History :1945 to the Present

AMERICAN HISTORY QUESTIONS 3

Part One : The dynamic Republicanism ' of the Eisenhower era was moderate and did not dismantle the welfare state created under the New Deal . It was emphatically not activist , favoring private enterprise over social programs (like national health insurance , which the Republicans opposed . However , the Republicanism of the 1950s was also less hostile to federal intervention in social and economic issues than Republicans had been prior to 1930 . Not until the 1960s and `70s did the Republican Party fight to end such programs

Part Two : The United States

entered the Vietnam conflict initially to support the French , whose efforts to retake their former colony ended in 1954 with their defeat at Dien Bien Phu . After the nation was partitioned , the United States supported the weak state of South Vietnam and tried to undermine North Vietnam 's efforts to reunite the nation under Ho Chi Minh . In the late 1950s and early `60s , the United States (which followed the domino theory ' stating that if one nation fell to communism , then so would its neighbors ) sent increasing numbers of advisors ' to Vietnam . Seeking a wider war , the Johnson administration used the dubious Gulf of Tonkin incident (in which North Vietnamese forces supposedly fired at an American ship , the Maddox ) to justify sending in combat troops in 1964-65

Part Three : The Reagan administration was driven to remedy the sense of malaise that characterized the Carter era . In domestic issues , the Reagan era promoted traditional values like religious fundamentalism and social conservatism , as well as supply-side economics ' that aimed to inspire investment and revive the weakened American economy (A deep recession lasted nearly two years but was followed by years of prosperity ) In foreign policy , Reagan adopted a confrontational stand against a flagging Soviet Union this well-timed move applied enough pressure to speed the Soviet regime 's demise...