Dissertation discours Ronald Reagan

English

Since the middle of 1980s, United-States have large economic, military and diplomatic difficulties. They are in debt as a result of a Vietnam War lost, let the communism set up in Central America, don’t reach to resolve the crisis of hostages in the American embassy in Teheran, a crisis that will last almost 2 years, and that will demonstrate the American passivity and weakness facing Iranians. But this passivity will change with the accession to power of Ronald Reagan in 1981, which have for objective to reaffirm the American power in the world, with his slogan “America is back”. He will deliver the famous sentence during his speech on March 23, 1983 “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression”. This sentence will mark the beginning of a new era for the United-states, based on the use of the strength to the detriment of diplomacy to put an end to international conflict. We will see if strength is a necessary evil for make reign peace or on the contrary if this evil could be avoided by promoting the dialogue.

First of all, this use of strength is marked by a military rearmament aimed at dissuade all attack or all threat towards the United-States. Reagan revives for example the nuclear arms race counter USSR. We can said this action is rather effective, because that allows the United-States of become the only world superpower, exceeding the USSR, that will be dislocated in 1991.

In a second phase, the United-States intervene in a lot of conflict from the end of 1980s and especially through the UN (United Nations). They restore for example peace in Kuwait and in Eastern Europe during the Gulf War and the war of the ex-Yugoslavia, by using the strength for achieve their goals.

Nevertheless, strength is not also the solution, and this have been proved during the Vietnam War, which they lost and has resulted some erosion of their power, but also during the Afghanistan war and the Iraq War, because even if they were won by the United-States, they have caused civil Wars, accompanied by a large hostility of peoples of these countries against Americans. The use of strength has brought only the opposite of peace.

Moreover, despite the defensive armada of the United-States, they couldn’t, in no case, anticipate and prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001, indicating that the military power of United-States still has his limits.

To conclude, use of strength is sometimes necessary to arrive to the restoration of the peace, and can serve as dissuasion of all offensive, but also can have the contrary effect, showing that the dialogue and the diplomacy are elements not negligible for obtain peace.

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