Assess the impact of the renewed confrontation of the early 1980s, including the Reagan military build-up, on the end of the Cold War

What this dot point is asking

SEAB wants you to assess the impact of the renewed confrontation of the early 1980s, often called the Second Cold War, including the Reagan military build-up, on the end of the Cold War. The central analytical task is to weigh the role of external American pressure against the internal Soviet decline and Gorbachev's choices. A strong answer avoids both the triumphalist view that Reagan won the Cold War single-handedly and the dismissive view that he was irrelevant, showing instead how pressure and diplomacy interacted with internal Soviet developments.

The answer

The revival of confrontation

After the collapse of detente at the end of the 1970s, the early 1980s saw a sharp revival of Cold War tension, the Second Cold War. The Reagan administration adopted a far more confrontational posture toward the Soviet Union, denouncing it in stark ideological terms and committing to a major military build-up. Reagan increased defence spending substantially, deployed new missiles, and announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a research programme for a space-based missile defence system. The aim was to confront the Soviet Union from a position of strength and to reverse what American hardliners saw as the concessions of detente.

The pressure on the Soviet economy

The build-up mattered partly because of its economic effect. The Soviet economy was already strained and stagnating, and the prospect of an expensive new round of the arms race, including the unaffordable challenge of matching missile defence, sharpened the dilemma facing Soviet leaders. To keep pace militarily threatened to bankrupt an economy that could not simultaneously sustain heavy military spending and rising consumer expectations. This pressure strengthened the argument inside the Soviet leadership that the existing course was unsustainable and that far-reaching reform and a reduction of the military burden were necessary, which is part of the context for Gorbachev's new thinking.

The turn to diplomacy

Crucially, Reagan's policy did not remain purely confrontational. From the mid-1980s, once Gorbachev was in power and pursuing new thinking, Reagan proved willing to negotiate. A series of summits produced genuine progress on arms control, including agreement to eliminate a whole class of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. This combination, pressure followed by engagement, is central to assessing Reagan's role: the build-up may have helped push the Soviet Union toward reform, but it was the willingness to deal with a reforming Soviet leader that translated pressure into a wound-down confrontation.

How far did Reagan end the Cold War?

The triumphalist interpretation holds that Reagan's military build-up bankrupted the Soviet Union and forced it to surrender, so that American strength won the Cold War. The opposing interpretation stresses that the Soviet collapse was driven overwhelmingly by internal economic failure and by Gorbachev's choices, with external pressure a secondary factor. The balanced judgement recognises that Reagan's pressure helped create the conditions, raising the cost of the arms race for a struggling economy, while Reagan's later diplomacy helped wind the confrontation down, but that the decisive cause was internal: the Soviet system's own crisis and Gorbachev's response to it. Reagan was a significant contributing cause, not the sole author of the outcome.

Examples in context

Example 1. The Strategic Defense Initiative as pressure. The Strategic Defense Initiative, a research programme for space-based missile defence, was never built, yet it mattered. By raising the prospect of an expensive new technological round of the arms race that the Soviet economy could not afford to match, it sharpened the dilemma facing Soviet leaders and strengthened the argument that the existing course was unsustainable. Its significance lay less in any actual capability than in its economic and psychological pressure.

Example 2. The summits and intermediate-range missiles. The agreement to eliminate a whole class of intermediate-range nuclear missiles, reached through Reagan's summits with Gorbachev, shows the constructive second phase of his policy. It demonstrates that the end of the Cold War came not only from pressure but from a willingness to negotiate once a reforming Soviet leader appeared. This is the key evidence against a purely confrontational reading of Reagan's role.

Try this

Q1. Explain what is meant by the Second Cold War. [4 marks]

• Cue. The sharp revival of Cold War tension in the early 1980s after the collapse of detente, marked by Reagan's confrontational posture, a military build-up, and renewed ideological hostility.

Q2. Explain how the Reagan military build-up affected the Soviet Union. [12 marks]

• Cue. It raised the cost of the arms race, including the unaffordable challenge of matching missile defence, for a strained and stagnating economy, strengthening the case for reform and a reduced military burden.

Q3. "External pressure, not internal decline, ended the Cold War." How far do you agree? [20 marks]

• Cue. Weigh Reagan's pressure and diplomacy against Soviet economic failure and Gorbachev's choices; judge that internal decline was decisive while external pressure contributed.