The Cold War and U.S. Diplomacy

Strayer University
Summer 2014

The purpose of the Reagan Doctrine was to “sponsor anticommunist guerrillas who are trying to overthrow pro-Soviet regimes” (Roskin, 2010, p.58). It was implemented in the mid-1980’s; specifically mentioned in a discrete manner in President Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address and lasted less than a decade, until the end of the Cold War in 1991. One of the major challenges that President Reagan faced throughout his time in office was Communism and the Cold War. Although these issues had been a problem through several presidencies, they began to escalate in the early years of Reagan’s administration. Reagan believed that President Carter provided minimal leadership to reverse communism. In 1985 President Reagan introduced the principles of the doctrine through support of anti-communist revolutions. During his State of the Union Address in 1985 he compared, “anticommunist forces with American colonists who had fought the revolutionary war, describing those latter-day patriots as ‘freedom fighters’ for democracy” (“The Reagan Doctrine”, 2014, par. 2). The doctrine was created to decrease the Soviet influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America as part of the Reagan administration’s Cold War strategy (Reagan Doctrine, 2014). It has been argued that the Reagan doctrine contributed to the fall of communism itself. One of the diplomatic efforts that occurred during Reagan’s time in office was the support of freedom fighters and/or rebels in multiple countries around the world. One specific country that was helped through the diplomatic efforts of Reagan and the principles of his doctrine was providing aid to Afghan rebels and in turn convincing Moscow to end its occupation of Afghanistan. In 1985 CIA intelligence indicated that the Soviet Union had plans to intensify the war in Afghanistan