Reagan Doctrine and The Cold War's End
As arms flowed to the contras, Savimbi's UNITA and the mujahideen, the Reagan Doctrine's advocates argued that the doctrine was yielding constructive results for U.S. interests and global democracy.
In Nicaragua, pressure from the Contras led the Sandinstas to end the State of Emergency, and they subsequently lost the 1990 elections. In Afghanistan, the mujahideen bled the Soviet Union's military and paved the way for Soviet military defeat. In Angola, Savimbi's resistance ultimately led to a decision by the Soviet Union and Cuba to bring their troops and military advisors home from Angola as part of a negotiated settlement. In Cambodia, the Vietnamese withdrew and their allied government collapsed.
All of these developments were Reagan Doctrine victories, the doctrine's advocates argue, laying the ground for the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union.
However, there is considerable disagreement over the importance of Reagan's role in the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Read more about this topic: Reagan Doctrine
Famous quotes containing the words reagan, doctrine, cold and/or war:
“We should declare war on North Vietnam.... We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)
“We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,—a narrow belt.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Then down came the lid—the day was lost, for art, at Sarajevo. World-politics stepped in, and a war was started which has not ended yet: a “war to end war.” But it merely ended art. It did not end war.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)