History - Essay Example

History Introduction Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 49th president of the US (Jan 20 1981 to Jan 19 1989). As the president, Reagan managed to achieve quite a number of things such as generating an alliance to discontinue the Cold War and lifting the nation’s military industry out of the dejection of the Vietnam War. Reagan prevented Americans from paying more in terms of tax and managed to raise quite a number of people out of their poverty level. Reagan’s administration had defense and foreign policy outlooks and actions that presented dissimilar domestic and international outcomes. Reagan’s leadership did not favor everyone in terms of tax diminution; this is clearly shown in the dissimilar incomes earned by Americans. Middle class families gained one percent from the tax reduction, while affluent Americans saw a rise in their income by 9%. Regan assisted a number of countries in defeating their competitors in terms of war. As much as Reagan managed to realize a number of things, he botched to see to it that everyone was favored from his changes in leadership. It is quite apparent that his tax regulation favored affluent families than the underprivileged. With these changes, he gained popularity nationally and internationally, most of which was critics from people who did not support his governing style. Reagan made it his mission to redefine the Soviet Union; he referred to this union as evil and decided to form a defense union that interfered with the existing Americas budget at that time. He excessively spent on defense, in terms of the militants’ upgrade of the equipments they used and the rationalized forces involved in the military. Given the fact that Reagan had cut the cost of taxes, this new expenditure made it unattainable for the government to have an impartial budget. The augment in budget coupled with his anti-soviet campaign only managed to bring more debts to America since Americans could not assist as their tax contribution had been cut down. The debt incurred had to be transferred somewhere and it ended up being transferred to the government. This led to Americans experiencing hardships in terms of their livelihood, since they had to work more as their situation was not affable for development profession wise. Reagan encouraged the growth of clandestine segment initiatives. He anticipated being able to reassign some of the responsibilities from the federal government to the private sectors. This initiative led to quite a number of developments in the country and in states. People enhanced their livelihood and spontaneous services; there was domestic competition that created the growth of other private sectors. In domestic developments, Reagan got a lot of credit on that; he was productive and future oriented (Knopf, 200). As much as Reagan’s action of stopping the Vietnam War helped the US in maintaining peace, it welcomed a number of new attacks in its territory. The members of the Soviet Union consequently bombed an aircraft carrying Americans; the country also faced new attacks from Iran and Lebanon. In light to this, many Americans who formed the military groups demised in the process of defending their country. This led to antagonism between USA, the Arab countries, and some third world countries such as Libya. The Americans had to watch their backs constantly because their country was no longer peaceful. The Arabs and Lebanon’s were lurking around waiting to belt at any given chance. Reagan did not gain total favor nationally; this is with regard to the tax discrepancy in the incomes of Americans. This only managed to create a bridge between Americans, with some seeing themselves as superior especially the ones with a 9% reduction in terms of tax and others with a one percent reduction in terms of tax seeing them as inferior. The two parties could not correlate peacefully because both of them saw themselves in dissimilar societal classes. Reagan enhanced the gap between the underprivileged and rich Americans. His administration managed to form a movement in Europe that looked into ending the epoch of nuclear weapons buildups. In America, the principle goal of the movement was on nuclear freeze, and an agreement between Europe and America for them not to expand their atomic armories. The American populace countered this by taking into mass demonstration, and with this, the administration began cautious efforts to revitalize arms control negotiations. This led to a new era of peace between Europe and America and between Lebanon and Israel. Reagan started as an example of ending the war between the two countries by retreating American forces from the Lebanese’s struggle. America’s involvement with Israel by assisting them with firearms and giving military backing to help Israelites triumph over Lebanon made America prone to attacks by Lebanon. This was clearly experienced in the series of attacks in the 1960’s on American planes and cruise ships. These attacks only angered Reagan and he resorted to making Lebanon pay; he prearranged American planes to bombard sites in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. His vengeance only led to unrelenting attacks on the US territory and antagonism between America and Lebanon. Terrorism was therefore intricate to control, because when one side succeeded in restraining from war the other side aggravated the country that had restrained into war. Reagan gained popularity with some people seeing his defects as the unique features that are associated with him, while others who benefited in his reign seeing his charitable side. With the involvement of the US forces in international wars, some countries started seeing America as a catalyst in terms of war. Reagan’s aim was to restore the dignity and respect America had as a nation, and reclaim the economy. This was different since at the start of his reign he somehow managed to achieve this, but as time passed by he failed to accomplish many things, that led people to see America as a normal country and not as a super power as many countries envisioned it internationally. Conclusion Reagan, as a leader, did not manage to stop the cold war as he intended to, but he took credit in quite a number of things like disarming countries and forming peaceful negotiations between fighting countries. As the 49th American president, he paved the way for the 50th American president who was George W. Bush. Some of the things that Reagan did not manage to accomplish Bush accomplished them for him. Bush cannot take all the credit because he did not accomplish everything, in terms of development in America and tax deduction on Americans. Work Cited Knopf, Jeffrey. Domestic Society and International Cooperation: The Impact of Protest on Us Arms Control Policy. Cambridge [u.a. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998. Print. Read More