President Reagan challenged communism through military buildup and casting the Cold War as a struggle between good and evil. His policies increased tensions but ultimately contributed to the end of the Cold War under Gorbachev. Meanwhile, the US faced challenges including conflicts in the Middle East and Latin America. Under President Bush, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, leading to the Persian Gulf War where a US-led coalition liberated Kuwait through air strikes and a brief ground invasion. However, they did not remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
Running head: RESEARCH FIRST DRAFT 1
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RESEARCH FIRST DRAFT
Research First Draft
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May 2, 2019
The Cold War During Reagan Administration
During the twentieth century brought thrilling developments in military weapons, giving the countries in possession of them the power to kill millions in a single move. In fact, it was the dawn of nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare. Furthermore, this imparted fear all over the world over how these powerful weapons would be used and against who. Afterward World War II ended in 1945, tensions between the United States of America and the Soviet Union were high. Also, both powerful nations had nuclear weapons stationed around the world in locations the other found threatening, but neither wanted to be the first to give in and move their troops.
At this time, waiting for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, both countries were at a sort of competition with each other over who had a stronger military, better technology and more power and influence in the world. Even though there was no direct military conflict, the world was in fear of another war erupting with the United States and the Soviet Union in the middle of it. Furthermore, in the 1980, President Ronald Reagan was elected president to the United States and was determined to end this period of strain between the two nations. In fact, the letter stated, “The Reagan administration believe the Soviet Union threatened U.S. security in two distinct but related ways. The conflict of the capitalist, the U.S.S.R continue to remain powerful and dangerous of all social democratic leaders (Long Telegram Cold War, 2015).
Meanwhile, the Reagan administration’s Cold War strategy started to get intense with difficulties of interpretation. Although, some see Reagan in terms of symbolism or as an agent in the politics of decline. Meanwhile, others see him as incompetent, wayward, and partial by Nancy Reagan. Also, there are those who celebrate his revival of American values and strength, and those who revile his politics as chauvinism and his economics as exploitative capitalism. Some people view as an effective statesman because of his pragmatism, others because of an aggressive agenda dictated by his right-wing ideology (Dobson, Alan P., 2005). Also, the fight against communism throughout the whole world was a main priority for President Reagan.
Meanwhile, before Reagan was sworn into office, the United States had long been interfering in international affairs, but under the right circumstances. In fact, as the time the United States got involved in fighting against communist government for its people or aiding countries fighting for independence. During 1903, the United States backed Panama when they were fighting for Independence from Columbia and in 1909 the United States supported rebels fighting against President Jose Santos Zelaya in Nicaragua. Furthermore, when President Reaga.
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Hum 104, Lecture notes 2014, class VIIIChapter 23, The Contempor.docxadampcarr67227
Hum 104, Lecture notes 2014, class VIII
Chapter 23, The Contemporary World, 1970-2014
Globalization, Terrorism, Postmodernism
I quote-
New York’s World Trade Center (WTC) Project- a post-modern complex set to be completed in 2014-is a powerful symbol of today’s complex, global world. The first WTC, sited on the East River, just steps from Wall Street, was finished in 1973. A modernist jewel, its twin glass towers seemed to signal two messages: the United States is a super power and New York is a major player in the emerging global economy. Those messages were strengthened in 1990, with the end of the cold war and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Even a failed bombing attack against the WTC by Islamic radicals in 1993, only briefly disrupted the period’s generally optimistic mood. But, on September 11, 2011, all of that changed. Islamic radicals brought down the Twin Towers, causing great loss of life. An outraged nation, led by President George W. Bush, vowed to avenge the attacks and rebuild the World Trade Center.
The destruction of the World Trade Center divides this period into two phases: toward a new global order, 1970-2001; and the Age of Terrorism, 1970-present. Before 9/11, the West, driven by globalization and a booming economy, envisioned the future as a peaceful, unified, multicultural world. After 9/11, that global vision was challenged. Conflicts between the West and Islamic radicals, which had been sporadic for decades, now moved to a higher level, most notably in wars against the Islamic states of Iraq and Afghanistan. The globalization ideal remained dominant in cultural conversation. The global economy boomed until the Great Recession that began in 2008. Today, the economy, though shaky, shows many signs of recovery-offering hope for the future. And the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings have, once again, caused the West to rethink its relationship to the Islamic world.
End of quote.
No big wars marked the 70s, but little wars continued. Ethnic conflicts proliferated, and the globe shrank. Détente was the word of the moment as the super-powers became more open with each other, especially economically.
OPEC began to oppose the buying nations that had founded the group. In 1974, they embargoed the sale of oil to the US and Western Europe which led to gasoline shortages, high prices at the pump, and rationing. Some states used an odd/even license plate number to decide which day its owner could get fuel, and some stations sold gasoline only to their regulars and then an appointment was needed.
Presidents of the US during the age were: Richard Nixon, who ended the war in Viet Nam; opened dialogue with China, but wound up resigning from office because of his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. Gerald Ford, appointed VP when Spiro Agnew was forced to resign that office, served the rest of Nixon’s term and brought some calm to the country’s politics. Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and former governor of Georgi.
2. Objectives
• Analyze the ways that Ronald Reagan
challenged communism and the Soviet Union.
• Describe other foreign policy challenges that
faced the United States in the 1980s.
• Summarize the Persian Gulf War and its
results.
