ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the foreign and security debates within the Reagan administration, one commentator concluded that they “seem[ed] to begin where they ended in the Carter administration. The left-to-right spectrum under Jimmy Carter ran from the UN delegate Andrew Young to the National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; in the Reagan administration, Brzezinski would probably find himself in most cases on the left.” To the dismay of many who had become accustomed to a decade of Nixon-Ford-Kissingerian detente and Carter “constructive restraint,” this pre-election cold war style of rhetoric did not give way to more conciliatory terminology and tone with the inauguration of the Reagan administration. “Capability” and “will,” as the essential two prerequisites for effective deterrence, containment and reversal of Soviet gains of the 1970s, were repeatedly featured in Reagan administration policy statements. Consequently, in a series of statements to the American public, Reagan administration officials prescribed a surprisingly uniform set of policy priorities.
