Discuss unitedn state foreign policy in the 1970's,1980's?

Question

and 1990's? what were some of the big changes during these decades?explain?

Answer 1

Sounds like homework

Answer 2

In the 1970s and 1980s, the foreign policy of the United States was still dominated by concerns over the Soviet Union and the expansion of Communism. Specifically, in the 1970s the United States was acting largely on the policy of Mutual Coexistence from Eisenhower/Khrushchev and then Detente from Nixon-Ford/Brezhnev. This period was largely proxy wars fought between third countries (Arab-Israeli, Algeria-France, etc) and punctuated with boisterous but largely ineffective summits and agreements between the two powers. During the term of President Carter, the relationship began to grow more uncomfortable as the Soviet Union directly invaded Afghanistan and the US began not-too-secret support for the resistance.

Under President Reagan in the 1980s, the relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union became intentionally much more contentious, as the new policy of the USA was no longer merely to contain Communism, but to actively push back on its frontiers. The USA began intense harassment of the Soviet Union and its satellites, the active snubbing of the Soviets by an end to summit conferences, renewed trade sanctions, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), etc. This was particularly successful because of a series of either dead or dying leaders in Moscow, whose economy could not cope with the demands of the new Arms Race with the USA.

In 1989 the Warsaw Pact dissolved and in 1990 the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the USA with no clear foreign policy strategy through two Presidencies (Bush and Clinton), which in large part allowed the unfettered growth of Islamic Extremism as a stateless coalition that would make itself known in 1999 with various attacks around the world and culminating in 2001 with the 9/11 attacks.

Which leads us to the Bush Doctrine of active defense through the offensive projection of American power overseas.