Concluding the Cold War: Ronald Reagan
Ryan Coates
October 19, 2009
When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he followed three Presidents, all of whom had followed the policy of detente, meaning to artificially relax the state of international affairs. Reagan saw it as a feeble attempt at thawing the Cold War, and upon assuming office, terminated the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT). Reagan saw the SALT treaties not as solutions, as they allowed weapons to be continually stockpiled, thus serving little purpose in ending the Cold War. Their termination, to the Soviet Union, it was an aggressive rebuttal of their increasingly approachable attitude to the US. The opinion of the American people was split.
The rejection of SALT was interpreted by liberals as placing the US on the warpath, but was recognised by conservatives as a bold, confident move which would give the US a strategic advantage in the Cold War.
It would appear, due to the detailed plan Reagan implemented against the Soviets, that he knew the Union was close to collapse. It was no coincidence that his 1980 Presidential campaign manager, William Casey, would soon become the Director of Central Intelligence. Plans to force the Soviets to the brink of collapse had been readied well before Reagan entered the White House. The plans prevented the enemy from accessing new technologies, whilst forcing them into an arms race by initiating a massive build up of the US military. Doing so pushed the Soviet economy to the brink of collapse, as they increased their spending, the markets weakened, to the point that the Soviet build up effectively ended. The plan proved to the Soviets that the US could, according to National Security Advisor Richard Allen, ´spend them into oblivion´, with not only a stronger military, but a stronger economy. Allen also explained Reagan´s military build up. ´He did not want an arms race, but if there was to be an arms race, we were not going to lose it.´
One of the more controversial aspects of Reagan´s military impetus was SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative. The initiative was criticised as a ´dream´ of Reagan´s, which harked back to the film ´Star Wars´ and Reagan´s own days in Hollywood. Opponents were keen to point out that there was a difference between the silver screen and real life. Reagan decided to persevere with the programme, which researched the possibility of creating shields which would protect American soil from Soviet missiles. The programme panicked the Soviet leadership into believing that their nuclear weapons may soon be redundant and provided Reagan with a bargaining chip, albeit, one he would never give away.
For the first four years of his administration, contact with the Soviet Union was scarce. Their leaders were attempting, in vain, to hold on to the ´old guard´ of Soviet politicians. When long time leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, he was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who had since 1967, been Chairman of the KGB. Andropov did indeed drop off, in 1984, and was succeeded by the last of the Troika, Konstantin Chernenko.
Critics accused Reagan of cancelling the efforts of the Carter Administration and he did not deny it. He felt that Carter had been too trusting of an unpredictable state, too much of a dove when it came to foreign policy, and too willing to cut the crucial military budget. Reagan overturned the precedents of his predecessor, reinstating the B1 Bomber programme and developing the provocatively named ´Peacekeeper´ missile.
There were simple actions Reagan took to prove he was ready to face off communism. When KAL007 was shot down by Russian fighter jets, he told the world it was an ´act of barbarism´. When a democratic movement in Poland, Solidarity, was repressed, he imposed economic sanctions on the Polish government. When Americans ridiculed SDI, he stuck with it. It would become a central part of future agreements with the Soviet Union. Chief of Staff James A. Baker III explained Reagan´s reasoning for SDI. Baker said ´I think President Reagan saw SDI as being yet another pressure on the Soviets, as something that they could not withstand and I think he was right.´
One cannot underestimate the role Reagan as an individual played in ending the Cold War. He refused to be restrained when it came to his rhetoric and at various times, derided the Soviet Union as an ´evil empire´, ´an axis of evil´ and promised that America would ´transcend communism´. They were assertive and Reagan´s masterful tone rose above the previously dull, monotonous and concessionary attitudes of Nixon, Ford and Carter.
Reagan promised the American people during the election that he would bring ´Peace Through Strength´. Throughout his time as a politician, as an actor and as an American, Reagan knew that the American nation always had strength. Sure, it was strong economically, it was strong militarily, but what was most important was that it was strong morally.
