The Reagan Doctrine was stated by United States President Ronald Reagan in his State of the Union address on February 6, 1985: "We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth." It was a strategy implemented by the Reagan Administration to overwhelm the global influence of the Soviet Union in the late Cold War. The doctrine was a centerpiece of United States foreign policy from the early 1980s until the end of the Cold War in 1991.
U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983
President Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983
The U.S.-supported Nicaraguan contras.
U.S.-supported UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, his presidency constituted the Reagan era, and he is considered one of the most prominent conservative figures in American history.
Official portrait, 1981
Dark Victory (1939)
Reagan at Fort Roach, between 1943 and 1944
Reagan and Jane Wyman, 1942