Reagan’s presidency, Reagan is still known to have made a huge influence on ending the Cold War. This essay will investigate his actions and how they might have influenced the ending of the Cold War, by looking at how Reagan expressed his distrust toward the Soviet Union and communism, the ways in which Reagan expanded the arms race in order to bankrupt the USSR and other ways in which he tried to sabotage the Soviet economy, but also

Ronald Regan was the president of the United States in the 1980s before John Hinckley shot him dead to impress actor Jodie Foster. He made some domestic and foreign policies that were successful and others were a major failure in his reign. One of the major policies that were a success during his tenure was the tax cuts of the 1981. He signed this Act on August, which were a major reduction in the domestic expenditure, as well as the Economic Recovery Act of 19981. The Act was designed to reduce the domestic expenditure amounting to 3 billion. He wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House to propose the supplemental appropriations as well as the amendments on 10 March that year.

Mikhail Gorbachev is a foreign leader who worked with Reagan and also wanted to eliminate communism. If the Soviet Union collapsed, then all influences of communism would stop, which is what Reagan and Gorbachev wanted (Marsico, 84). The nation as a whole agreed that they did not want communism to spread beyond the borders of East Germany and seep into their culture. During the span of 1985-1988 five meetings between the Americans and the Communists negotiated issues of diplomacy. By the early 1980’s the Soviets had built up weaponry which was almost comparable to America’s weaponry, but as the decade went on the Soviets were unable to keep up (Marsico, 84). This inferiority pleased the American people. By 1991 the cold war had concluded. on June 12, 1987, Reagan asked Gorbachev helped to eliminate the oppressive influence that communism had outside of the soviet union (Marsico 85-86). He wanted to stop the influences so that communism would not spread any further than it already had. Standing beside the berlin wall, which separated East and West Germany, Reagan gave a speech which reminded every one of the differences between the two sides. General Secretary Gorbachev” Reagan challenged him, “if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the soviet union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate, Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!”

One of Reagan’s main concerns was the Soviet Union. Reagan stated, “The march of freedom and democracy...will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history ...”12 All through his term he worked to collapse the Union, to end the Cold War, and to tear down the Berlin Wall. Margaret Thatcher commented that “Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot”.10 Reagan set up the collapse of the Soviet Union in a couple of ways. First, he put more funds into the U.S. military, forcing the Soviets to do the same.11 second, he was confident that the U.S.S.R was crumbling and failing even when those around him believed that Communism was strong. Third, he was not intimidated by the Soviets and, while he respectfully met and listened to Gorbachev, he was not wavering and was determined. Even though many factors contributed to the fall of Communism, Reagan sped the process up and the Union officially fell apart in

President Ronald Reagan, the man who is accredited with ended the forty six year cold war was elected on Nov. 4, 1980. Reagan won his election with fifty percent of the popular vote over former President Jimmy Carter who had forty one percent. While Reagan as a president is praised for such successes as strengthening the national defense, stimulating growth in the U.S. economically, and as mentioned before he is considered the President who ended the Cold War. President Reagan had achieved many things by the end of his administration, but just as he had many successes his presidency was plagued with shortcomings and a handful of what could be considered flat out failures. The purpose of this writing is to establish and identify the ‘cons’ or failures of the Reagan administration, and provide a brief description of each different aspect of the administration.

Ronald Reagan created a Strategic Defense Initiative that was intended to defend the United States from any nuclear weapon missile threat from other countries. This was proposed mainly to protect the U.S. from its extent threat, which was the Soviet Union at the time. Reagan wrote down in his diary addressing his Evil Empire Speech, “I did the bulk of the speech on why our arms build up was necessary and then finished with a call to the Science community to join me in research starting now to develop a defensive weapon that

This address was given while Congress was debating a resolution in support of a "nuclear freeze," a doctrine supported by the Soviet Union that would have prevented the deployment of U.S. cruise and Pershing II Missiles in Europe. 1 In this speech, Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as “focus of evil in the modern world,” asking that Americans to pray for the salvation of those living in totalitarian darkness.

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."

In the late 1970s, Americans tired of counterculture and political scandal turned to more conservative political solutions and Reagan was their guy. Ronald Reagan, arguably was one of the greatest men to step into the Oval Office. He had a strong work ethic and a love for America. Reagan was the son of John and Nelle Reagan and was born in Tampico Illinois on February 6, 1911 and died on June 6, 2004 in his lovely house in Bel-Aire, LA . Prior to Reagan’s first wife, Jane Wyman, he served in the Army during World War 2, but was discharged due to his poor eyesight in 1943. In 1940, when Reagan was filming for his first film he met Jane Wyman and married her, they had a daughter and adopted a son. During Reagan’s seven year contract with Warner

The United States during the mid to late 70’s was in a constant state of alert; millions of citizens waiting for the piercing sounds of the air raid sirens to slice through the night air. America was in need of a leader, someone who could unify a divided country and save it from crushing economic failure. One man saw his need and stood up to the task, his name is President Ronald Reagan. Reagan rose to power as President during one of the most critical periods in not only American history, but also, World history: The arms standoff of the cold war. His actions as a unifier in the homeland and as a diplomat in foreign halls changed the way Americans and citizens of the world lived their lives.

The primary goal of the Ronald Reagan administration’s foreign policy of was winning the Cold War against Communism—which was achieved in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War grew out of post-World War II tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted for much of the second half of the 20th century resulted in mutual suspicions, heightened tensions and a series of international incidents that brought the world’s superpowers to the brink of disaster. The Cold War was won through a strategy of "peace through strength” and a warming of relations with the Soviet Union, 1981-89. These foreign policies became known as the "Reagan Doctrine,” the United States also offered financial and logistics support to the anti-communist opposition in central Europe and took an increasingly hard line against socialist and communist governments in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua. Reagan also increase the size of the military, spent billions on national defense, to fight Communists throughout the

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

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

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