[briandear]

It was Reagan. The arms race bankrupted the Soviets. Gorbachev deserves credit for acting rational in the face of Reagan’s pressure, pressure, to be historically honest, was begun by Jimmy Carter (and dramatically expanded under Reagan.)

The Americans destroyed the Soviet Empire, that’s just a fact. Gorbachev was reacting, not acting. “Tear down this wall” — and that’s exactly what happened.

[yongjik]

Carl Sagan was highly skeptical against the arms race theory. According to him: The Star Wars plan was nothing more than a boondoggle based on questionable technology, and the Soviet at that time correctly concluded that if it ever worked they just needed to have more missiles. The whole story is basically a retcon to explain why America wasted so much money on SDI that never went anywhere.

[kingofhdds]

Soviet Union was trying very hard to keep up with the US military advances - I know it for sure, because as an engineer my father was involved in such efforts. And, by the way, "just" producing more missiles wasn't easy thing to do also. So, Reagan's policy probably added a lot to Soviet troubles. I suppose Sagan simply needed to be publicly skeptical, because he was in different ideological trenches.

[yourbandsucks]

There are a lot of people invested in this view for domestic political reasons, but the evidence doesn't support it.

Look up Leonid Brezhnev's era. 18 years of rot and stagnation. It was all over except the crying before Reagan even took office.