History
485
Devine
Spring
2011
Study
Questions for Michael Flamm, “The Reagan Presidency
and Foreign Policy
- Why did
many Americans answer “no” when Reagan asked them during the 1980
presidential election, “Is America as respected throughout the world as it
was? Do you feel that our country is safe? That we’re as strong as we were
four years ago?”
- In the
1970s and 1980s, how did liberals and conservatives differ in their views
of what America’s
role in the world should be?
- What were Reagan’s overarching principles in his conduct of
foreign affairs? How do we see him
pursuing (and sometimes compromising) these principles as he dealt with
the Soviet Union and other specific
diplomatic crises during his two terms in office?
- What was
Reagan’s strategy for hastening the collapse of Communism? What specific steps did he take to shove
the Soviet Union into the “dustbin of
history”?
- Why was
it difficult for the Reagan administration to formulate a coherent,
workable policy against terrorism – particularly in the Middle
East?
- How did
Cold War anti-communism shape (and, arguably, distort) American policy in Central America?
How did both internal instability and years of American
intervention contribute to the suffering of average people in the region?
- In
hindsight, the entire Iran-Contra affair seems like a fiasco that reveals
incredibly poor judgment and a cavalier disregard for the law on the part
of several Reagan administration officials and even the President
himself. How did the administration
get involved in this series of ill-advised decisions? Why was Reagan able to emerge from the
scandal relatively unscathed (in stark contrast to Nixon and the Watergate
scandal)? What explains the public reaction to Oliver North?
- What
roles did Reagan and Gorbachev play in bringing the cold war to an end
“without a shot being fired”? What
fundamental beliefs did each eventually have to abandon in order to reach
an agreement?
- What
legacies in foreign policy did the Reagan administration leave its
successors? How did lessons learned
during the 1980s shape the formulation of policy after 9/11?
- Should U.S. foreign policy aim to spread democracy
and fight against tyranny or should it concern itself primarily with
defending U.S.
national interests and ignore issues of morality and human rights?