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Session 1: Panel 3: Presenter 1 (Paper) -- Fight For Star Wars: The Reagan Doctrine And The Ending Of The Cold War, Roselyn S. Dai

Young Historians Conference

The strenuous conflict between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which persisted for over four decades, finally came to a close in the early 1990’s, shortly after the presidency of Ronald Reagan. A common assumption is that Reagan’s hardline foreign policies and weapons buildup finally forced the Soviet Union to back down. However, this assumption is only a small portion of the picture. The cause for the ending of the Cold War is a much more nuanced story centered not only around the arms race but also the collapsing Soviet economy and the domestic issues of …