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Ronald Reagan Foreign Policies Essay

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When evaluating the extent to which Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies lead to the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) it is important to look at many aspects: Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies that pushed the Soviet Union into an arms race, the U.S relations with the USSR to have a better understanding of the conflict between them. It is important to know which leader was in power in the Soviet Union during the time that Reagan was enforcing its foreign policies and also other economic crisis within the country that contributed into its collapse.
The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state on the Eurasian continent that existed between 1922 and 1991 where it officially collapsed on December 31, 1991. Dramatic economic …show more content…

foreign policy after World War II. It could be said that, to a greater extend that Ronal Reagans foreign policies and the Soviet Union’s arms race had led to the decline of the Soviet Union. During the 1980 campaign, Reagan stated that the Soviets lacked the economic wherewithal to compete in an all-out arms race with the West . Reagan took advantage of the strength of the U.S compared to the Soviet Union in by starting the arms race. In June 1987, Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall. Two years later after Reagan presented his challenged, the Berlin Wall came down, and the enslaved nations of the Soviet Empire gradually broke free, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Ronald Reagan seized the moment and instituted the right policies at the right time to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union’s system and empire. The USSR was overly-focused on military build-up, neglecting domestic troubles that would play a major role in bringing down the USSR . This was largely due to the perceived need to keep pace with the massive U.S. military buildup. While trying to keep up the arms race, the Soviet Union’s economy initially weakened and the empire was on a decline in its

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There is a great deal of risk in the strategy spoken by President Reagan because of the imbalance between ends, ways and means. Lykke provides a conceptual framework and vocabulary for describing risk in strategy in his “three-legged stool” model. His main point is that a balanced strategy is solid, but if ends, ways, or means are not aligned, the strategy incurs risk (Reading C203 D, p. 4). In the spoken strategy there is especially an imbalance between the ends, ways and means to the desired end of a unified and free Europe. The ways in the strategy is only directed towards the city of Berlin.

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Presidential Power Ronald Reagan served as America’s 40th president. Reagan managed to cut taxes, increase defense spending, negotiate a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. I think that president Reagan used his presidential powers properly in order to achieve what needed to be done. Ronald Reagan was president as the Cold War was raging worse than it had ever before. Reagan used his executive power, Commander in Chief, to put up resistance against Mikhail Gorbachev and push his defensive strategy.

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RONALD REAGAN AND THE BERLIN WALL THESIS STATEMENT Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Berlin wall challenged Gorbachev to tear down the wall because communism supported by Soviet Union divided the Germans and caused the Berlin wall. Berlin wall The Berlin Wall, one of the key symbols of the Cold War conflict, was constructed by the Soviet-influenced East German state in August 1961 to stop East Berlin residents from fleeing west. For nearly three decades it reminded the world of the division between East and West, between the Communist and the western countries.

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The most powerful term that Reagan uses refers to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”. This characterization humiliates the Soviet Union and enrages its leaders, encouraging the American people to accept Reagan’s Zero Option plan (Evil). The phrase not only surprises millions of people across the globe, but they also come to the realization that Russia is undeniably an empire that has evil intentions. Reagan’s address is later titled the “Evil Empire Speech” due to his unforgettable use of the

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