Make no mistake, by the end of his first term, Reagan had made progress, but perhaps not as much as he would have liked. In 1985, with a second term secure, a refreshed government set about creating a new atmosphere with Mikhail Gorbachev, Chernenko´s successor in the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev may have just been a change in leadership to many Americans, but for Reagan, it was an opportunity to see out the Cold War to a satisfactory conclusion. According to most historians, it is agreed that by 1985, with the Soviet Troika confined to the past, the Politburo was prepared for a new era of liberal communism. Gorbachev was just 54 years old, had spent just one year in the Politburo and yet, within three hours of Chernenko´s death, the Soviet chamber decided it was Gorbachev´s time.
Without ties to the heavy industry of the old Soviet Union, Gorbachev was a new thinker. Although he swore by communism, he made it a more transparent system, with the famous policies of glasnost placing government in a goldfish bowl, and perestroika, which restructured government. To many, they were small concessions and a denial of democracy, but for Reagan, they confirmed what Margaret Thatcher had told him, Gorbachev was open to change.
The Soviet Union, now crippled by the arms race and approaching a period of potential economic disaster, was ready to play ball.
Reagan rather emphatically took his chance. His Secretary of State George Shultz opened dialogue with Moscow and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Within the White House, a power struggle ensued. Reagan was forced to choose between Shultz, who encouraged the talks with the Soviets, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who wanted the arms race to continue until the Soviet Union collapsed. Reagan sided with Shultz.
Reagan and Shultz, who was an economist by profession, developed a personal relationship with Gorbachev. He seemed willing to adopt aspects of free markets and thus began a personal repertoire with the Soviet leader. When Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and ordered ´Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!´, fears that the standoff would continue returned. Yet, they were to be a momentary blip, as Reagan secured meetings with Gorbachev throughout his second term.
The first was to be held at Geneva, in 1985. The meeting, held thirty years after Eisenhower´s with Bulganin, was one which both leaders were keen to have and keen to gain from. Upon witnessing their reception of each other, members of both governments spoke of a grand Reagan, who greeted Gorbachev warmly from atop the stairs of his temporary residence. Gorbachev, dressed against the cold, appeared to represent that old style Soviet politician. He looked uncomfortable and to observers, Reagan had won the first impressions.
At the meeting, words were harshly put to the Soviets, but this was not to the detriment of the negotiations. Reagan and Gorbachev spoke personally, Gorbachev´s impression of Reagan transformed and it displayed, to the Soviets at least, that Reagan did despise communism and wanted to see change. At the top of the agenda were nuclear weapons and human rights.
By 1986, when a meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland was arranged, Gorbachev had warmed to the idea of an arms agreement. The Soviet economy, was close to collapse, as the Reagan White House knew, and in order to reduce the budget, Gorbachev wanted a reduction in the rapidity of the arms race. Accordingly, he placed on the table deals which five years ago, were unimaginable. Close to the eradication of nuclear weapons, Reagan refused to concede his brainchild, SDI. For Reagan at least, the deal wasn´t right and he walked. As he asked his delegation at the time ´If we agree to this won't we be doing that simply so we can leave here with an agreement?´ As history transformed the image of Reykjavik as a failure, it became a watershed in ending the Cold War.
In 1987, when Gorbachev made the journey to Washington, as agreed at Reykjavik, the INF Treaty was signed. It destroyed 2692 short and intermediate missiles, but in true Reagan fashion, he held the upper hand. The US discarded 846, whilst the Soviets made redundant 1846. It levelled the nuclear playing field, whilst leaving both nations as the world superpowers.
Much of what Reagan achieved happened within the five years after his time in White House was up. The Berlin Wall collapsed, Solidarity reigned supreme in Poland, the USSR collapsed, the START treaties were initiated, the Soviets left Afghanistan and the USA was left alone on a pedestal as the single, superior, world superpower. The Cold War, to most Americans, had been won and the Soviet Union had, as Reagan promised it would, been confined to the ´ash heap of history´.
