The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration from 1981 to 1989 was characterized by a strategy of “peace through strength.” Critics label Reagan’s policies as aggressive, imperialistic, and “warmongering”; however, these policies were supported by leading American conservatives who argued they were necessary to protect U.S. security interests. While Ronald Reagan worked to restrict the influence of the federal government in people’s lives, he simultaneously pursued interventionist policies abroad as part of a global Cold War strategy. Eager to cure the United States of “Vietnam Syndrome,” he increased the American stockpile of weapons and aided anti-Communist groups in the Caribbean and Central America. As part of the policies that became known as the Reagan Doctrine, the United States also offered financial and logistical support to the anti-communist opposition in central Europe, and took an increasingly hard line against socialist and communist governments in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua.Reagan escalated the Cold War during his presidency, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente that began in 1979, following the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces and implemented new policies toward the Soviet Union. He revived the B-1 Lancer program that had been canceled by the Carter administration, and began producing the MX missile. In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) deployment of the Pershing missile in West Germany.
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