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President Reagan’s Soviet Policies

President Ronald Reagan is credited with ending the Cold War. When he first took office, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were very strained. He famously referred to as an “evil empire.” The diplomatic relations between the two countries were virtually non-existent. However, Mikhail Gorbachev took over the Soviet Union during Reagan’s second term, and there came drastic changes that finally led to the end of the cold war. Reagan was willing to work with Gorbachev as he realized that the new Soviet leader was a revolutionary whose policies would serve American interests.

Gorbachev’s policies include ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika.’ Glasnost referred to openness and transparency in areas such as the judiciary and freedom of the press, while perestroika meant economic reforms within the Soviet Union (Bilsland). The Soviet Union and the West had long been engaged in a zero-sum competition, and Gorbachev was determined to steer away from such pointless competition. President Reagan made efforts to engage Gorbachev to show that the two countries stood to benefit from an end to the Cold War. The two leaders came together in November of 1985 in a historic meeting in Geneva. Reagan had a strong dislike for communism, and thus he was determined to support Gorbachev and his dream for a democratic Soviet Union.

President Reagan can best be termed as a minor partner to Gorbachev in putting an end to the Cold War. Reagan went into the meeting with Gorbachev with several reforms in his mind. These included bringing an end to communism, abolishing nuclear weapons and ending the Cold War (Bilsland). Reagan was lucky to find in Gorbachev a revolutionary and visionary leader who already had a clear dream for the Soviet Union. Reagan’s willingness to work with Gorbachev can hardly be termed altruistic; he was looking out for the interests of the United States.

Works Cited

Bilsland, James. The President, the State and the Cold War: Comparing the foreign policies of Truman and Reagan. Routledge, 2015.