Evil Empire

The term evil empire was applied to the former Soviet Union (USSR) by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, American conservatives, and Cold War hawks during the 1980s.

The use of the phrase "evil empire" by Reagan and U

The term evil empire was applied to the former Soviet Union (USSR) by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, American conservatives, and Cold War hawks during the 1980s.

The use of the phrase "evil empire" by Reagan and U.S. conservatives was intentionally designed to introduce a moral divide to the Cold War, depicting the Soviet Union and its allies as acting in ways that were evil and undermined conventional moral ethos. Some contend that the depiction of the Soviet Union, in the mid to late-1980s, as "evil" marked a turning point in the Cold War, affording the U.S. a moral highground that allowed it to take vastly more aggressive steps to deter and rollback the Soviet Union's significant engagement in global affairs.