Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War

Abstract

This work addresses key questions relating to the end of the Cold War. Contemporary wisdom suggests that Ronald Reagan’s policies beat the Soviet Union into submission, but this is not the case. Reagan’s initial policies were antagonistic towards the Soviet Union and his devotion to SDI later harmed his ability to establish relations with Michail Gorbachev later on. This thesis argues that it was George H.W. Bush, rather than Reagan, who was the more influential and effective President when dealing with the Soviet Union. Bush’s diplomacy was less idealized and more realistic than Reagan’s. Additionally, Bush was able to successfully negotiate actual arms reductions.

A second argument of this thesis is that Gorbachev deserves much of the credit of bringing the Cold War to a close. Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to challenge the ideology that undergirded the Cold War. However, while Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet Union, he ultimately ended up expediting its dissolution. While the collapse of the Soviet Union was the result of multiple forces, it happened when it did largely because of Gorbachev. However, it is important to point out that the collapse did not directly cause the Cold War’s end. Rather, both events were influenced by similar factors. The war ended sometime after 1989 but before the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991.

This thesis draws on key meetings between Reagan, Bush, and Gorbachev, as well as other primary source documents. It also draws on the work of other historians on the three figures, the end of the Cold War, and collapse of the Soviet Union. My goals are twofold: to challenge historical understandings of the Cold War that revolve heavily around Reagan as well as to explore the connection between the conflict’s end and the Soviet Union’s collapse.