Reagan's Foreign Policy: Doctrine, Coercion, and Cold War Strategy

Introduction: Vietnam's Shadow and Reagan's Vision

Before the disastrous Vietnam War, the United States held an undisputed dominant position worldwide, recognized domestically as well as by other nations. The nation's historic actions in defense of freedom — restraining the fascist powers during the Second World War and subsequently organizing a large coalition of free states to combat communism — were supported by a profound and sweeping domestic consensus. That consensus was destroyed by America's decision to wage war in Vietnam. Despite the stated rationale of protecting free peoples from communism, the Vietnam War produced caustic doubt and destabilizing discord among Americans. This suspicion and discord — incited and guided by opponents of the war rather than by the enemy's weaponry and determination — explains America's failure above every other factor. The U.S. had to battle internal resistance more than resistance from the Vietnamese adversary, resulting in a self-inflicted defeat (Brenes 2015; Larison 2013).

The repercussions of that defeat were extremely serious. The most damaging was the transformation in how Americans viewed their own nation. In the dominant narrative of American failure, one can identify the principal reason for the resultant decline in the nation's global position and power. A ubiquitous cynicism arose regarding both the effectiveness of American power and the manner in which it should be exercised. Moreover, where the effectiveness of American power was not questioned, its legitimacy was. The outcome of this distrust surfaced clearly during the 1970s, when America's international standing became more tenuous than at any point since the Second World War.

The above discussion explicitly frames Ronald Reagan's standpoint with respect to the Vietnam War and its repercussions, prior to his election as President. Reagan's declaration during his 1980 presidential campaign that Vietnam had been a "noble cause" was a faithful representation of a widely, steadily, and long-held belief. There is no reason to doubt the depth of Reagan's concern over the Vietnam War, just as there is no reason to doubt his conviction that the United States' position and power would continue to erode until the nation overcame what he termed the "Vietnam syndrome." That syndrome rendered the restoration of domestic consensus — and hence the reaffirmation of American power — impossible (Tucker 1989). This was seemingly confirmed by the foreign policies enacted by the three successive U.S. administrations of the 1970s. Each policy represented an effort to formulate and implement a foreign policy preserving national interests while simultaneously remaining within the tight limits Vietnam had imposed. These attempts, born of necessity, largely led to failure.

Consequently, the foremost issue to tackle was that of American public opinion. When he assumed the presidency, Ronald Reagan gave precedence to the necessity of renewed faith in — and a revamped vision of — America and its role in world politics and peace, placing this even above the priority of rearmament. There was an urgent need to restore confidence and national pride, an impossible goal as long as citizens' consciousness was dominated by the prevailing narrative of disaster in Vietnam. Beyond this, the nation had to achieve an economic revival, deriving strength from a rededication to free-market principles (Podhoretz 1985). Lastly, the crucial work of rearmament would have to be carried out on this refurbished economic foundation. The lofty foreign policy goals for whose achievement the nation sought a reconstructed domestic foundation appeared sufficiently clear. The Reagan administration's foreign policy was geared toward checking — and even reversing — the deterioration of America's status and role in the world; restoring the credibility of American power and the legitimacy of exercising that power abroad; curbing the steady growth of Soviet influence that had been apparent throughout the 1970s; and, if possible, eventually placing the Soviet government on the defensive.

Reagan's Strategic Objectives and the Containment Question

Did this mean the U.S. government aimed to revert to the foreign policy implemented in the years prior to the Vietnam intervention? The 40th President of the United States provided no explicit answer to this question. Nevertheless, in many respects, the logic of global containment appeared to underpin Reagan's position as well. Support for a reviving United States devoted to opposing Soviet expansion and the broader dominance of communist powers indicated a stance indistinguishable from global containment. Initially, however, Reagan could leave the subject in abeyance and concentrate on domestic restoration.

With the benefit of hindsight, the world can now recognize that, beyond these general goals, there was another and greater objective inherent in the ideas Ronald Reagan brought to the presidency. This objective was nothing less than a transformation of the key conditions defining America's security in the postwar era (Gelb and Lake 1985; Smith 1988). One of those conditions sprang from the Soviet acquisition of strategic nuclear missile capability sufficient to strike the United States. Another ensued from the Soviet Union's expanded capacity for global military intervention.

The U.S. government responded to the former condition through mutual deterrence. Officially codified in the strategic U.S.-Soviet arms agreements of 1972, mutual deterrence implied that America was now, in a literal sense, a captive of Soviet intentions and power — just as the Soviet Union was a captive of American intentions and power. No development since the Second World War was as significant as this. Mutual deterrence signified a drastic transformation in America's security posture. It represented a fresh and important limitation on the scope of America's earlier freedom of action, tied the fate of the United States to that of its greatest rival in an unprecedented manner, and appreciably complicated the nation's strategic standing, which was heavily reliant on the credibility of the security guarantees it extended to its chief allies (Smith 1988).

