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Weakness Of The American Foreign Policy Essay

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Was the weakness of the American foreign policy the cause to the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979?
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The détente, a time were US and USSR were aiming to improve relations, did not prevent all diverse threats towards the USSR lead to a reaction such as their aggressive invasion of Afghanistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union made a fateful decision of invading Afghanistan. To put at risk this easing of strained relations which began in 1971 with the Soviet invasion, USSR must have had a valid enough reason. For the purpose of this essay, aggressive expansionism will be defined as “characteristic of an enemy or one eager to fight” (Vocabulary.com, 2016) in order to try exerting “influence over another country”, or actually invading it. (Vocabulary, s.d.) By 1978, when Amin came to power, Afghanistan was in a leftist/socialist revolution as he triggered rebel groups to threaten the government, in other words USSR’s protective country. If any country was in Russia’s situation, would have they reacted similarly? The whole complex scenario in Afghanistan prior to 1979 led up to this invasion, as it gradually began to pose a threat to Russia. In the context of the Cold War, aggressive expansionism would have been a reason for Russia’s desire to expand their Communist ideology, as Carter implies. Additionally, the USSR had previous experience of mistrust, such as the threat that the Cold War represented in terms of the mutual suspicion with the US. Also, the Non-aggression pact

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