The invasion of Grenada was President Reagan’s response to a Communist takeover of a small Caribbean island, in order to prevent Grenada from being used as a Soviet strategic base in the Cold War.

The U.S. invasion of Grenada actually had 3 purposes:
1. to rescue American Medical Students from danger created by a violent Communist Coup d’etat.
2. to support the Organization of American States nations in preventing the establishment of a Soviet satellite in the Caribbean
3. to defy and invalidate “the Brezhnev Doctrine,” that once a country goes Communist it must stay Communist.

President Reagan seized upon a strategic opportunity to roll-back the advance of Soviet Communism, when a Soviet-aligned Communist group overthrew the OAS-aligned government in the small island-nation of Grenada. Even though the restoration of free government in Grenada was a marginal reverse for international Communism, it was important in the context of Reagan’s overall Cold War strategy.

Reagan’s strategy toward the Soviet Union was a departure from the strategic focus of Reagan’s post-World War II predecessors. The Truman-Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson strategy was Containment of Soviet and Chinese Communism. The Nixon-Ford strategy of “Detente,” was Engagement with the Soviet Union and China, and the Carter strategy was Capitulation (not officially, but in practice).

Through the 1970’s Soviet Communism had been on a roll. American allies in South Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Iran fell to totalitarian regimes when U.S. support was withdrawn. The Soviets were fomenting revolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and Latin America, and directly invaded Afghanistan. Soviet satellites in Eastern and Central Europe served as bases for Russian nuclear missiles targeted at the United States’ European NATO allies, and the frontier of East and West Germany was thick with Soviet armored divisions.

Soviet Communism was on the advance, and an impotent U.S. was in retreat. Then came President Reagan with a new strategy, simply stated in a secret National Security Directive as, “We Win, They Lose.” the United States provided material support to governments resisting Communist revolutionaries or national enemies, and to freedom fighters attempting to overthrow Communist governments in Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle-East. In addition, the U.S. deployed nuclear missiles in Western Europe to counter the Russian missiles aimed at NATO Countries, strengthened its strategic triad of land, sea, and air-based nuclear weapons, and initiated development of strategic missile defense (SDI) technology.

Within that context, the re-taking of Grenada from Soviet-aligned Communists drove home the message to Soviet rulers that the tables had turned in the Cold War.

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