Mutual Deterrence and the Soviet Threat

Reagan voiced his opposition to the concept of mutual deterrence on several occasions during the 1970s. His perspective was broadly comparable to those of politicians commonly identified as right-wing. For several years, such politicians had questioned mutual deterrence on strategic, political, and moral grounds. Intervening developments only reinforced this opposition. At the time of Reagan's electoral victory, political, technological, and strategic developments seemed to strengthen the critique considerably. Technological developments played a particularly significant role in this regard (Anderson 1990). From the outset, Reagan's administration hinted that it would not accept a fate defined by mutual deterrence. However, no clear strategy for escaping that predicament was immediately articulated.

Nor was it immediately clear how Reagan's administration would endeavor to address the second condition defining U.S. security. The development of Soviet global intervention capacity was viewed by many as a major challenge to the original promise of the containment policy. The right wing, of course, believed the policy had never truly shown promise. At its best, containment was perceived to be excessively defensive and incapable of offering a firm prospect of satisfactorily resolving the central conflict. At its worst, it was perceived as merely defeatist. President Reagan repeatedly raised both criticisms, particularly the argument that a containment policy, when applied, would inevitably fall short of being genuinely global (Armstrong and Grier 1986).

It is important to approach this section bearing two considerations in mind. Firstly, the case summaries presented here are intended to summarize the facts and should not be regarded as detailed analyses — comparative case studies are characterized by an inevitable trade-off between generality and depth. Secondly, evaluations of success and failure are performed with awareness of the complexities of net assessment and attribution. An attempt has been made to consider societal, economic, and political costs regardless of whether policy goals were accomplished. It is also acknowledged that American policy can never be the sole force operating in any given situation and should therefore neither be over-blamed for failure nor over-credited for success (Smith 1988).

Conclusion: Evaluating Reagan's Foreign Policy Legacy

Initially, the Truman Doctrine also ostensibly required modest resources and goal subordination to prudence. Yet the policy swiftly evolved into a global containment policy that was neither moderate in its means nor judicious in its calculations. This same evolution might plausibly visit any doctrine that proclaims a new vision of global order with democratic systems and procedures as its central condition. Any policy that practices prudence and limits its means risks appearing disloyal to the new order and to its central value of freedom. No less than international containment — anchored in a resolve to defend a continuous network of interests — Reagan Doctrine-governed policies may be unable to discriminate among competing interests, or to accept the possibility of occasionally failing to defend those interests, and may prove even less capable of equating freedom with national interest.

The critique of the Reagan Doctrine, though not directly relevant to current policy, may one day regain relevance. The Reagan administration did not implement the doctrine in a manner consistent with its most distinguishing rhetorical contribution — a full-throated campaign against communism. Rather, the distinctive feature of policy under the Doctrine was actually the restraint and caution that characterized it. The resources devoted to the policy were barely adequate to the ideological ambitions suggested by the doctrine-formulators' rhetoric — and this held true even with respect to the Nicaraguan case, which had provided the immediate occasion for the Doctrine's articulation.

The regional cases examined above also illustrate why and how governmental reformation lacks legitimacy on the world stage. In Lebanon, the United States forfeited its initial legitimacy after shifting from the role of honest peacemaker to forceful advocate of President Gemayel. In the Nicaraguan context, Reagan's policy could never have secured adequate international legitimacy. Western allies, the United Nations, and Central American nations all rejected the goal of toppling the Sandinistas and the broader principle that self-determination could be selectively applied only to political systems unilaterally deemed acceptable by the United States. Lastly, domestic constraints — particularly regarding the Nicaraguan policy — should be understood as substantive policy commentaries rather than mere procedural obstacles. It was not that the American people, Congress, or State Department officials would prevent the president from employing military force at any cost. One may even argue that those actors demonstrated a more pragmatic, discriminating, and strategically sophisticated grasp of policy than did Reagan's own administration. Yet even setting those policy judgments aside, broad political support is not readily forthcoming for efforts aimed at destabilizing, overthrowing, or remaking a foreign government. This cannot be dismissed as systemic dysfunction. Rather, it is the expected outcome of politics under the American system — characterized by checks and balances, separation of powers, and public deliberation over the direction of national policy.

One cannot deny that this constitutes a genuine dilemma. The nature of the governments maintained by other states — especially neighboring ones — does indeed affect the American people and their interests. Nevertheless, alternative foreign policy approaches are essential. The concept of coercive diplomacy has broad scope and inherent limitations. Recognizing both simultaneously, and neither in isolation, is vital to a genuinely practical foreign policy.