Idea Factor In The U.S. Policy Toward The Soviet Union In Reagan's Administration

It is a historical necessity that the Cold War ended as a kind of condition and a stage. But the problems are why and when the Cold War ended at what kind of mode? The view of traditional argued that the U.S. just only played a passive role in this process while "the New Thinking" expounded by Gorbachev is the really reason of the end of the Cold War. The United States only made simple reaction with the change happened in the Soviet Union. Actually, Reagan government began to adjust the policy to the Soviet Union in 1984 in which his address on 16, January, 1984 was the mark of the policy change. At a degree, it was the adjustment and the conception of great power relations that accelerate the Soviet Union's change, lead to formation of the "New Thinking" and cause the radical change of relationship between the Soviet Union and the U.S. at the late of the Cold War and the end of the Cold War.This thesis chose the U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union as main analysis object in which the policies was divided into two parts at the basis of Reagan's address and probing how the recognizing elements like conception prejudice and it's change affect the U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union.The thesis was divided into five parts in which the first one is introduction, the last one is conclusion and the rest are key parts of this thesis.In part two, I think the U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union looks like a kind of conservative phenomenon in the first two years of Reagan government. The knowledge judgement to the Soviet Union's threat consisted of one of the important recognizing elements of the Regan government. There are three points about the recognizing elements, the first is how to get to know the development orientation of the Soviet Union , the second is how to recognize the Soviet Union 's attack intention and it's threat to the U.S., the last is how to know about the actual strength of the U.S. and the relationship between the Soviet Union and the U.S. The relationship betweenthe Soviet Union and the U.S. at the early of 1980 became deteriorate because of the idea prejudice.In part three, I argued that the Regan's policy toward the Soviet Union has changed a lot on object and strategy from Regan's address in 1984. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of transformation about one country's foreign policy. One is for new government and new leader, the other is that the current government choose to change the foreign policy on his own. New leader has different views about the foreign policy. But for the current government, some elements may actuate them to evaluate foreign policy in which is related with the leader's recognizing change. So this part will analysis how the U.S. change it's idea and why this change happened.In part four, I think the directly reason of the end of the Cold War was that Gorbachev proposed "the New Thinking" which brought about many consequences, but we can't neglect the Reagan's policy to the Soviet Union and their conception interaction behind the historical phenomenon. It is a round way process not a one way that western countries and the Soviet Union change their foreign policies. This process is of mutual enhance and mutual acceleration and of redefine interests and mutual restriction. So the great power relations transformed because of the interaction. This part will mainly analysis the impact of "public diplomacy" to the thoughts of the Soviet people.