Reagan Doctrine

The foreign policy of President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1988. The doctrine defined the strict anticommunist stance of the Reagan administration. It supported aid against communist regimes (or those remotely perceived as such) in Third World countries. The doctrine was declared in President Reagan's State of the Union address in 1985, when he called on the citizens of the United States to defy the Soviet Union's influence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The doctrine enforced the United States' alleged responsibility to support right-wing insurgencies, such as in Nicaragua during its long and bloody war, which came to be known as the Contra War (1970–1987). And yet, despite the billionaire levels of military support, the United States failed to create a sound military force in Nicaragua. For some observers, such as Noam Chomsky, a critical voice against U.S. intervention, the Reagan doctrine against Nicaragua could be considered as state terrorism.

By the mid-1980s, it has been estimated that the United States had spent more than 1 billion dollars in military aid and more than 4 billion dollars in economic aid for the specific purpose of halting the spread of Soviet and communist influence in the Third World. In addition, the expansion of U.S. conventional forces to enhance U.S. regional intervention capabilities was undertaken

Economic pressure on the Soviet economy was also used in the war against left-wing partisans. To this end, the United States' European allies were encouraged (not always with success) to withdraw from existing commit ments and abolish the favorable credit arrangements previously carried out with the Soviet Union. Arguably, the Soviet Union's collapse was due in part to its effort to keep up with American military spending while not having the gross national product to support such defense expenditures. For more information, see Chomsky and Achcar (2006), Lagon (1994), and Reagan Doctrine (1985).