President Nixons efforts to ease Cold War tensions were called?

Answer 1

Ronald Reagan, upon taking office during his first term denounced the policy of detente, or an easing of tensions between the two Cold War powers. Just like the majority of the Cold War Reagan's second Cold War was largely fought with rhetoric.

Reagan wanted to "win" the Cold War, doing what his predecessors could not. He used terms such as "Evil Empire" to describe the Soviet Union.

A renewed attempt to stop Soviet expansion, the so-called "Domino theory," led to attempts to stop or undermine governments in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and other third world countries around the world in the 1980s.

By the mid to late 1980s Reagan's stance had softened a bit. He even met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 to discuss arms reductions.

In the end Reagan's strategy worked and the Soviet Union collapsed after Reagan's second term ended. The Berlin Wall, the symbol of East-West tensions for much of the Cold War was torn down in 1990, although some historians believe it had more to with internal political struggles in the Soviet Union than Reagan's policies.