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Perceptions of weakness dogged Jimmy Carter’s presidency and legacy. Carter inherited a struggling economy and a US military adrift after Vietnam. But his administration played key parts in countering the Soviets and rising extremism. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the man who received the most credit was Ronald Reagan. The Republican president’s bellicose […]
The morning after U.S. presidential candidate Ronald Reagan crushed incumbent President Jimmy Carter with a 44-state landslide in 1980, the New York Times reported that demand for a “tougher American foreign policy” was a big part of the outcome. By almost a 2-1 ratio, voters in exit polls said, “They wanted this country to be […]
In a year dominated by headlines about the U.S. election and the seemingly stark choice presented to voters, what stands out in this collection of big reads on foreign policy is how much continuity there is between Democratic and Republican administrations in recent years. Take, for instance, FP columnist Michael Hirsh’s essay on the consensus […]