19. The Reagan Doctrine led to increased tensions in the 1980s
In the early stages of the Cold War, the United States operated under the tenets of the Truman Doctrine, which called for containment of Soviet-style communism to where it already existed. Under Nixon and Ford in the 1970s the policy of détente emerged, seeking areas where cooperation could lead to mutual advantages, including the growing power of Communist China. In 1985, Ronald Reagan announced a change in American policy in the first State of the Union Address of his second term. Reagan called for a rollback of Soviet-style communism. His new policy, which called for both open and covert aid to resistance to communism wherever it appeared, was directed at diminishing the global influence of the Soviet Union. At the same time, Reagan initiated massive American defense budgets, expanded the size and power of the armed forces, and increased military aid to American allies.
Reagan’s policies led to insurgencies and guerilla wars becoming more violent and as in any war, civilian casualties increased across the globe. Under the guise of subverting communism, the United States aided opponents of perceived unfriendly governments in the Middle East, Central America, and Afghanistan, in the latter giving birth to what became the Taliban. The last decade of the Cold War was its most disastrous for the civilian populations of many countries, as the United States armed favored groups, many of whom later turned against the Americans. Reagan also threatened the stabilizing influence of the MAD policy by announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a system by which the United States could detect and destroy Soviet ICBMs before they could reach their targets, rendering the Soviets’ nuclear weapons susceptible to American destruction. The Soviets viewed SDI, nicknamed Star Wars, as dangerously destabilizing.
