page_title: Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration
section_title: Grenada
hierarchical_section_title: Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration / Latin America / Grenada
caption_attribution_description: English: President Ronald Reagan Meets with Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica on Events in Grenada George Shultz and Robert Mcfarlane Also Visible, 10/25/1983
context_page_description: The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The main goal was winning the Cold War and the rollback of Communism—which was achieved in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Historians debate whom to credit, and how much. They agree that victory in the Cold War made the U.S. the world's only superpower, one with good relations with former Communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe.
  As part of the "Reagan Doctrine", the United States also offered financial and logistics support to the anti-communist opposition in central Europe and took an increasingly hard line against left-wing governments in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua.
context_section_description: The invasion of the Caribbean island Grenada in 1983, ordered by President Reagan, was the first major foreign event of the administration, as well as the first major operation conducted by the military since the Vietnam War. President Reagan justified the invasion by claiming that the cooperation of the island with communist Cuba posed a threat to the United States, and stated the invasion was a response to the illegal overthrow and execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, himself a communist, by another faction of communists within his government. After the start of planning for the invasion, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) appealed to the United States, Barbados, and Jamaica, among other nations, for assistance. The US invasion was poorly done, for it took over 10,000 U.S. forces eight days of fighting, suffering nineteen fatalities and 116 injuries, fighting against several hundred lightly armed policemen and Cuban construction workers. Grenada's Governor-General, Paul Scoon, announced the resumption of the constitution and appointed a new government, and U.S. forces withdrew that December.
  While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States and Grenada it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly as "a flagrant violation of international law". The date of the invasion is now a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day.
caption: Reagan meets with Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica in the Oval Office about ongoing events in Grenada
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