Reagan Doctrine

Term used to characterize the policy of the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981–1988), which aimed to support anticommunist insurgents globally.

Ronald Reagan, who held strong anticommunist views, was elected President of the United States in November 1980. The former actor had become embroiled in disputes over the issue of communist influences on the film industry when Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-1950s.

In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Reagan reasserted his vehement anticommunist stance when he called on Congress and the American people to stand up to the Soviet Union, which Reagan termed the Evil Empire. As early as 1983, the Reagan administration had articulated a shift in U.S. policy in a series of national security directives, which identified turning back Soviet expansionism as a central priority of U.S. foreign policy.

In a policy break from the doctrine of containment established by President Harry S. Truman, Reagan sought to turn back what he termed Soviet aggression on every continent. Based on the Roll Back strategy advanced by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1950s, the Reagan Doctrine sought actively to reduce the influence of the Soviet Union beyond its borders.

Reagan differed from Dulles in that the president relied primarily on overt material support of anticommunist [Page 621]insurgents attempting to oust Soviet-backed regimes. The Reagan administration sought to rebuild the credibility of the U.S. commitment to resist Soviet encroachment on the interests of America and its allies and support third-world states willing to resist or oppose Soviet initiatives hostile to those interests.

Under the Reagan Doctrine, the Reagan administration provided overt and covert support to several anticommunist insurgents. In Nicaragua, the administration supported the Contra movement in an effort to force the leftist Sandinista government from power. In Afghanistan, the United States provided material support to Afghan rebels, known as the mujahideen, to help them end Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.