Ronald Reagan Pros And Cons

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SPEECH ANALYSIS: PRESIDENT REAGAN ADDRESS ON DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY 1983
On March 23rd 1983, President Ronald Reagan addressed the US on the current defense position of the United States. In this address he covered many topics but mostly it was focused on the lack of US production of weapons and military strength verses that of our biggest adversaries in the Soviet Union. President Reagan was very deliberate and pointed in this speech by detailing how the Soviets have increase their weapons and construction of military assets while the US has been stagnant and that a reduction or freeze of a defense budget would undo any progress made this far.

President Reagan began addressing the American people by laying out the current threat to National Defense which was the passage of the current Defense Spending budget that was being drafted and voted on by Congress. To emphasize the importance of its passage he presents statistics in the form of slides and charts. One such chart shows that the Soviets at the current time that since 1969, the Soviets have built 5 new classes of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBM and have upgraded them 8 times while the United States have only maintained their Minuteman Class ICBM with no new production or upgrades. Additionally, The Soviets have increase their number of land based missiles from 600 to well
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Statistics show that from 1974 to 1982 the Soviets have produced 6100 tactical combat aircraft compared to the United States 3050, and the Soviet have produced 61 new attack submarines compared to the US’s 27. This leads the listener to believe that the US is not able to withstand any kind of aggression or war with the Soviet Union. I feel as though this tactic was used to play on the fear of a communist and oppressive Nation to garner support for an increase in Defense