The most serious consequence of the collapse of détente and the failure of the SALT II Treaty (judged by Reagan as “seriously flawed”) appeared to be an acceleration of the arms race between the superpowers. Liberal critics feared that Reagan would unleash a new arms race; his supporters asserted that the Soviets had never stopped racing even during the era of SALT. Reagan waffled on arms policy, however, because of stiff domestic and European opposition to the abandonment of arms control. Programs to upgrade the three elements of strategic deterrence were approved only after being cut back, yet they drew complaints from the Soviet Union that the highly accurate MX missile, the new Poseidon nuclear submarines, and air-launched cruise missiles for the B-52 force were first-strike weapons. A serious NATO worry stemmed from Soviet deployment of the new SS-20 theatre ballistic missile in Europe. In 1979 the Carter administration had acceded to the request by NATO governments that the United States introduce 572 Pershing II and cruise missiles into Europe to balance the 900 SS-20s. The European antinuclear movement, however, now officially patronized by the British Labour Party, the Greens in West Germany, and Dutch and Belgian social democrats, forced Reagan to link Pershing deployment with intermediate nuclear forces (INF) talks with the U.S.S.R. Reagan tried to seize the moral high ground with his “zero-option” proposal for complete elimination of all such missiles from Europe and a call for new Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) to negotiate real reductions in the superpower arsenals. The Soviets, however, refused to scrap any of their long-range missiles or to trade existing SS-20s for Pershings yet to be deployed.

In March 1983, Reagan announced a major new research program to develop antiballistic missile defenses based in outer space. This Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, dubbed “Star Wars” by opponents) was inspired by the emergence of new laser and particle-beam technology that seemed to have the potential to devise an accurate, instantaneous, and nonnuclear means of shooting down long-range missiles in their boost phase, before their multiple reentry vehicles had a chance to separate. The President thus challenged his country to exploit its technological edge to counter the threat of Soviet offensive missiles and perhaps liberate the world from fear of a nuclear holocaust. Scientific and political critics ridiculed SDI as naive (because it would not work or could be easily countered), expensive beyond reckoning, counterproductive (because it implied repudiation of the 1972 ABM Treaty), and dangerous (because the Soviets might stage a preemptive attack to prevent its deployment). The alarmed Soviets, however, weakened the case of American critics by launching their own propaganda campaign against SDI, implying that they took seriously its prospects for success. Evidence also mounted that the U.S.S.R. had been engaged in similar research since the mid-1970s. A $26,000,000,000, five-year American program was approved, although Congress limited future funding and arms-control advocates pressured the President to use SDI as a bargaining chip in the START talks. The Soviets broke off the INF and START talks at the end of 1983 but resumed talks two years later, apparently with hopes of stalling SDI research.

Regional crises

U.S.–Soviet competition in the Third World also continued through the 1980s as the Soviets sought to benefit from indigenous sources of unrest. The campaign of the Communist-led African National Congress (ANC) against apartheid in South Africa, for instance, might serve Soviet strategic aims, but the Black rebellion against white rule was surely indigenous. White-supremacist governments in southern Africa might argue, correctly, that the standard of living and everyday security of Blacks were better in their countries than in most Black-ruled African states, but the fact remained that African Blacks, like all human beings, preferred to be ruled by their own tyrant rather than one of some other nationality or race. What was more, the respect shown by African governments for international boundaries began to break down after 1970. Spain’s departure from the Spanish (Western) Sahara was the signal for a guerrilla struggle among Moroccan and Mauritanian claimants and the Polisario movement backed by Algeria. The Somali invasion of the Ogaden, Libyan intrusions into Chad and Sudan, and Uganda’s 1978 invasion of Tanzania exemplified a new volatility. Uganda had fallen under a brutal regime headed by Idi Amin, whom most African leaders tolerated (even electing him president of the Organization of African Unity) until Julius Nyerere spoke out, following Uganda’s invasion of his country, about the African tendency to reserve condemnation for white regimes only.

The Black revolt against white rule in southern Africa was a timely consequence of the decolonization of Angola and Mozambique and of the Lancaster House accord under which white Southern Rhodesians accepted majority rule, resulting in 1980 in the full independence of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, who in 1984 declared his intention to create a one-party Marxist state. South Africa tried to deflect global disgust with its apartheid system by setting up autonomous tribal “homelands” for Blacks, but no other government recognized them. United States diplomacy sought quietly to promote a comprehensive settlement of South Africa’s problems by pressuring Pretoria to release South West Africa (Namibia) and gradually dismantle apartheid in return for a Cuban evacuation of Angola and Mozambique. This policy of “constructive engagement,” by which the U.S. State Department hoped to retain leverage over Pretoria, came under criticism every time a new Black riot or act of white repression occurred. Critics demanded economic divestment from, and stringent sanctions against, South Africa, but supporters of the policy argued that sanctions would inflict disproportionate economic harm on South African Blacks, drive the whites to desperation, and encourage violence that would strengthen the hand of Communist factions. Congressional pressure finally forced the administration to compromise on a package of sanctions in 1986, and U.S. firms began to pull out of South Africa.

The Middle East remained crisis-prone despite the Egyptian–Israeli peace. In 1978 an Arab summit in Baghdad pledged $400,000,000 to the PLO over the next 10 years. A comprehensive Middle East peace was stymied by the unwillingness of rejectionist Arab states to negotiate without the PLO and by the U.S.-Israeli refusal to negotiate with the PLO. In June 1982 the Begin government determined to put an end to terrorist raids by forcibly clearing out PLO strongholds inside Lebanon. In fact the Israeli army advanced all the way to Beirut in a bitter campaign that entrenched Syrian occupation of the strategic al-Biqāʿ valley and intensified what already amounted to a Lebanese civil war among Palestinians, Muslims of various sects and allegiances, and Christian militiamen. The United States sent Marines to Beirut to facilitate the evacuation of the PLO, while it tried without success to piece together a coalition Lebanese government and induce the Israelis and Syrians to withdraw. In October 1983 terrorists blew up the U.S. Marine barracks, killing more than 200 Americans. The Middle East peace process begun by Kissinger and continued by Carter seemed to have unraveled by the late 1980s. Western governments tried to coordinate policies on terrorism, including a firm refusal to bargain with kidnappers, but concern for the lives of hostages and fear of future retaliation insidiously weakened their resolve. In October 1985, however, the Israeli air force dispatched planes to bomb the PLO headquarters in Tunis. When Libyan-supported terrorists planted bombs in airports in Rome and Vienna in December 1985 and in a discotheque in Berlin in April 1986, Reagan ordered U.S. jets to attack terrorist training camps and air-defense sites in Libya. The raid was applauded by the American public, and terrorist incidents did seem to decline in number over the following year. Qaddafi suffered another reverse in the spring of 1987 when French-supported Chadian troops drove the Libyan invaders from their country.

In the Persian Gulf the Reagan administration held publicly aloof from the war between Iraq and Iran. Intelligence that Shīʿite terrorists were behind the kidnapping of Americans in Beirut, however, prompted the administration secretly to supply arms to Iran in return for help, never forthcoming, in securing the release of hostages. There was also a notion that such a deal might forge links to moderate Iranians in hopes of better relations in the event of the aged Khomeini’s death. While the motives were humanitarian and strategic, this action directly contradicted the policy of shunning negotiations with terrorists that the United States had been urging on its allies. When the operation was exposed, the Reagan administration lost credibility with Congress and foreign governments alike.