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.
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Famous quotes containing the words reagan, doctrine, cold and/or war:
“No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 2:4.
The words reappear in Micah 4:3, and the reverse injunction is made in Joel 3:10 (”Beat your plowshares into swords ...”)