[PDF] President Reagans Legacy And United States Nuclear Weapons Policy eBook

Author : Beth A. Fischer
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 42,24 MB
Release : 2019-11-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0813178193

GET BOOK

Did President Reagan's hawkish policies destroy the Soviet Union and enable the United States to win the Cold War? Many Americans believe this to be the case. In this view -- known as "triumphalism" -- Reagan's denunciations of the "evil empire" and his military buildup compelled Moscow to admit defeat. The president's triumph demonstrates that America's leaders should stand strong and threaten adversaries into submission. Drawing on both US and Soviet sources, this study demonstrates that triumphalism is a series of falsehoods about President Reagan's intentions, his policies, and the impact his administration had on the Soviet Union. In reality, the president's initially hardline posture undermined US interests and brought the superpowers to the brink of war. This work exposes Reagan's dedication to diplomacy and his unorthodox views about global security, which frequently brought him into conflict with his own advisers and allies. The president did not seek to destroy the USSR; rather, he sought to eliminate nuclear weapons. This volume also explains why Moscow chose to abandon the arms race, adopt democratic reforms, and withdraw from its ill-fated war in Afghanistan. These initiatives were part of a reform movement that had been growing in the USSR for decades before Reagan entered office. The Kremlin did not acquiesce to American pressure; rather, Soviet reformers believed the arms race had been futile and sought to move beyond the Cold War. In fact, President Reagan's initially aggressive policies had made it more difficult for Moscow to pursue these revolutionary reforms. Ultimately President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev together were able to accomplish what no one at the time thought possible -- the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War. The president's opposition to nuclear weapons, his determined leadership, and his dedication to diplomacy are his most enduring legacies.

Author : Jeffrey L. Chidester
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 24,14 MB
Release : 2015-04-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0674426223

GET BOOK

Since Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, the global community has witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the integration of Europe, the War on Terror and the Arab Spring, a hot Chinese economy and a major international recession. Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed brings together scholars from diverse disciplines and persuasions to assess the fortieth president’s policies and their ongoing impact today, and to offer a timely retrospective on his complex legacy. The authors consider the influence of Reagan’s free-market ideas on economic globalization, showing how deregulation succeeded in spurring economic expansion. In foreign policy, Reagan favored significant increases in military spending (“peace through strength”) and an assertive agenda abroad. His break with détente in dealing with the Soviet Union, notably expressed in his 1982 March of Freedom speech, effectively restored the early Cold War strategy of rolling back communism. More than twenty years later, President George W. Bush invoked this speech in describing his goals in the Middle East—a striking example of how Reagan’s ideas affected the post-9/11 world. In contrast with his hawkish stance on defense, Reagan’s efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals, negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev, constitute one of his enduring contributions to stability. Although Reagan’s policies soared on rhetoric rooted in ideological conviction, the president engaged in pragmatic internationalism when a multilateral approach served America’s interests. He believed that America had a special mission as a moral leader and beacon of freedom, a view that continues to inform U.S. foreign policy.

Author : Paul Lettow
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 22,13 MB
Release : 2006-02-14
Category : History
ISBN : 0812973267

GET BOOK

In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow explores the depth and sophistication of President Ronald Reagan’s commitment to ridding humankind permanently of the threat of nuclear war. Lettow’s narrative spans the start of Reagan’s presidency and the 1986 Reykjavík summit between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during which America’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a defining issue. Lettow reveals SDI for what it was: a full-on assault against nuclear weapons waged as much through policy as through ideology. While cabinet members and advisers played significant roles in guiding American defense policy, it was Reagan himself who presided over every element, large and small, of this paradigm shift in U.S. diplomacy. Lettow conducted interviews with several former Reagan administration officials, and he draws upon the vast body of declassified security documents from the Reagan presidency; much of what he quotes from these documents appears publicly here for the first time. The result is the first major work to apply such evidence to the study of SDI and superpower diplomacy. This is a survey that doesn’t merely add nuance to the existing record, but revises our very understanding of the Reagan presidency.

Author : Will Bunch
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 49,60 MB
Release : 2009-02-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781416597728

GET BOOK

In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit. With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following: Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed. Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions -- his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie. George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt. With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.

Author : John T. Stinson
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 24,21 MB
Release : 2009-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1440150303

GET BOOK

THE REAGAN LEGACY is the present condition of the United States - a seriously weakened economy struggling to regain growth in a mountain of debt, militarism that harmed the economy and got us into a bind overseas, and poisonous politics in Washington." The disastrous presidency of George W Bush was not so much his own incompetence as coming to fruition of the policies of Ronald Reagan. Free market economics, always a failure in the past, failed again. Except during wars, America had resisted having a large armed force until Reagan tripled the military budget, leading to adoption of an aggressive foreign policy that harmed the economy and made enemies abroad. The Republican Party was made over into a propaganda organization with no interest in the truth or the public good, and no solutions other than ever more tax cuts. This is the story of how the sad state of the United States today comes directly out of the policies established under Ronald Reagan.

Author :
Publisher :
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 13,53 MB
Release : 1984
Category : Government publications
ISBN :

GET BOOK

An anthology of 40 speeches by President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, and Secretary of State George Shultz. Taken together they represent a comprehensive accounting of the Reagan administration's foreign policy: the principles on which it is based, its goals and purposes, the plans and programs by which it has been advanced, and the progress it has made toward achieving its goals. The addresses cover each of the regions of the world and the major foreign policy initiatives undertaken by the Reagan administration.

Author : Martin Anderson
Publisher : Hoover Institution Press
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 10,68 MB
Release : 2015-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0817918361

GET BOOK

Ronald Reagan's Cold War strategy was well established in his first year in office and did not change throughout his presidency. It was to make absolutely sure in the minds of the Soviets that they too would be destroyed in a nuclear war—even as Reagan sought an alternative through strategic defense to make nuclear missiles obsolete and thus eliminate the possibility of an all-out nuclear war. This book offers new perspectives on Ronald Reagan's primary accomplishment as president—persuading the Soviets to reduce their nuclear arsenals and end the Cold War. It details how he achieved this success and in the process explains why Americans consider Reagan one of our greatest presidents. The authors examine the decisions Reagan made during his presidency that made his success possible and review Reagan's critical negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—ending with the 1988 Moscow Summit that effectively ended the Cold War. They present Gorbachev's thoughts on Reagan as a great man and a great president 20 years after he left office. But ultimately, they reveal the depth of Reagan's vision of a world safe from nuclear weapons, painting a clear portrait of a Cold Warrior who saw the possibility of moving beyond that war.

Author : Larry Berman
Publisher :
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 14,91 MB
Release : 1990-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN :

GET BOOK

Papers of a conference held at U. of California, Davis in May 1988. Nineteen president-watchers review the Reagan administration's impact in four areas: foreign policy, economic and fiscal policy, institutional changes, and electoral and congressional relations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR