The United States has had a president since the year 1789, 228 years ago. Since then, our nation has had 44 presidents, excluding the current president. Out of those years and presidents, 61 years and 18 presidents have not had a war going on during their term. Most of the wars that the United States has been involved have occurred overseas, mainly in the Middle East. Our presidents have tried to keep peace in the country and to protect the United States from foreign attacks; Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were among these presidents. They each had their own ways of trying to gain peace within the country, but how effective were they during their presidency and how does it affect today’s people and presidencies?
Ronald Reagan, the 40th president,
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Despite what people may say, Reagan tried to keep out of military confrontation, and his “Peace Through Strength” was not developed to attain peace by going to war, but to avoid any future (nuclear) wars. His “Peace Through Strength” has influenced the current president, Donald Trump, as Trump has “promised us a …show more content…
It’s a term given to the time where there were “improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972.” Nixon and Brezhnev signed many agreements, the SALT treaty being one of them. The SALT treaty stands for Strategic Arms Limitations Talk/Treaty and was designed to limit the number of military advances aimed at the United States and the Soviet Union. President Carter carried Nixon’s intentions but detente ended during Reagan’s presidency with his policy of Peace Through Strength.
Ronald Reagan’s policy was more effective with the society because it showed the America was still a military superpower even if America doesn’t impose an attack. While Reagan’s was terrified of the idea of nuclear war, which is a part of why his policy worked so well because that was his motivation for increasing America’s military power. Reagan also didn’t just focus on the military aspect of achieving peace, he focused on protecting the people. Richard Nixon’s detente policy backfired on him as it barely lasted almost ten years, ending with Ronald Raegan’s Peace Through Strength, which is still being used
The United States of America have had their good and bad presidents throughout the course of our history. Of the seven-founding father of the United States John Adams whose presidency started in the year 1796, and became second president of the U.S. Adams main objective was to avoid war with France. Through the event known as the XYZ affair John Adams didn’t long to go to war with France in order to gain their respect. Under Adam’s administration he passed the Aileen and Sedition acts of 1798, which outlawed defiant speech. In addition, he maintained George Washington’s original cabinet. Adams was a supporter of equality, as well as justice but had difficulties following through with his beliefs during his presidency.
Reagan rose into power after years of turmoil and the American pride was dipping. About a decade before he became president, the war in Viet-Nam was winding down and the troops were returning home to negative demonstrations towards their duty. Then, during the Carter years, America transitioned into a détente policy, which meant that the United States would try to ease the tensions with the Soviet Union by not expanding the military, but not doing anything to acting ease the tension. The idea behind this became known as MAD, mutually assured destruction, (Hannaford) which meant that both the United States and Soviet Union would maintain and even number of nuclear weapons so that if one would fire, the other would be able to fire back equally. Reagan completely disagreed with this philosophy and created a whole new policy when he became president. The foreign policy he established was to create the Reagan Doctrine. According to a speech by Peter Hannaford, the Reagan Doctrine was that America would support democratic movements in any Communist country until that country could enjoy the fruits of freedom (Hannaford). This meant that the United States would help any country who wanted to leave the influence of the Soviet Union and create their own democracy. Also, to counter the Soviet Union and end the Cold War, a race between the United State and Soviet Union to create the best technology and become the world powerhouse, Reagan increased military spending. Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviet Union was unable to keep up the United States in military spending and still having enough funds to fund their own economy to keep it stable. Reagan used this knowledge to convince Congress to increase military budget to build up technology, causing the Soviets decide on what to do. The United States had the funds to continue, but the Soviet Union could not keep up. The breaking point
The election of 1980 brought the re-nominated Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, against the newly nominated Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan. While Carter ran a rather “gloom and doom” campaign, Reagan came into the election upbeat and with high hopes of rebuilding the military. Americans, weary of the liberal government, elected Ronald Reagan. Reagan came into the Presidency wanting to restore United States leadership in world affairs w...
...speech to the world where he was quoted as saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech was given at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin (“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall: President Ronald Reagan”). This speech signified the beginning of the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. President Reagan’s foreign policy tactics are another reason why he was a great president.
The Soviets could clearly see that when Reagan. said he wanted a "margin of safety." He meant that the United States should be. superior to the Russians. Moscow would not let this happen. They wanted equality.5 Reagan also believed in military power and respect for America abroad.
I have decided to write my research paper on the topic of Ronald Reagan's Domestic and Foreign Affairs. The reason that I choose this topic was because I have always been personally interested in Ronald Reagan's time in office and the national crisis he had to deal with. Reagan was awesome when it came to foreign policy because he knew how to negotiate with foreign leaders and their countries to get what he wanted. There were several instances during his time in office that he had the chance to use his ability to get the country out of danger. Domestic Affairs is another part of Reagan's presidency that was very important. He was able to take the country, which seemed to be in an economic slump and turn their economic status around. The economic growth of the United States is still holding true today. There is only one question that I wanted to answer with this paper. Was Ronald Reagan an effective leader when it came to domestic and foreign affairs?
Introduction Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1911- ),the 40th president of the United States (1981-1989), enforced the policies that reversed a general direction of movement toward greater government involvement in economic and social regulation. Reagan as the younger of two sons, was born in Tampico, Illinois and spent most of his childhood in Dixon, Illinois. After studying at Eureka College,a small Disciples of Christ college near Peoria, Illinois, he majored in economics, and became the president of the student body, a member of the football team, and captain of the swimming team. He had special drawings toward acting, but after the graduation in 1932 the only job available related to show business was as a local radio sportscaster. In 1936 he became a sportscaster for station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa. A year latter, Reagan went to Hollywood and began an acting career that spanned more than 25 years. He played in more than 50 films, including "Knute Rockne"-All American (1940), "King's Row" (1942), and "Bedtime for Bonzo" (1951). Early political career Reagan's first political activities were associated with his responsibilities as a union leader. As union president, Reagan tried to remove suspected Communists from the movie industry. When the U.S. House Committee. Began an investigation in 1947 on the influence of Communists in the film industry, Reagan took a strong anti-Communist stand testifying before the committee. Reagan emerged on the national political scene in 1964 when he made fervent television speech supports for the Republican presidential candidate, United States Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona. Although the election was lost, Reagan's speech brought in money and admiration from Republicans around the country. After the speech a group of Republicans in California persuaded Reagan to run for governor of California in 1966. Reagan appealed to traditional Republican voters. He defeated Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, Sr., Democrat, by almost a million votes. The election of 1980 Reagan spent years making political friends at party fund-raising dinners around the country. In the election of 1980 for the president, the candidates were Carter and Reagan. The contrast between the television personalities of two candidates was very important to people. Carter’s nervous manner had never been popular to people, while Reagan’s charm and happy face was a call for return to patriotism, which appealed to the public. Many voters believed that Reagan was forceful leader who could get their lives in shape and who could restore prosperity at home.
Ronald Reagan used his power during the INF treaty in many ways. Some of the best examples of this was when he took an active role in involvement of the treaty outlines such as the “Zero Proposal”. One of the most important ways I found comparing the two Presidents though was through their Soviet-USA summits. President Reagan met with the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to hold talks on diplomatic relations and the arms race. Reagan believed that a personal relationship among leaders was the necessary first step to breaking down the barriers of tension that existed between the two countries. Reagan had one goal going into this Geneva Summit and that was to convince Gorbachev that America desired peace above everything else. He described
Failure of the Détente Between the Superpowers The French word ‘détente’, which the Oxford English Dictionary describes as “the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation” (www.oed.com), first appeared in this context when a German newspaper used it to describe the visit of a British monarch at the beginning of the 20th century (Froman, 1991). In this essay, I will attempt to explain the cold war détente between the superpowers of the USA and the USSR in the 1970’s, concentrating first on its positive developments between 1971 and 1973 and then on the events that lead to its ultimate failure, symbolised by the soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first real steps of relaxation of tensions were taken with the Moscow summit and the signing of the SALT 1 (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) agreement in May 1972. The SALT agreement was a staring point for attempts to control nuclear arms, to restrict the impact and spread of nuclear weapons and to secure a balance due to ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ (the notion that a nuclear attack from one side would lead to a retaliation from the other and therefore both sides would be greatly damaged) between the two superpowers and were to be followed up by further arms limitations talks within the next five years (Kent and Young, 2004). Also, agreements were reached on lowering the risk of accidental confrontation and on cooperation in science, health and environmental issues.
Understanding and evaluating presidents’ performance often poses challenges for political experts. The nation votes one president at the time and each presidency faces different tests. The environments surrounding a presidency have a tremendous impact on the success and failure of that presidency. In addition, the president exercises his power through a check and balance system embody in the Constitution. As stated in (Collier 1959), the Constitution created a government of “separated institutions sharing power.” As a result, a president works with others institutions of the government to shape the nation’s agenda. Thus, determining a presidential performance becomes difficult, especially when it comes to comparing the performance among presidencies.
Even when President Reagan, didn’t make wise decisions, he took full blame for them, which made the American population trust him and gain more popularity. With his many major accomplishments in helping the American people, and putting them first, he really helped in his favor. Reagan has built up the US military to what it is now because he believed that we needed to “restore America's ability to defend itself and fulfill its responsibilities as a trustee of freedom and peace in the world” (Wild Thing, January 21, 2006). President Reagan is a man that has a heart and soul with America, and will fight for our freedoms and rights for as long as his life.
Richard Nixon and Barack Obama both served as the President of the United States during wartime. Both presidents inherited the war from their past colleagues and both wars had been going on for many years. Both presidents have resolved the wars, however, the way in which Nixon resolved the war is more for personal benefit while the way that President Obama resolved the war for benefit of the nation and its military.
Eisenhower’s dynamic conservatism now known as Modern Republicanism labeled him as a nonpartisan leader, who was fiscally conservative in reducing federal spending and socially moderate in maintaining existing social and economic legislation of the New Deal. With the policy shift of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, foreign policy in dealing with Communism went from containing it, to rolling it back. The Strategic Air Command was established as a fleet of super bombers that were equipped with nukes that would allow for massive retaliation in the place of a large standing army or navy, and the threat of massive retaliation was used to get the Soviets to surrender, and issued the Mutual Assured Destruction, where both sides knew that neither nation would declare nuclear war because it would result in total annihilation ...
During the Truman and Eisenhower administration a policy of containment served to save the free world from communism. But at times these two administrations put world peace on the line to prove its superiority as a nation. One cannot judge these events to being wrong or right because values of a nation and people change with time, we can just learn from these events and know that the next time United States has a contest of superiority it could cost us the world.
Is this a quote that you would believe to be some one that would be considered an effective visionary leader “ If you're afraid of the future, then get out of the way, stand aside. The people of this country are ready to move again.”. Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan was one of our nations most effective visionary leader of the twentieth century, evident by his vision of “beginning a era of national renewal” and his relentless pursuit for world peace and the end of the Cold War. I will begin by first explaining why I believe Reagan was an effective visional leader by his use of the Transformational Leadership style and how it reenergized US government and the American public, and then describe his ability to understand diversity and how it was the key in setting the foundation to end the Cold War and to promote world peace. To view someone as a visionary leader you might want to have a little background on them as a man or woman, lest look at Ronald Reagan as the man that became our Nations leader.