In 1983, Ronald Reagan gave what has now been coined as his “Evil Empire" speech. He gave the speech about the Cold War at the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida. In the speech, he painted the Cold War as more of a spiritual threat as opposed to an ideological one. He referred to the conflict as primarily a product of “evil in the modern world” and eschewed the notion that the Cold War was the fault of both global superpowers equally as a result of their nuclear brinkmanship.

He instead characterized the Cold War as a struggle between good and evil, a motif that he undoubtedly chose, in part, in an attempt to appeal to his Evangelical audience. He said,

The temptation to blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

Interestingly, this was the first time that Reagan had referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech, and this was not something that he regularly said in regards to the Soviet Union.

For example, in a speech the year prior in London (1982), he did not use terms like “evil empire” or paint the conflict using the dichotomy of good and evil. Given before the British House of Commons in London, he referred to the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state but refrained from more inflammatory language. This is more evidence pointing to the fact that he meticulously crafted each of his speeches to suit his audience and serve a specific purpose, as most great orators and speechwriters do. Thus, his "Evil Empire" speech may have served a two-fold purpose: to reach his audience and reach the ear of Soviet leaders, thus expressing his disapproval at the terms of detente.

Many historians, in examining his use of the term “evil empire,” explain that using this aggressive rhetoric may have been more strategic broadly and not necessarily only an attempt to appeal to his religious audience. They note that the phrase was well-planned and timed with the help of his team of anti-communist advisors, designed to put a nail in the platitudes of detente and perhaps being the catalyst for the total breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 under Gorbachev. It was widely known that Reagan based his 1980 campaign on an anti-detente platform, as he was unsatisfied by the false sense of peace and calm brought by detente. He wished to return to Cold War tensions and end the "one way street" under which the Soviet Union had negotiated it's position.

Interestingly, the term “evil empire” was adopted in future speeches by other world leaders, such as when Vladimir Putin said that America should be considered as such under Barack Obama because of America’s liberal views on gay marriage and abortion. Obviously, the term resonated and has had a lasting impact on global politics.