Ronald Reagan Foreign Policy Research Paper

The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. It was characterized by a strategy of "peace through strength" followed by a warming of relations with the Soviet Union. Reagan particularly wanted to redefine national policy toward the Soviet Union. He had supported the fundamental policy of containing the Soviet Union that President Harry Truman adopted in 1947 and was followed by all Presidents of both parties. But Reagan believed that the Soviets had taken advantage of détente, as practiced by Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Détente is the easing of relations between countries.

In the decades before his presidency, Reagan had read and thought deeply about American

At the same time, Reagan was deeply worried about the accepted national policy that had come out since the Soviets acquired atomic weapons of "mutual assured destruction." This said that the Soviet Union and United Sates would not attack each other out of fear. This, said Reagan, was "a truly mad policy." He believed that it was wrong to destroy the civilian population of another country in an attack. He also worried that the two sides might go into a nuclear war—in fact, that almost happened on September 26, 1983, when a defective Soviet satellite system mistakenly reported a supposed U.S. missile attack. Reagan's vision, not well understood when he took office and sometimes misrepresented even today, was of a world free of nuclear weapons and the terror they posed to all mankind. Reagan believed in cabinet government and assigned a higher role to his secretary of state than to his national security adviser—this made his choice for this position especially critical. His first secretary of state was Alexander Haig, a career military and government man, who had impressed Reagan in a private meeting and also came with the endorsement of former President Nixon. Haig, who called

Weinberger thought that an increase in the Pentagon’s budget was important for Reagan’s strategy for dealing with the Soviets. He also surpassed Reagan’s promises by finding he spending increases from Carters last budget, which included a deep arm increase. Weinberger retired in late 1987 after questions arose about whether he had covered up the administration's arms sales to Iran. Ironically, he had been an outspoken internal opponent of the sales. Casey, chief of staff in Reagan's 1980 campaign, was a zealous anti-Communist with an intelligence background dating back to World War