How Ronald Reagan Used Diplomacy to End the Cold War

Ronald Reagan Used Diplomacy to Break Through With the Soviets

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Analysis:

How Ronald Reagan Used Diplomacy to End the Cold War

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Analysis

How Ronald Reagan Used Diplomacy to End the Cold War

A new movie shows how the president conferred with State Department experts before each meeting.

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*Julian E. Zelizer*

By **Julian E. Zelizer**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. Sign up for Julian’s newsletter, The Long View, here.

!Two men in Western suits sit in wooden chairs with striped cushions on a stage. One leans in with one leg crossed over the other as they talk.

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U.S. President Ronald Reagan (right) talks to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a summit in Geneva on Nov. 21, 1985. AFP via Getty Images

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August 17, 2026, 12:01 AM

President Donald Trump has handled the war with Iran in an unconventional fashion, to say the least. Based on the reporting that has emerged thus far, the president’s long-standing hostility toward Iran, dating back to the 1979 hostage crisis, combined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to decapitate one of his country’s fiercest adversaries, helped drive the military operations that have now been underway for nearly six months at a cost of at least $37.5 billion.

Since the war began, negotiations over a resolution have been chaotic. Americans have witnessed announcements of ceasefires, violations of those ceasefires, and statements from the administration that bear little resemblance to what is unfolding on their screens. Changing and often contradictory administration statements have suggested that the goals of the war include toppling the governing regime, ushering in democracy, destroying the country’s nuclear and military capabilities, and, most recently, keeping open the Strait of Hormuz—which had been open until the war began. The president has never sought authorization for this war from Congress.

President Donald Trump has handled the war with Iran in an unconventional fashion, to say the least. Based on the reporting that has emerged thus far, the president’s long-standing hostility toward Iran, dating back to the 1979 hostage crisis, combined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to decapitate one of his country’s fiercest adversaries, helped drive the military operations that have now been underway for nearly six months at a cost of at least $37.5 billion.

Since the war began, negotiations over a resolution have been chaotic. Americans have witnessed announcements of ceasefires, violations of those ceasefires, and statements from the administration that bear little resemblance to what is unfolding on their screens. Changing and often contradictory administration statements have suggested that the goals of the war include toppling the governing regime, ushering in democracy, destroying the country’s nuclear and military capabilities, and, most recently, keeping open the Strait of Hormuz—which had been open until the war began. The president has never sought authorization for this war from Congress.

Currently, the administration appears to be reduced to negotiating a deal that leaves the Iranian regime in place with degraded military capabilities, allows it to retain nuclear material, although in facilities that remain buried or difficult to access—and grants it greater control over the Strait of Hormuz, including, potentially, the ability to charge fees to ships passing through. As with much of Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy, reports suggest there is no clear plan or coherent strategy within the White House. On any day, a Truth Social post could set the conversation in a different direction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who presides over a State Department that has been severely depleted of much of its expertise, has only gradually become more involved in the deliberations.

The chaos that has characterized efforts to end the conflict stands in stark contrast to the way most previous presidents have handled difficult negotiations with adversaries. Take, for example, the case of Ronald Reagan after 1985. As a new movie starring Jeff Daniels as Reagan, “The Brink of War,” illustrates, the emergence of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev opened the door to a major arms-control agreement with the United States’ most formidable rival.

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Few Americans could

have predicted that Reagan would emerge as the president responsible for the most significant arms control breakthrough with the Soviet Union since 1972, when President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT I agreement. Throughout much of the 1970s, Reagan built his reputation by attacking Republicans who embraced Nixon’s policy of detente, which sought to ease relations with the Soviet Union through diplomacy and economic cooperation. In the 1976 Republican primaries, Reagan nearly defeated Republican President Gerald Ford by making detente—and its chief architect, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—a central target of his campaign.

Upon taking office in 1981, Reagan filled much o