The Ronald Reagan Doctrine

The Ronald Reagan Doctrine

President Ronald Reagan, the second president of America adopted a foreign policy Doctrine that had the main purpose of weakening the Soviet Union. This paper looks at how the Americans encompassed their key ideas in formulating a strategy to oversee their conquest of the Soviet Union. The Reagan doctrine employs the use of peace through strength, articulating the concept of the cold war, the American nation security ought to build a system of defense to protect its citizens, the superpowers in the world should come together and address the issue of the nuclear missiles each nation ought to have, and the super powers should reciprocate their initial distrust among each other with trust and come up with a conclusive plan for attaining eternal peace (Ryan, 2010).

President Reagan proposed a strategy that would steadily reduce and finally eliminate the threat brought about by the communist world. President Reagan supported the anti-communist groups with the argument that the American economy was on an upward scale as opposed to the others including the Soviet Union, which had become stagnant (Scott, 1996). President Reagan during his reign was against the use of nuclear weapons and thus worked hand in hand with his government in ensuring the world is free from the danger of nuclear hostilities. The Reagan doctrine was aimed at opposing and reducing the global threat imposed by Soviet Union during the last periods of the cold war. The doctrine aimed at diminishing the Soviet Union’s ties with its allies in Asia, Africa and the Latin American ethnic groups (Ryan, 2010). This would be made possible by targeting the allies that support the Soviet republic and in the process overthrowing their allies especially in the third world nations (Scott, 1996). This foreign policy was based upon Reagan’s view concerning the Soviet Union as a state that has no concern for humanity and is illegitimate in the end. When the Afghanistan invasion proved futile, President Reagan rejected earlier policies including the détente policy that had been pursued by the Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter in the year 1979 (Scott, 1996). During the Reagan administration, the heritage foundation together with other foreign policy conservative think tanks were responsible for the expansion of the Afghanistan policy into becoming a reality. The heritage foundation targeted nine soviet communist nations that were being under the support of the Soviet Union. In most third world countries the reign of the Soviet Union was a success. Lack of American response to such nations ensured the victory of the Soviet Union and consequently, their Marxist-Leninist rule. Such nations included Iran, Afghanistan, Laos, Algeria, Cambodia, Angola, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Libya (Krauthammer, 1985). President Reagan provided aid to Afghanistan in the form of military training and weapon supply in order to defeat the Soviet Union (Krauthammer, 1985). President Reagan’s doctrine became a reality because the least financial aid America provided to end the reign of the tyrannical Soviet Union governments thus promoting independence and the end of the cold war. This is because the Soviet Union spent a lot of money and resources but in the end suffered huge losses (Krauthammer, 1985).

During the late 1900’s, Nicaragua became the center of focus in Central America where the dictatorial government of Anastasio Somoza was overthrown by the revolutionary coalition led by Augustino Sandino (Russell, 2010). The revolutionary coalition was supported by business people, the Catholic Church, the Sandinistas Liberation Front together with other political elements that had interests in Nicaragua (Russell, 2010). The Sandinistas Liberation Front, FSLN formed the next government, which promised freedom of speech, press and independent judicial system among other promises (Russell, 2010). As soon as the FSLN took power, they began confiscating the media equipment and censoring the newspaper articles being published by the Nicaraguan media houses. When it came to democracy, the FSLN made sure they became ruthless and violent like the previous regime (Russell, 2010). In so doing, the FSLN administration quit being allies with America and joined a partnership with the Soviet Union among other communist countries. During the same period, the Sandinista-supported Marxist guerillas began an offensive attack against the pro-American El Salvador government (Russell, 2010). When the Reagan administration took over, President Reagan employed the use of his Doctrines that promoted to defend democracy and freedom of the oppressed Marxist-Leninist administrations (Scott, 1996).

Even though the Reagan administration was helpful in ending the cold war, their foreign policy campaign did not become successful. The Reagan Doctrine called for both extending freedom and challenging communism. These goals became quite difficult to reconcile especially by the administration policy makers (Krauthammer, 1985).  In parts of Latin America, countries such as Nicaragua were at the forefront of engaging in illegal activities (Krauthammer, 1985). The Nicaraguan contras that were being backed by the American government to overthrow the powers allied to the Soviet Union were found to mastermind the trade of illegal drugs and violation of the human rights of its citizen.............