Assignment 2: Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy
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pol_300_assingment_1.docxRunning Header: THE REAGAN DOCTRINE 2
The Reagan Doctrine
Curtis Taylor
Professor Christian Rivera-Perez
Pol 300
January 26, 2015
Introduction
This paper assesses United States President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. Relationship with the Soviet Union; Formation of a detente with Mikhail Gorbachev; Relations with Europe and Canada; Reestablishment of a strong relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Pressure on the governments of South Korea, the Philippines, Brazil and others to abandon repressive internal policies.
Ronald Reagan Doctrine
Ronald Reagan came to the White House convinced that most of America's problems in the world could be traced to the Soviet Union's determination to extend its influence abroad through military pressure and communist-instigated revolutions. In his first news conference the president said: "I know of no leader of the Soviet Union since the revolution and including the present leadership that has not repeated in the various Communist Congresses they hold, their determination that their goal must be the promotion of world revolution and a one world Socialist or Communist state--whichever word you want to use." He added that so long as Soviet leaders have "publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause.
During the first term of President Reagan, the Soviet leadership changed from Leonid Brezhnev to Yuri Andropov to Konstantin Chernenko. Over that four-year period, President Reagan maintained his hardline rhetoric about the Soviet Union--even referring to them in a speech given in Florida as an "evil empire." He also launched a massive military expansion program, as President John Kennedy had done twenty years earlier, to impress Soviet leaders that he intended to deal with them from a position of strength--in Europe, Asia, and Africa, where they had made significant gains in Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. He believed he had a clear mandate from the American people to reverse the trend of the previous decade and make America militarily strong and politically decisive in foreign policy.
During President Reagan's first term, the most serious East-West issue, which might have triggered an armed clash with the Soviet Union, was over NATO's decision to implement its 1979 decision to deploy U.S. Pershing II missiles in West Germany and cruise missiles in the Federal Republic and several other NATO countries. These weapons were meant to counter the earlier deployment of Soviet SS-20 medium-range missiles in Eastern Europe. Despite Moscow's intense opposition and its decision to suspend START negotiations in protest, several West European parliaments voted in 1983 to accept these U.S. weapons. Moscow thereby suffered a major political defeat in Europe at a time when its own leadership was in transition. Eventually, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, who became General Secretary of the Communist party in March 1985, Soviet policy slowly changed, and Moscow eventually agreed to dismantle its medium-range missiles in Europe in exchange for a U.S. withdrawal of its Pershing and cruise missiles--a proposal that Moscow had rejected when President Reagan offered it in 1981. But this demonstration of NATO's unity in 1983 strengthened the alliance at an important juncture in East-West relations and placed President Reagan in a stronger position to deal with the new Soviet leadership. The decision that were made by President Reagan forced the Soviets to see we were a fierce and growing super power and would help defend the weaker countries at any cost.
The Reagan administration adopted a policy of using proxy forces and the US operated covertly, and primarily through the CIA “Central Intelligence Agency”. Yoshitani points out, however that there was a parallel effort to educate the public and congress on the nature of the threat. Similarly, her chapters on the Lebanon crisis offer insightful analysis, first from the perspective of military commanders and civilian leaders at Pentagon concerned about committing U.S. armed forces to peace-keeping operations of uncertain durations, and then from the point of view of the State Department.
In 1980 the failed assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr., a disturbed drifter, dramatically changed the dynamic of Reagan's presidency. No other president in American history had recovered from a gunshot wound sustained while in office, and Reagan's survival generated a wave of public sympathy that boosted his popularity and gave crucial momentum to his conservative political agenda early in his first term. It also prompted some unusual behavior on the part of Reagan and his wife that his aides carefully shielded from the public. Nancy Reagan began to consult a secret outside adviser whose karmic predictions affected virtually every move and decision that the Reagans made for the next seven years. Most profoundly, the assassination attempt heightened the president's sense of destiny. It made him realize how fleeting life is, and how little time a president has to make his mark. From that realization followed his historic summit talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the most important steps ever taken to rid the world of the threat of nuclear war.
Conclusion
One of the primary achievements I think was the reestablishment of a strong relationship with NATO. Before Reagan came into office, European governments mistrusted the United States because of what they perceived as President Carter's indecisiveness in foreign policy and excessive moralizing about human rights. Reagan reversed those perceptions. Also there was the conclusion of the Free Trades pact with Canada after several years of intensive negotiations with the Canadian government and the U.S. Congress. As for the failures the most significant failure in Reagan's foreign policy occurred closer to home, in Central America. The failure resulted from the administration's excessive expectations rather than from any striking humiliation, such as occurred in Lebanon. In 1981, the problem for the Reagan National Security Council was how to save El Salvador from Nicaraguan and Cuban subversion in support of local communist guerrillas. Reagan decided early that American troops should not be used, but he authorized covert operations to stem the flow of arms to Salvadoran insurgents and to organize resistance forces in Nicaragua. Large amounts of economic and military aid were provided to the government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte, a Christian Democrat who had brought right-wing death squads largely under control and begun the process of beating back the Communist insurgency.
References:
2. Nuechterlein, D. E. (1990). The Reagan doctrine in perspective. Perspectives On Political Science, 19(1), 43.
3. Ahlberg, K. L. (2014). Reagan on War: A Reappraisal of the Weinberger Doctrine, 1980-1984. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 44(3), 570. doi:10.1111/psq.12144.
