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Article: Reagan Administration (1981–1989), United States National
Security Policy
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, andSecurity
- Author:
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Reagan Administration (1981
–
1989), United States National Security Policy
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CARYN E. NEUMANN
To Ronald Reagan, national security meant battling the Soviet Union for world supremacy. Much more conservative than his predecessors, Reagan argued that international instability of the world could be traced to Moscow and he insisted that the United States needed to use military force to protect its global interests. As a result of these assumptions, the Reagan administration promoted a massive buildup of both conventional and nuclear weapons to close the gap that it presumed had developed between Soviet and American forces.
Reagan had little foreign policy expertise. A ...