Reagan and the Cold War
Reagan was nominated by the Republican Party to run for president in 1980 against Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter. Reagan ended up winning the election by a landslide, and was inaugurated in 1981 as 40th president of the United States, making him the oldest president ever elected at 69 years old. Early on in his presidency, a man named John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Reagan with a gun, but Reagan survived after a few surgeries. This incident brought Reagan’s approval rating up to 73%, which was a very good start for Reagan’s presidency.
When Reagan came to presidency, the Cold War was the primary political issue of the time, and the end of it looked a long way off. This was mainly because throughout the 70’s, presidents such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter practiced a policy known as détente, which was the peaceful reduction of Cold War tensions via diplomacy. Despite the fact that the end of the Cold War looked as if it were a long way off, Reagan was optimistic and believed that the US should stand up and face the USSR.
Reagan saw that détente was extremely unsuccessful, seeing it was a sign of weakness on the US’ part, and it allowed communism to spread. Thus, Reagan abandoned détente in favor of more aggressive policies designed to spread democracy and contain Soviet communism, which came to be known collectively as the “Reagan Doctrine”. The Reagan Doctrine involved many belligerent-seeming policies, including the “peace through strength” policy, which was the idea that the buildup of US arms would ensure peace and also prevent the US from being outgunned in a nuclear war with the Soviets. Plus, the buildup up US nuclear arms would force the USSR into an arms race with the US, and the government-controlled Soviet economy would not be able to sustain the arms race as long as America’s free enterprise economy would, thus causing the Soviet economy to collapse. Another policy of the Reagan Doctrine was the idea of giving support to anti-communist rebellions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Reagan also partnered up with the UK’s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher to denounce the USSR’s ideological terms. After Soviet fighters shot down a Korean airliner near Moneron Island on September 1st, 1983, carrying 269 people, Reagan attacked the Soviets by calling it a “massacre” and saying the Soviets had “turned against the world”.
Reagan also initiated a program called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was a research and development program for a ground and space based nuclear ballistic missile shield, designed to protect the US from nuclear missiles. Reagan hoped that if successful, the initiative could make nuclear war impossible. But SDI received harsh public feedback, mockingly named “Star Wars” due to its seemingly unattainable technological goal. Though it was mocked and ridiculed, SDI is believed to actually have helped speed up the end of the Cold War, because Soviet leader Yuri Andropov seemed slightly nervous at the thought of the US having a defense against nuclear missiles, saying that SDI would “put the whole world in jeopardy”.
The Reagan Doctrine and other policies applied by Reagan proved to be successful, with the collapse of communism in Europe and the reunification of East and West Germany. The arms race between the USSR and the US proved to be too much for the Soviet economy. As Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once put it in a speech “we will be pulled into an arms race that is beyond our capabilities, and we will lose it because we are at the limit of our capabilities”. This forced Gorbachev to have to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty in order to prevent a full-on economy collapse, which eventually led to many other nuclear arms reduction treaties.
When Reagan came to presidency, the Cold War was the primary political issue of the time, and the end of it looked a long way off. This was mainly because throughout the 70’s, presidents such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter practiced a policy known as détente, which was the peaceful reduction of Cold War tensions via diplomacy. Despite the fact that the end of the Cold War looked as if it were a long way off, Reagan was optimistic and believed that the US should stand up and face the USSR.
Reagan saw that détente was extremely unsuccessful, seeing it was a sign of weakness on the US’ part, and it allowed communism to spread. Thus, Reagan abandoned détente in favor of more aggressive policies designed to spread democracy and contain Soviet communism, which came to be known collectively as the “Reagan Doctrine”. The Reagan Doctrine involved many belligerent-seeming policies, including the “peace through strength” policy, which was the idea that the buildup of US arms would ensure peace and also prevent the US from being outgunned in a nuclear war with the Soviets. Plus, the buildup up US nuclear arms would force the USSR into an arms race with the US, and the government-controlled Soviet economy would not be able to sustain the arms race as long as America’s free enterprise economy would, thus causing the Soviet economy to collapse. Another policy of the Reagan Doctrine was the idea of giving support to anti-communist rebellions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Reagan also partnered up with the UK’s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher to denounce the USSR’s ideological terms. After Soviet fighters shot down a Korean airliner near Moneron Island on September 1st, 1983, carrying 269 people, Reagan attacked the Soviets by calling it a “massacre” and saying the Soviets had “turned against the world”.
Reagan also initiated a program called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was a research and development program for a ground and space based nuclear ballistic missile shield, designed to protect the US from nuclear missiles. Reagan hoped that if successful, the initiative could make nuclear war impossible. But SDI received harsh public feedback, mockingly named “Star Wars” due to its seemingly unattainable technological goal. Though it was mocked and ridiculed, SDI is believed to actually have helped speed up the end of the Cold War, because Soviet leader Yuri Andropov seemed slightly nervous at the thought of the US having a defense against nuclear missiles, saying that SDI would “put the whole world in jeopardy”.
The Reagan Doctrine and other policies applied by Reagan proved to be successful, with the collapse of communism in Europe and the reunification of East and West Germany. The arms race between the USSR and the US proved to be too much for the Soviet economy. As Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once put it in a speech “we will be pulled into an arms race that is beyond our capabilities, and we will lose it because we are at the limit of our capabilities”. This forced Gorbachev to have to sign a nuclear arms reduction treaty in order to prevent a full-on economy collapse, which eventually led to many other nuclear arms reduction treaties.