Representing the “New Right,” President Reagan entered the White House seeking to reestablish American identity according to the ideals of an earlier time—to once again become the greatest nation and fight with our considerable strength to reduce the limits placed on individual actors by oppressive governments; to negotiate from a position of unapproachable strength for the defense of human rights and the protection of American interests; in short, to make the world, once again secure from “the moral danger of a nuclear age” which threatened humankind’s very existence (Engel 315).
In the early 1980s, the United States’ continued a traditional pattern of intervention in Latin America, with President Reagan preferring the dictatorship of Duarte over the election of Ortega in El Salvador out of the fear of falling behind to communism in the Western hemisphere.
Reagan committed the United States to a firm anti-communism in a speech in 1982 at Westminster. Under his leadership, the United States put the Soviets under heavier military pressure by expanding the nuclear arsenal, enlarging the Navy beyond all reasonable need, and increasing aid to the mujahedeen. Still, Reagan saw negotiation as the key to security; arms races can never be won, for, as Mikhail Gorbachev observed in 1984, “There has never been a weapon for which another weapon against it had not been developed” (Engel 316).
Reagan committed the United States to a firm anti-communism in a speech in 1982 at Westminster. Under his leadership, the United States put the Soviets under heavier military pressure by expanding the nuclear arsenal, enlarging the Navy beyond all reasonable need, and increasing aid to the mujahedeen. Still, Reagan saw negotiation as the key to security; arms races can never be won, for, as Mikhail Gorbachev observed in 1984, “There has never been a weapon for which another weapon against it had not been developed” (Engel 316).
In Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan found a willing partner, another leader who saw opportunities to ensure benefits from cooperation and to reform their respective systems of government to strengthen society and make peace in the best interests of all humankind.
Over the second half of the decade, Gorbachev attacked the corruption in Soviet government and flexibly collaborated with the West to reduce military spending. He worked to encourage entrepreneurism and reduce violations of human rights, including granting freedom of the press. His policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) led the Soviet Union to an international position that incentivized cooperation with the United States.
This new frontier of international relations initially presented President George H.W. Bush with the threat of international instability, but the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 opened possibilities for international cooperation like never before. When the youth in East and West Germany came to believe that no one would stop them if they took hammers to the wall, fear became hope and an optimism returned to international politics that had not been seen since before 1945.
This new frontier of international relations initially presented President George H.W. Bush with the threat of international instability, but the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 opened possibilities for international cooperation like never before. When the youth in East and West Germany came to believe that no one would stop them if they took hammers to the wall, fear became hope and an optimism returned to international politics that had not been seen since before 1945.