Ronald Reagan's Foreign Policy During The Cold War

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Prior to Ronald Reagan taking office in 1981, the Cold War impasse felt like a victory for the American people. However, Ronald Reagan did not see victory, he saw this stalemate as weak and un-American. Reagan’s new take on dealing with the Soviet Union can be summarized in two words: God and Freedom. With these two guiding principles, Reagan ditched dètente and got fellow world leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II to join with him against the “evil empire.” With the “renewal of conservative values” behind him, Ronald Reagan used the argument of “Freedom and God” to fight the totalitarian and godless Soviet Union. From the beginning of his presidency, Reagan broke the status quo of diplomacy with the Soviet Union. While recovering from his assignation attempt, Reagan not only found a regenerated love for God but a new maneuver in dealing with Soviet leaders. Instead of acknowledging and accepting their presence as a communist country, Reagan …show more content…
Reagan described history’s impact on his policy as “remembering what we share of the past that our two nations can make common cause for the future.” Reagan believed that the threat of “extinction of mankind”as well as “man 's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination” was more urgent and grave than ever. He believed that military strength is necessary as a deterrent but that moral strength of the United States will ultimately determine the outcome of this war against the “universal right of all human beings.” In a speech to Parliament in 1983, Reagan entitled his strategy of combating communism military and moral strength as “democratic development.” Ronald Reagan sent a message to democracies and totalitarian governments around the world that the United States would not only remain democratic but would fight to “help others gain that freedom as

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