CW42+Reagan

= US attitudes and policies under Reagan =

Reagan was elected in 1980, and officially became president in January 1981. He was one of the most popular US presidents and was re-elected in 1984.

The détente period had already ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and Reagan had been part of the Republican anti-détente push, believing that it showed US weakness and was beneficial for the Soviets.

Reaganomics: the name given to the economic policy followed by Reagan - increase productivity, lower taxes, reduce regulation of business. Brought about improved economy at the expense of tripling of national debt during his presidency.

In foreign affairs, Reagan took a more aggressive attitude to the Soviets and communism:
 * This resulted in the largest increase in military spending of the Cold War - “peace through strength”.
 * October 1983, a Marxist coup brought the military to power in Grenada (in the Caribbean). The US invaded and installed a new government. The action was condemned in the UN General Assembly (108 votes to 9) as a violation of international law. A similar motion in the Security Council was vetoed by the US.
 * He used a strong anti-Soviet rhetoric in his first term: the Soviet Union would end up on “the ash heap of history”; it was an “evil empire”, whose power “rested on terror at home and blackmail abroad”.
 * New nuclear armed Pershing cruise missiles were placed in West Germany in 1983.
 * Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI - “Star Wars” - 1983): the development of an experimental defensive system in space which would use laser to destroy incoming Soviet missiles before they reached America. $1.5 trillion over five years!
 * Reagan Doctrine (1985): US support for rebels fighting Communist regimes in the Third World.

At the same time, Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) began with a series of meetings in 1983-4. These were unsuccessful.

Improvement in relations was hampered by changes in Soviet leadership, with conservative elements in the Politburo maintaining control. Brezhnev died in 1982 and was replaced with former KGB head, Yuri Andropov. He died in 1984 and was replaced with the elderly and ailing Konstantin Chernenko, who died the following year.

Other factors which hampered improved relations:
 * Soviet puppet government set up in Poland in 1983, after growing popularity of Solidarity movement and its leader, Lech Walesa, threaten communist control.
 * Korean Airlines passenger jet shot down by Soviets on 1 September 1983, killing all on board.
 * Soviets boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (as the US had done for the 1980 Moscow Olympics).

After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, a new impetus was given to improving relations, and Reagan adopted a more conciliatory approach to the Soviet Union (see “Soviet attitudes and policies under Gorbachev”). Arms reduction negotiations were resumed (see “Disarmament negotiations 1987-1991”) with four summits between 1985 and 1988. He signed the INF treaty with Gorbachev in 1987 and began negotiations for the START treaty.

The improved relationship did not stop Reagan from further challenging and provoking the Soviet leadership. On 12 June 1987, in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, he said, “General Secretary Gorbachev, 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!”

Reagan is credited by many with being responsible for US victory in the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher, former British PM, agued in 1998 that it was Reagan’s strong and unwavering anti-Soviet policies (e.g. Reagan Doctrine and SDI) that forced the USSR to eventually choose a reformer as leader. “It is, however, for fighting and winning the Cold War that Ronald Reagan deserves the most credit - and credit not just from Americans but from the rest of what we called in those days the Free World and from those in the former communist states who can now breathe the air of liberty.”