When he died, his predecessor Jimmy Carter called him a man of ´unshakeable beliefs´, Gerald Ford bestowed him ´an excellent leader of our nation during challenging times´ and most appropriately, Margaret Thatcher declared Reagan had ´won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired.´
The rejection of SALT was interpreted by liberals as placing the US on the warpath, but was recognised by conservatives as a bold, confident move which would give the US a strategic advantage in the Cold War.
It would appear, due to the detailed plan Reagan implemented against the Soviets, that he knew the Union was close to collapse. It was no coincidence that his 1980 Presidential campaign manager, William Casey, would soon become the Director of Central Intelligence. Plans to force the Soviets to the brink of collapse had been readied well before Reagan entered the White House. The plans prevented the enemy from accessing new technologies, whilst forcing them into an arms race by initiating a massive build up of the US military. Doing so pushed the Soviet economy to the brink of collapse, as they increased their spending, the markets weakened, to the point that the Soviet build up effectively ended. The plan proved to the Soviets that the US could, according to National Security Advisor Richard Allen, ´spend them into oblivion´, with not only a stronger military, but a stronger economy. Allen also explained Reagan´s military build up. ´He did not want an arms race, but if there was to be an arms race, we were not going to lose it.´
One of the more controversial aspects of Reagan´s military impetus was SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative. The initiative was criticised as a ´dream´ of Reagan´s, which harked back to the film ´Star Wars´ and Reagan´s own days in Hollywood. Opponents were keen to point out that there was a difference between the silver screen and real life. Reagan decided to persevere with the programme, which researched the possibility of creating shields which would protect American soil from Soviet missiles. The programme panicked the Soviet leadership into believing that their nuclear weapons may soon be redundant and provided Reagan with a bargaining chip, albeit, one he would never give away.
For the first four years of his administration, contact with the Soviet Union was scarce. Their leaders were attempting, in vain, to hold on to the ´old guard´ of Soviet politicians. When long time leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, he was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who had since 1967, been Chairman of the KGB. Andropov did indeed drop off, in 1984, and was succeeded by the last of the Troika, Konstantin Chernenko.
Critics accused Reagan of cancelling the efforts of the Carter Administration and he did not deny it. He felt that Carter had been too trusting of an unpredictable state, too much of a dove when it came to foreign policy, and too willing to cut the crucial military budget. Reagan overturned the precedents of his predecessor, reinstating the B1 Bomber programme and developing the provocatively named ´Peacekeeper´ missile.
There were simple actions Reagan took to prove he was ready to face off communism. When KAL007 was shot down by Russian fighter jets, he told the world it was an ´act of barbarism´. When a democratic movement in Poland, Solidarity, was repressed, he imposed economic sanctions on the Polish government. When Americans ridiculed SDI, he stuck with it. It would become a central part of future agreements with the Soviet Union. Chief of Staff James A. Baker III explained Reagan´s reasoning for SDI. Baker said ´I think President Reagan saw SDI as being yet another pressure on the Soviets, as something that they could not withstand and I think he was right.´
One cannot underestimate the role Reagan as an individual played in ending the Cold War. He refused to be restrained when it came to his rhetoric and at various times, derided the Soviet Union as an ´evil empire´, ´an axis of evil´ and promised that America would ´transcend communism´. They were assertive and Reagan´s masterful tone rose above the previously dull, monotonous and concessionary attitudes of Nixon, Ford and Carter.
Reagan promised the American people during the election that he would bring ´Peace Through Strength´. Throughout his time as a politician, as an actor and as an American, Reagan knew that the American nation always had strength. Sure, it was strong economically, it was strong militarily, but what was most important was that it was strong morally.
