The Reagan Doctrine and Global Containment: Revival or Recessional

assumed undifferentiable national interests, the availability of unlimited means to oppose the direct and indirect expansion of Soviet power and influence, and the inadvisability of negotiation with the Soviet Union until a rearmed America could once again bargain from a position of strength.1 As a student of containment noted in 1983, "One would, in fact, have to go back to the later Truman administration to find a comparable emphasis on the accumulation of military hardware and a corresponding degree of skepticism regarding negotiations."2 By the end of the Reagan administration's first term it had substantially failed in its efforts to revitalize global containment. Ironically, however, if the first half of 1985 vividly illustrated those failings, it also witnessed the emergence of what is presently claimed to be a significant opportunity to overcome them. In his 6 February 1985 State of the Union address, the president first publicly set forth what others were soon to call the Reagan Doctrine: