Answer

Kennedy and the Cold War and Detente and the Reagan Presidency

Question 1: President Kennedy and Cold War

President John F. Kennedy and the communist were involved in high tension during the Cold War. His main idea was to strengthen the America Military forces and stop the Soviet Union from spreading the communism. John F Kennedy had served in the cold war and was elected as the leader of the united states during Cold war.

John F Kennedys foreign policy administration was directed towards cold war, he also had military plans in Europe, Asia and the Latin America.  The USA and the Soviet fought for allies in the second Word War, just before the cold war. After the second world war, USA began making new allies in order to reduce the spread of communism. John F Kennedy adopted the plan of Eisenhower administration to reduce the spread of communism to other nations. The plan was to train the Cuban citizens who were on exile so that they could go back and invade their homeland and overthrow the Castro’s government.  The plan failed and some of the forces were murdered while others were captured.

In addition, Kennedy started the Peace Corps and the volunteers of peace corps sought to promote the social and the economic condition of the allies. The volunteers travelled to the allied countries and offered various services like training the allies on speaking English to ensure that they did not fall in the trap of communists. JFK speculated that Fidel Castrol could influence the Latin America into joining communist revolution. The United States of America also used the financial aid to improve their influence in Latin America.

John F Kennedy in 1963 commanded Americans to drop their beliefs and myths behind the cold war. He advocated a peaceful and a safer world to live in.  As a result of this, the tension of war reduced and the treaty was put in place to reduce the nuclear testing. The treaties were quickly negotiated and signed. The decision of JFK led to escalation of arms race. Following the Eisenhower’s plan, President Kennedy allowed the 500 troops to be sent south Vietnam along with senior military advisers to help the government achieve its agenda. Before that, Eisenhower had sent over 700 American soldiers to South Vietnam. By the end of JFKs time in office, there were over 1600 troops in Vietnam who were sent to help fight against communism.

Question 2: Détente and the renewal of Cold War tensions in the early years of the Reagan presidency

There was a period of relaxation during the cold war, this period was referred period. to as détente period. The détente period took various forms which included the increasing talks on arms control. The decade of détente proud great improvements in terms of relationship between the super powers, but by the end of the decade, the relationship declined and the two parties went back to confrontation. The détente had let to peaceful agreement on arms control and security in Europe which include the signing of the treaty of nuclear and nonproliferation and the antiballistic missile treaty and the Helsinki final act.

The decline of the détente negatively affected the progress of arms control. The opposing parties had different views of what was meant by the détente. The competition between USA and the Soviet Union made it untenable for the agreement between them. The arms control agreement stopped and in 1980 and was raised when Soviet Union got a new leader, that is Mikhail Gorbachev. Ronald Reagan heralded the new era of cold war politic when he got into power in the year 1981. Immediately he got into power, he made his intention towards the soviet and the communist clear that they will not be tolerated. His main purpose was to retain the glory of the America as the super power by stranding up to its opponents like the Soviet Union. He brought to an end the period of détente and introduced an aggressive approach of handling the opponents. President Reagan brought back the Truman Doctrine and policies of containment, he advocated for the removal of the communist control of some countries other than containing their spread.

Reagan’s main interest was to introduce the ‘Reagan Doctrine’ which involves the introduction of the aggressive policy which ensured the return to containment and the fostering and support of anti-Soviet forces. He assisted various groups that were opposing the Soviet Union in Nicaragua Central America, the Middle East, Grenada and Africa. His approach faced both opposition and support with others claiming that he neglected the human rights, legality and dictators in the faced of fighting the communism. His policies generally assumed that Soviet Union represented a danger to the USA and that his administration should respond by hardline attitude. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the leader of Russia. His policies of openness and reconstruction helped reform the struggling Russia while his attempts to openly seek arm reduction and reduce cold war tension played essential role in ending the cold war. The policies of Gorbachev and President Reagan were very different. Reagan renewed Cold War. Reagan renewed the cold war tensions with his policies of aggression. Gorbachev initiated peace and disarmament discussions and this convinced Reagan to begin negotiations. The success of disarmament improved the relationship between the two superpowers thus ending Cold war.