Make no mistake, by the end of his first term, Reagan had made progress, but perhaps not as much as he would have liked. In 1985, with a second term secure, a refreshed government set about creating a new atmosphere with Mikhail Gorbachev, Chernenko´s successor in the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev may have just been a change in leadership to many Americans, but for Reagan, it was an opportunity to see out the Cold War to a satisfactory conclusion. According to most historians, it is agreed that by 1985, with the Soviet Troika confined to the past, the Politburo was prepared for a new era of liberal communism. Gorbachev was just 54 years old, had spent just one year in the Politburo and yet, within three hours of Chernenko´s death, the Soviet chamber decided it was Gorbachev´s time.
Without ties to the heavy industry of the old Soviet Union, Gorbachev was a new thinker. Although he swore by communism, he made it a more transparent system, with the famous policies of glasnost placing government in a goldfish bowl, and perestroika, which restructured government. To many, they were small concessions and a denial of democracy, but for Reagan, they confirmed what Margaret Thatcher had told him, Gorbachev was open to change.
The Soviet Union, now crippled by the arms race and approaching a period of potential economic disaster, was ready to play ball.
Reagan rather emphatically took his chance. His Secretary of State George Shultz opened dialogue with Moscow and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Within the White House, a power struggle ensued. Reagan was forced to choose between Shultz, who encouraged the talks with the Soviets, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who wanted the arms race to continue until the Soviet Union collapsed. Reagan sided with Shultz.
Reagan and Shultz, who was an economist by profession, developed a personal relationship with Gorbachev. He seemed willing to adopt aspects of free markets and thus began a personal repertoire with the Soviet leader. When Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and ordered ´Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!´, fears that the standoff would continue returned. Yet, they were to be a momentary blip, as Reagan secured meetings with Gorbachev throughout his second term.
The first was to be held at Geneva, in 1985. The meeting, held thirty years after Eisenhower´s with Bulganin, was one which both leaders were keen to have and keen to gain from. Upon witnessing their reception of each other, members of both governments spoke of a grand Reagan, who greeted Gorbachev warmly from atop the stairs of his temporary residence. Gorbachev, dressed against the cold, appeared to represent that old style Soviet politician. He looked uncomfortable and to observers, Reagan had won the first impressions.
At the meeting, words were harshly put to the Soviets, but this was not to the detriment of the negotiations. Reagan and Gorbachev spoke personally, Gorbachev´s impression of Reagan transformed and it displayed, to the Soviets at least, that Reagan did despise communism and wanted to see change. At the top of the agenda were nuclear weapons and human rights.
By 1986, when a meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland was arranged, Gorbachev had warmed to the idea of an arms agreement. The Soviet economy, was close to collapse, as the Reagan White House knew, and in order to reduce the budget, Gorbachev wanted a reduction in the rapidity of the arms race. Accordingly, he placed on the table deals which five years ago, were unimaginable. Close to the eradication of nuclear weapons, Reagan refused to concede his brainchild, SDI. For Reagan at least, the deal wasn´t right and he walked. As he asked his delegation at the time ´If we agree to this won't we be doing that simply so we can leave here with an agreement?´ As history transformed the image of Reykjavik as a failure, it became a watershed in ending the Cold War.
In 1987, when Gorbachev made the journey to Washington, as agreed at Reykjavik, the INF Treaty was signed. It destroyed 2692 short and intermediate missiles, but in true Reagan fashion, he held the upper hand. The US discarded 846, whilst the Soviets made redundant 1846. It levelled the nuclear playing field, whilst leaving both nations as the world superpowers.
Much of what Reagan achieved happened within the five years after his time in White House was up. The Berlin Wall collapsed, Solidarity reigned supreme in Poland, the USSR collapsed, the START treaties were initiated, the Soviets left Afghanistan and the USA was left alone on a pedestal as the single, superior, world superpower. The Cold War, to most Americans, had been won and the Soviet Union had, as Reagan promised it would, been confined to the ´ash heap of history´.
When he died, his predecessor Jimmy Carter called him a man of ´unshakeable beliefs´, Gerald Ford bestowed him ´an excellent leader of our nation during challenging times´ and most appropriately, Margaret Thatcher declared Reagan had ´won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired.´
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