POL300 Assignment 2
Assignment 2: Current Events and U.S. Diplomacy
William Langley
POL 300
Dr. Angela Agboli-Esedebe
Mar 08, 2015
1. Reagan’s doctrine was based on the 1950’s Rollback policy of John Foster Dulles rather than the Containment policy of the Truman administration. This was an effort to stop and later reverse Soviet aggress
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Reagan officials would include an offensive component to containment that was at least as clear—and more wide-ranging—than anything that policy had authorized during the early Cold War. Secretary of State George Shultz, similar to Secretary John Foster Dulles before him, spoke of "rolling back" Soviet advancements, bringing back those nations and peoples for democracy. Shultz vowed to do so in a new setting, where Moscow was a global power dedicated to the safeguarding of communist regimes. That Soviet arrogance, known as the Brezhnev Doctrine—a 1968 statement by Premier Leonid Brezhnev proclaiming the permanent socialist gains—was abomination to Reagan, "an arrogant pretension," as he termed it, "that we must face up to."
3. Upon becoming President, Reagan moved quickly to undermine Soviet efforts to subdue the government of Afghanistan, which the Soviet Army had invaded in 1979.
Islamic mujahideen guerrillas were covertly supported and trained, and backed in their jihad against the occupying Soviets by the CIA. The agency sent billions of dollars in military aid to the guerrillas, in what came to be known as "Charlie Wilson 's War".
One of the CIA 's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani ISI in a program called Operation Cyclone. Somewhere between $2–$20 billion in U.S. funds were funneled into the country to equip troops with weapons. No Americans trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen. The skittish CIA had fewer than 10 operatives in
William Langley
POL 300
Dr. Angela Agboli-Esedebe
Mar 08, 2015
1. Reagan’s doctrine was based on the 1950’s Rollback policy of John Foster Dulles rather than the Containment policy of the Truman administration. This was an effort to stop and later reverse Soviet aggress
Th
Reagan officials would include an offensive component to containment that was at least as clear—and more wide-ranging—than anything that policy had authorized during the early Cold War. Secretary of State George Shultz, similar to Secretary John Foster Dulles before him, spoke of "rolling back" Soviet advancements, bringing back those nations and peoples for democracy. Shultz vowed to do so in a new setting, where Moscow was a global power dedicated to the safeguarding of communist regimes. That Soviet arrogance, known as the Brezhnev Doctrine—a 1968 statement by Premier Leonid Brezhnev proclaiming the permanent socialist gains—was abomination to Reagan, "an arrogant pretension," as he termed it, "that we must face up to."
3. Upon becoming President, Reagan moved quickly to undermine Soviet efforts to subdue the government of Afghanistan, which the Soviet Army had invaded in 1979.
Islamic mujahideen guerrillas were covertly supported and trained, and backed in their jihad against the occupying Soviets by the CIA. The agency sent billions of dollars in military aid to the guerrillas, in what came to be known as "Charlie Wilson 's War".
One of the CIA 's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants. The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani ISI in a program called Operation Cyclone. Somewhere between $2–$20 billion in U.S. funds were funneled into the country to equip troops with weapons. No Americans trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen. The skittish CIA had fewer than 10 operatives in
References: Crile, George (2003). Charlie Wilson 's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. Global Issues (1992-07-19). Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War — Global Issues. Globalissues.org. Retrieved 2014-04-14. Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, Jack Matlock (2004). The Cold War: A New History, John Lewis Gaddis (2005). The Reagan Doctrine at U.S. Department of State. State.gov. Retrieved 2014-04-14. Victory: The Reagan Administration 's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Peter Schweizer.