The Reagan administration - Essay Example

The Reagan administration Introduction After the Second World War, seven administrations that preceded Reagan administration were quite sceptical about security. Each president learnt form the mistakes of their predecessors and enacted policies geared towards top security and peace in the US. Since 1947, National Security Council (NSC) board was elected with the leadership of the existing president with the aim of coordinating foreign policies. NSC could collect data from various departments of the government, analyse it, and present it to the president to make the best decision. Between the periods January 20 1981 to January 20 1989, Ronald Reagan served as a president of the United States. His presidency also known as Reagan administration had a great impact on the economy of the US especially after enactment of Reaganomics in 1981. This paper examines and evaluates the defence and foreign policy views and actions of the Reagan administration. Reagan Administration At the time Cater who preceded Reagan was leaving power, NSC was a prime source of foreign affairs information. This role of a public advocate other than a custodian caused dispute and poor relationships between the state and other departments (White House Web). When Reagan joined power, just like his friends, he was torn between who will play the role of giving foreign affairs policies. He chose to downgrade NSC by his use of collegial approach to decision making and promoted chief of the staff to perform the coordinating role. He did this to curb the existing rivalry between the department of state and NSC (White House Web). Reagan had no prior know how in politics, foreign policy, or national security. Despite this limitation, Reagan’s passion to master US policy and communism based on his personal experience led to his great leadership. His adherence to anticommunist ideology saw the end of cold war, which he regarded as a fight between right and wrong between the west and the soviet unions. Reagan Doctrine worked to reverse the soviet nations of the third world. His argument was that the unrest and the cold war in the third world had its roots in Soviet Union other than in factors like poverty or corruption that existed and caused it. According to Bellows free Academy, Relations between the US and the Soviet nations deteriorated after Reagan took over and arms talk broke down. He failed to see the root cause of the unrest in the soviet worlds and formed alliances with antirevolutionary regimes, which were quite unreasonable (Bellows Free Academy Web). To fight communism in the soviet states Reagan increased defensive spending from $134 Billion to $ 253 billion. He did this to avoid nuclear blackmail and to maintain strategic balance threatened by modernisation of soviet states. In increasing defensive spending, Reagan’s target was to hit the economy of the soviet nations, which he thought would fluctuate with the US economy, make them bankrupt, and recover America’s negotiating power. Reagan’s strategy was to give military support to the third world guerrilla movements that fought against soviet communism and destroy its superpower. For instance, US supported Afghanistan Mujahideen in an effort to drive Soviets out of Afghanistan. He supported other anticommunist groups in Africa, Asia, and Nicaragua and in other parts of the world. However, this did not happen immediately as the soviet nations devised counter measures to defend their missiles and their space based weaponry. After Reagan left office, Soviet super power fell and so he is attributed to its falling and to the end on cold war. Reagan is one man who had two sides as a coin since he managed to maintain his ideological policies and at the same time practised pragmatism. This is not common to leaders who hold on to ideological beliefs. For instance, he applied his anticommunist ideology on Soviet states excluding China. During his time, major economic decisions and policies sought to remedy the high inflation and recession of the 1970’s. Reaganomics called for reduction in taxes, government spending, and formulated a monetary policy that prohibited the growth in the money supply. To ensure that the programmes and the policies passed are in place, Reagan’s administration implemented it. These policies had a small fault in them because during this time, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid grew uncontrollably. There was something controversial about these policies in that after they were passed in 1981, US underwent great recession for two years inflation falling from 13.5% to 3.2 %. However, in the third year in 1983, economy of the US started to boom that remained until Reagan’s reign in 1989. Reaganomics based their idea on trickle-down theory and supply side economics that suggests a reduction of corporation taxes stimulates economic growth creating employment. In the name of protecting American corporate world against revolutionary nationalism, Reagan rejected Law of the Sea Treaty to enhance his victory (Bellows Free Academy Web). His approach was through superpower dialogue that saw the holding of Geneva Summit in the 1985. Conclusion In conclusion, Reagan’s defence and policy views made US make a great step forward. He managed to pass special policies that boost the economy of the US from 1983 to 1989 when he left office. This he did through reduction of taxes from the corporate companies than caused a fall in the cost of production boosting production and expanding companies. He also reduced on the spending other than the defence spending, which he used to with the soviet states with. However, some of his foreign policies did not work well since they brought great collision between the US and the third world who believed that US caused the cold War they were experiencing. To date Reagan administration is still present in the US since the administrations after him adapted his heavy spending on defence. This is in the absence of any threat but at the expense of taxpayer’s money. On the other hand, Reagan’s actions are still present to date in the third world countries whose economy is in shambles because of his actions back them. Works Cited Bellows Free Academy. “Chapter 31: Disaster and Détente - The Cold War, Vietnam, and the Third World 1961-1989” Web, 03 May 2012. White House, “History of the National Security Council, 1947-1997” Web, 03 May 2012. Read More