Essay Comparing The Foreign Policy Of Richard Nixon And Ronald Reagan

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For my final exam I am going to compare the foreign policy of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. I guess the best way to start comparing Nixon and Reagan is that both of them at different times tried to be Governor of California Nixon losing his election and Reagan winning his. This simple comparison shows how similar they were but also how different.
The three parts of Nixon’s foreign policy are from three of his interactions. the first being the Nixon Doctrine. The Nixon Doctrine made it so the united states would help and defend allies but would not protect all the free world. One of the main goals of the Nixon Doctrine was to have the Vietnamize protect their own country without that much United States influence. Where in Grandin’s book …show more content…

Nixon learned from Kissinger that the Vietcong had strongholds in Cambodia so Nixon decide to extend the war into Cambodia and for a coup to get the Vietcong out. In Grandin’s book Kissinger mad the case that the war spreading into Cambodia meant the Vietcong had new hideouts and it would hurt the Vietnamization policy . Now the United States bombed North Vietnam and Cambodia. On page 71 in the foot note the Kissinger book even notes that the Vietcong in Cambodia were hiding in remote places but the US liked to attack the Cambodian Farmers to weaken the Vietcong . With the eventual end of the Vietnam War and with the Nixon Doctrine beginning peace with …show more content…

Reagan became president in 1981, 7 years after Nixon’s resignation. Reagan was more of a domestic president than Nixon especially because Kissinger wanted his hands in everything. The first part of Reagan’s foreign policy is with the Iran-Contra Affair. The goal of the plan was to get United States hostages out of Lebanon by selling weapons to the Iranians the money was then used to give weapons to the Contras battling in Nicaragua. Which this whole dealing was against the law. but at the same time the Reagan administration was helping the Iraqis who were fighting the