Compare And Contrast Containment And The Reagan Doctrine

During the beginning of Reagan's presidency the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union increased. In 1983 the prime minister of Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean, was assassinated. Soviet money and Cuban troops then came to Grenada and started to built an airfield. Reagan administration then sent troops to Grenada. This sent a message that the Reagan administration would not allow communism in their region. (“Digital History”) This was the first time Reagan applied force against communist countries. In his 1985 state of the union address he supported anti-communist revolutions and it became know as the Reagan Doctrine (“Digital History”). It represented an effort to refuse to accept lessons that liberals and others had learned from Vietnam.
(Encyclopedia.com). The Reagan doctrine applied key concepts of his foreign policy such as by nourishing and defending freedom and democracy, providing support for anti-communist fighters throughout Africa, Asia and latin American, and containment was replaced with rollback. “Freedom is not sole prerogative …show more content…
That is the thought of trying to keep communism isolated within their current borders, like the Soviet Union and etc. Ronald before coming president thought the idea of containment was not right. He wanted United States to win and the communist to lose. Rollback on the other hand contrasts Containment. Rollback requires less troops and it is the idea of using force on trying to change a country's government by trying to change their ruling. President Ronald Reagan implemented this “Rollback” idea with the Reagan Doctrine. With using less guerilla warfare to fight battles less lives were lost. With less troops fighting we could confront Soviet Union without terrible amounts of casualties (“Rollback” replaces “Containment”). This was many ways the Reagan Doctrine was involved in the Cold War, and was set up for us to bring down