Ronald Reagan's Role in Ending the Cold War Essay

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

Thesis: Although NATO provided assistance in containing the spread of communism, and its member countries applied economic pressure on the Soviet Union, neither NATO nor President Reagan should be solely credited with causing the fall of the Soviet Union and thus the end of the Cold War. Instead, it was a combination of the tough Reagan administration policies and NATO’s threatening military armory along with grave economic problems within the Soviet Union that ultimately brought the end to the Cold War.

In order for Reagan to succeed, [Reagan] used patience and negotiation to end the Cold War. During Reagan's presidency four USSR leaders attempted to negotiate with Reagan (“Children’s”). Reagan increased pressure on the arms race and waited until a deal could be settled that did not compromise the American people. After forty years the Iron Curtain fell, and the new deal settled the “superpowers first agreement to reduce nuclear weapons” (“Children’s”). The fall of the USSR was significant because it liberated millions of people living the impoverished lifestyle of communism. While modern-day Russia does not have a perfect government the end of the Cold War significantly made the world closer to ending

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

The end of the Cold War can be credited to the actions of Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George Bush, as well as the breakup of communist satellite nations. Ronald Reagan with his increased spending in the defense sector instigated an arms race with the Soviet Union in an attempt to overwhelm the Soviet Union through military influence. However, the Soviet Union was unable to keep up with the arms race due to a weak and stagnating economy since building new weapons was costly. Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 also introduced two new policies, Glasnost and Perestroika which ended political censorship and restructured the economy respectively. Glasnost allowed for the actions of the Soviet Union’s government to be publicly displayed and further reduced the appeal of communism. George Bush and Gorbachev both signed the START I and START II treaties which further reduced the number of nuclear warheads on both sides. The breakup of satellite states also contributed to the end of the cold war as the Soviet Union stated that they would not provide military help to the various communist governments. This eventually lead to the falling out of Communist parties in several

The person I choose for this topic is Ronald Reagan, he is a big part on how the Cold War ended. Russia, as everyone knows, has always been competitive with the U.S.A, the two countries always go back and forth with each other to be the first at everything. Now the Berlin Wall had been there for some time, ever since 1961. The communist government of Eastern Germany created the wall because they wanted to prevent disaffected people who were trying to fleeing to the West. But with this little did they know the trouble it would cause for the future. There were four powers during the time, Russia, France, Britain, and the United States. Berlin was in the Russian sector, but because the powers were only split amongst four countries it became a

He used some of the outspoken anti-Soviet speech used by an American president since the early 1960’s, he, for example, said that Soviet leaders “reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat” (Schulzinger, 1994, p. 16). This hostile opinion led to him giving up on détente, an approach his predecessors had used in dealing with the Cold War. Détente is a term used for trying to establish better relations between countries that dislike and distrust each other. At his news conference on January 29, 1981, Reagan said: “Well, so far détente has been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims” (Reagan, 1981). This quote shows Reagan’s radical approach in ending détente and his feelings; he did not want to continue steady relations with the Soviet Union. Reagan felt like the U.S was the only one trying to create a better relationship and therefore did not see any use in continuing

• President Reagan took a tougher approach towards the Soviets, including the planning of a massive satellite defense system known as Star Wars. The Soviets tried to keep up, but their economy collapsed, and so did their control. In 1989 (when George H.W. Bush was President), the Berlin Wall fell, ending the Cold

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!”

Despite the increase of defense projects and counter-Soviet initiatives, Reagan did desire for negotiation and improve relations between Washington and Kremlin (Rossinow, 224). Soon afterward, during his second term, Reagan held meetings with leader Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom he negotiated a treaty to eliminate a range of nuclear weapons. Between the two men was a forged relationship- as a partnership, as friends. Reagan, surprisingly, even suggested that both powers should do what they can to ensure that such weapons entirely removed from the world (Rossinow, 232)- although the proposal 's implementation did not work, it still did prove interestingly of Reagan 's thinking to establish disarmament, even if it never happened. Nonetheless, ending the war after so many decades of tension was a monumental triumph for the US and American policy.

As seen on the movie Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage, the Soviet Union after the cold war did sell many of its weapons. Ronald Reagan was given much of the credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reagan did play a major role and did come up with many of the ideas however without the people being able to do the task at hand many of Reagans plans would never have worked. It can be argued that without Ronald Reagan the people would not have been pushed to make the technology leap that they did.

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.

4. Cold War Ends a. This was an economic event. b. Ronald Reagan ended up challenging Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan did say that he saw the Soviet Union as an evil empire. c. Reagan had to be sure that the economic strength was going to continue even when the cold war was gone.

He would argue back and forth with them. Reagan was so determined to end this Cold War that “when Reagan became President he had only one well-defined foreign policy goal: containing the Soviet Union, or the "evil empire" as he once referred to it.” (“Spark Notes”). Reagan's persistence with the Soviets didn't go to waste because “For the first time since the beginning of the Cold War, a Soviet leader approached the United States to seriously discuss a possible peace. This initiative took the Reagan administration completely by surprise, but Reagan quickly responded in kind” (“Spark Notes”). Finally after a long time of negotiating and dealing with the Soviets Reagan got his way, ¨Gorbachev and President Reagan themselves sat together in both Washington and Moscow on a number of occasions to hammer out agreements”. (“Spark Notes”). Reagan negotiating with the Soviets really was what brought the Cold War to an end. If Reagan was not as persistent as he was the Cold War could have lasted a lot longer then it had already

ending of the cold war. It has been said that President Ronald Reagan ended the