US Foreign Policy for the 1990s

After the initial large-scale military build-up and bellicose rhetoric, the last years of the Reagan era have seen a relative freeze in new increases in military spending and less abrasive rhetoric directed at the Soviets. Late Reaganism seems to foreshadow the 'pragmatism' of a Dukakis or Bush regime, just as early Reaganism was a continuation and a deepening of the Cold War rhetoric and military build-up that began during the last two years of the Carter administration.