His strategy was actually more sophisticated than that. It was across the board, as I show in my new book “Reagan: The American President.”
Reagan understood that the two main Soviet exports were oil and gold. By rebuilding OUR economy, we automatically weakened theirs. For ex., Reagan urged Paul Volcker to squash inflation, even if it meant a recession. As inflation came down, the Soviet ability to sell gold crumbled. The value of a 10 pound gold ingot dropped TENFOLD in a couple of years.
Then Reagan struck at their ability to raise hard currency via their oil sales. One of his first meetings was with the Saudi oil minister and he firmly told him that they were going to lower prices & increase output . . . which the Saudis did. Down came Soviet oil prices and with it, lower sales and less hard currency.
I could go into the alliances with Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesca, the decision to pump rock and roll behind the Iron Curtain, supporting Charlie Wilson, and of course maintaining a strong alliance with the Germans and GB. It was more than just the military.
Reagan squeezed the Soviets everywhere simultaneously. It reminded me of Ulysses Grant’s command to all his generals when he became head of the Army: attack, all the time. “Anyone who can’t skin should hold a leg.”
We were fortunate that at the same time we had Thatcher leading Britain and Kohl leading Germany.
Unfortunately we had that douche, Mitterand, in France.