- The Washington Times - Thursday, June 10, 2004  When Ronald
Reagan was sworn in as America’s 40th president on Jan. 20,
1981, the United States was reeling from a series of setbacks,
and the Soviet Union was ascendant. He inherited a demoralized
military, resulting in large part from America’s defeat in
Vietnam, and the subsequent fall of Cambodia and Laos to
Communism. Since the mid-1970s, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua
and Grenada had also fallen to Soviet-aligned Communist forces.
A Soviet-backed puppet regime had seized power in Afghanistan.
American technology and economic support were helping to prop up
the Soviet Union and its allies. In Western Europe, advocates of
unilateral disarmament threatened to block NATO’s planned
deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing-2 missiles to
counteract Soviet SS-20s and other missiles deployed by the
Warsaw Pact.  By the time Mr. Reagan left the White House eight
years later, the balance of forces was undergoing a
revolutionary transformation in favor of the West.