Events During the Reagan Era Cold War

March 23rd, 1983: Strategic Defense Initiative/ Star Wars

A high technology missile-defense system, popularly known as Star Wars was implemented. Called for orbiting battle stations in space that could fire laser beams or other forms of concentrated energy to vaporize international missiles on lift off. Reagan described SDI as offering potential salvation from a massive nuclear nightmare. By emphasizing defense rather than offence, SDI upset 4 decades of strategic thinking about nuclear weaponry.

The 1980s: Central American Communist Insurgencies

Ronald Reagan honored the Reagan Doctrine, giving aid and support to anti-Communist insurgencies that took place in Central America. The Reagan Doctrine was implemented to oppose other countries from being influenced by the Soviet Union. Reagan’s main focus was to stop Central American from becoming communist and hoping to destroy communism. This led America after the cold war to spread capitalism to areas in Central America.

1985: Glasnost and Perestroika

Mikhail Gorbachev started reforms known as Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) to help aid the failing economy of the USSR. Glasnost was aimed to ventilate the secretiveness and repressiveness of society by introducing Free Speech and a degree of political liberty. Perestroika was intended to revive the Soviet economy by adopting many free-market practices such as the profit motive and an end to subsidized prices of the west. Gorbachev believed that one of the ways to improve the economy was to halt the arms race with the United States because 10% of Soviet defenses against the US. Then Gorbachev and President Reagan had four meetings where they ended the arms race. This then led to the end of the cold war and communist rule throughout eastern Europe.

November 9th, 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Government of East Germany stopped travel restrictions, and the wall that separated east and west Berlin was torn down. Thousands...