I need a Political science paper

The Cold War and the US diplomacy

Angela Buchanan

Dr. Brook Beshah

Contemporary International Problems

August 3, 2014

The cold war and the US diplomacy

In this paper, Ronald Reagan's position on the situation of Cold War and the United States Diplomacy during his tenure as president is laid into focus. The term cold war refers to a period characterized by military tensions that occurred between the United States and the Soviet Union in what could be viewed as an ideological war between the two world powers. The name cold war was coined because there was no actual war between the two fronts. The term United States Diplomacy refers to the ability of the United States to contain and negotiate the global interstate level between the warring groups and to an extension, establish an international contact between the various national governments. It is noteworthy that Diplomacy is an extremely viable tool. It serves as the feedback channel thorough which the foreign policies are constantly subjected to a continuous dynamism (Hart, 2013).

Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. He served between 1981 and 1989. He is particularly remembered as the president who brought to an end, the cold war. Reagan became the president having beaten the incumbent president Jimmy carter.

A look at the reign of jimmy Carter, the United States at the time had shown interest in the Persian Gulf during the course of World War II. The United States is known to supply almost all of the allied armies with oil, bearing in mind that they are the world's leading oil producer. The United States thus adopted doctrines, which were used to direct its policies and international decisions before executing them. There were three doctrines that were formulated to this effect, namely, Nixon Doctrine, Eisenhower Doctrine and the Truman Doctrine (Munson, 2012).

All these doctrines faced a number of challenges and therefore had little to offer as far as ending of this ideological war was concerned. Not even carter was in a position to bring the previously mentioned to an end. The only doctrine among the mentioned is the Truman doctrine, which had a lasting effect on United States.

The next doctrine of interest here is the Reagan Doctrine. This doctrine was entirely and strategically orchestrated by the United States under the able administration of the late President Ronald Reagan. This was chiefly meant to counter in any means possible, the influence of the Soviet Union. While it took the shortest time possibly imagined, it was the most captivating and as such, centerpiece of the United States policies on foreign issues from the 1980s to 1991.

Under this Doctrine, the United States provided an overt and the covert aid to the imminent anti-communist resistant and guerilla movements in a bid to rolling back the communist governments in Latin American, Africa and Asia, which enjoyed the support of the Soviet Union. This doctrine was chiefly designed to completely wipe out the Soviet Union's influence in the previously mentioned regions as the US government's main role as crafted in the administration's cold war strategies. (Anderson, 2012)

The administration of Reagan established a Heritage foundation in which the foreign policy on the third world countries such as Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua among other Soviet backed nations and urged the administration to pile pressure on the advancing influence of the soviet union by providing and expanding both military and political support to them. In this effect, the Reagan administration provided the military aide to the UNITA movement in Angola and contras in Nicaragua without declaring war on either o the two countries. The success of the united states in setting up support in these countries so its expansion to Ethiopia. This they did successfully by making it see that the great Ethiopian famine was because of their military ties with the Soviet Union (Norton, Sheriff, Blight & Chudacoff, 2011).

The success story of the Soviet Union was its successful ending of the Soviet Union's influence in Cambodia and other governments that were politically suppressed by the Soviet Union. It is for instance, seen when it saw the country hold a successful election with a democratically elected president. Besides, it was a relatively cheaper method compared to the Soviet Union's way of military investments. There were suggestions that the growing military influence by the United States was becoming increasingly unnecessary and therefore was not in the best interest of the United States as it already stretched more than its boundaries. The other undoing of this doctrine as observed by critiques was that its application was only limited to government and not privately owned organizations or even to the citizens.

References

Anderson, M. (Ed.). (2012). Ronald Reagan. Britannica Educational Publishing.

Hart, J. (2013). Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of US Foreign Policy. Oxford University Press.

Munson, H. A. (2012). The Joint American Military Mission to Aid Turkey: Implementing the Truman Doctrine and transforming US foreign policy, 1947--1954. Washington State University.

Norton, M. B., Sheriff, C., Blight, D. W., & Chudacoff, H. (2011). A People and a Nation: A History of the United States, Volume II: Since 1865 (Vol. 2). Cengage Learning.