3. Terms and People
• Contras – anticommunist counterrevolutionaries in
Nicaragua who were backed by the Reagan administration
• Iran-Contra affair − a political scandal under President
Reagan involving the use of money from secret arm sales to
Iran to illegally support the Contras in Nicaragua
• divest – to withdraw investments
• Saddam Hussein − the dictator of Iraq, who invaded Kuwait
in 1990 in an effort to gain control of 20% of the world’s oil
production
• Tiananmen Square – the site in Beijing where, in 1989,
Chinese students staged prodemocracy protests that were
put down by the Chinese government
• apartheid – a political system of strict racial segregation in
South Africa
4. How did Reagans foreign policy help bring
an end to communism, and what actions
did the United States take abroad during
George H.W. Bush’s presidency?
President Reagan believed that the United States should seek
to roll back Soviet rule in Eastern Europe and that peace
would come through strength.
His foreign policies initially created tensions between the
superpowers, but ultimately contributed to the end of the
Cold War.
When the Cold War ended, Americans hoped a new era of
global peace would dawn.
Instead, a dangerous era of regional conflicts challenged the
Bush administration.
5. “But if history teaches anything, it
teaches that simpleminded appeasement
During the first term of
or wishful thinking about our adversaries his presidency, Ronald
is folly… I urge you to speak against those
who would place the United States in a Reagan challenged the
position of military and moral inferiority…
beware the temptation… to ignore the
Soviet Union by
facts of history and the aggressive building up America’s
impulses of an evil empire, to simply call
the arms race a giant misunderstanding military and casting the
and thereby remove yourself from the
struggle between right and wrong and
Cold War as a struggle
good and evil.” between good and evil.
President Ronald Reagan
March 8, 1983
6. President Reagan believed that communism could
be weakened by building up the U.S. military.
The military build-up
included the Strategic
Defense Initiative.
This led to a dramatic
increase in defense
spending.
7. The Reagan administration supported many
anticommunist groups around the world.
• Afghanistan
• El Salvador
• Grenada
• Contras in
Nicaragua
Reagan called the Soviet Union an
“evil empire” during his first term in office.
8. Mikhail Gorbachev became the President of the
Soviet Union in 1985.
His twin policies of glasnost and
perestroika moved the Soviet Union
away from socialism and marked the
beginning of a new era in
U.S.–Soviet relations.
In 1989, several Eastern European
nations ousted their communist
regimes.
The fall of the Berlin Wall
in Germany symbolized the
end of communism in Europe.
9. The Soviet Union broke apart in 1991.
Newly elected President
George H.W. Bush signed
agreements with
Gorbachev, and his
successor President Boris
Yeltsin.
They pledged friendship
and cooperation and
reduction in the buildup of
nuclear weapons.
The Cold War, which had lasted more than
45 years, was finally over.
10. The U.S. clashed with Libya throughout the 1980s.
In 1983, 241 American marines were killed in Lebanon.
11. The Iran-Contra affair damaged Reagan’s reputation
during his second term.
In 1985, the In return, Iran The U.S used
U.S. sold pressured the money from
weapons to Lebanese terror gun sales to
Iran. groups to release secretly fund
some American the Contras in
hostages. Nicaragua.
But Congress banned sending funds to the Contras in 1983.
Several leading Reagan officials were convicted in this
scandal, but Reagan remained popular when he left office.
12. Less than two years “We stand today at a unique and
extraordinary moment. The crisis in the
after the Berlin Wall Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers
fell, the United States a rare opportunity to move toward a
historic period of cooperation. Out of
found itself involved these troubled times… a new world
in another war after order can emerge; a new era – freer
from the threat of terror, strong in the
Iraq invaded its pursuit of justice; and more secure in the
quest of peace, an era in which the
neighbor Kuwait. nations of the world, East and West ,
President George North and South, can prosper and live in
harmony.”
H.W. Bush spoke
George Herbert Walker Bush
about his vision for Address to Congress
the war: September 11, 1990
13. When President Bush took the helm of the
world’s only remaining superpower, he was
uniquely qualified in
the area of foreign
relations.
However,
a number
of difficult
international
challenges
erupted to test
his skills.
14. Bush sent 12,000 U.S. troops to
invade Panama. Dictator
Manuel Noriega was deposed
and convicted of drug trafficking.
In China, a prodemocracy protest
in Tiananmen Square was
crushed by Chinese tanks.
15. In South Africa, democracy replaced segregation.
• Protests against apartheid
were growing.
• Private firms in the U.S.
began to divest their
South Africa investments
to protest its policies.
• Nelson Mandela,
imprisoned since 1962 for
leading the antiapartheid
movement, was released Nelson Mandela was elected
President of South Africa in 1994.
from prison in 1990.
16. The Bush administration adopted
the role of international peacekeeper,
but chose its battles carefully.
When Yugoslavia erupted into civil war in 1991,
Bush was reluctant to get involved.
But in 1992, he sent
Marines to Somalia to
establish a cease-fire
between rival warlords and
to deliver food to starving
people.
17. Bush’s most significant foreign policy
challenge occurred in the Persian Gulf.
In 1990, Iraq’s ruthless
dictator, Saddam
Hussein, invaded
neighboring Kuwait,
determined to take over
its significant oil deposits.
The U.S. was determined
to repel Hussein’s
aggression, which
threatened to destabilize
the Middle East.
18. Diplomacy and sanctions failed to make Hussein
withdraw. The Persian Gulf War began.
Operation Desert Storm, the American-led
attack on Iraq, began on January 16, 1991.
19. The Persian Gulf War
The military operation consisted of five weeks of
devastating aerial bombardments on Iraqi forces.
Coalition ground troops stormed into Kuwait on
February 23. Within five days, Iraq agreed to a UN
cease-fire and withdrew from Kuwait.
Coalition forces were not permitted to pursue
Hussein back to Baghdad by UN decree. He lost the
war, and 25,000 soldiers, but his regime survived.