Abstract
During the first two years of Ronald Reagan’s second term the United States developed an offensive strategy for dealing with conflict in the developing world. States like Nicaragua were the prime target of this policy. Scholars refer to this as the Reagan offensive: the first time that the United States eschewed the norms of containment and sought to “roll-back” the gains of communism. However, the Reagan offensive was also significantly driven by a response to the emergent threat of international terrorism. U.S. policy with Nicaragua demonstrates the importance of terrorism in the development of a more aggressive United States.