Editing Containment (section)

==Reagan Doctrine==
Following the communist victory in Vietnam, Democrats began to view further communist advances as inevitable, but Republicans returned to the rollback doctrine. [[Ronald Reagan]], a long-time advocate of rollback, was elected U.S. president in 1980. He took a more aggressive approach to dealings with the Soviets and believed that détente was misguided and [[peaceful coexistence]] was tantamount to surrender. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, American policymakers worried that the Soviets were making a run for control of the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1980s, under a policy that came to be known as the [[Reagan Doctrine]], the United States provided technical and economic assistance to the Afghan guerrillas ([[mujahideen]]) fighting against the Soviet army.<ref>Olson, James Stuart. Historical dictionary of the 1950s. Westport, Conn: Greenwood P, 2000.</ref>