There are several points that need to be made with respect to that illustration, if lent credence:
(a) Strategic Deception: assuming it wasn't disinformation, which it may or may not. I tend to accept the story, as it is after all the same bunch whose economy was collapsing under the stress of their enormous non-stop war-footing. Reagan's credible deployments of counterforce capable armaments, across the Triad, forced the Soviets to revisit their own assumptions, and they realized that he had successfully created a situation of strategic ambiguity. They could no longer count on winning under almost any scenario. And it forced the soviets to spend even more on defensive preparations than on their offensive. zMaking the financial stresses greater still.
(b) Dated: assuming that their old Soviet-era deficiencies have not long since been cured. Evidence of likely curing...the increased state of readiness for their missiles to be launched on warning in the 90's when the Norwegian satellite launch was misidentified as a missile attack and Boris Yeltsin was minutes away from turning the key. A near-miss for accidental nuclear war. While certainly alarming to the degree we dodged a bullet, as it showed the hazard of the Russians decrepit surveillance...and communications... but, it also bespoke a much higher state of readiness than we had thought.
(c) Its irrelevant. The primary issue was always the Soviet First Strike Plan. It was well understood by the Soviet Military... they were the most likely to commence a first strike...look at how e can't muster up the resolve to deal with Iran today. They knew that then that the U.S. would not do so. Hence, their official public policy to the contrary notwithstanding...they intended to punch first. They never seriously expected anything other than a lame second-strike. Their military manuals overwhelmingly preached a doctrine of surprise. And as far as their being capable of that...well, it had us justifiably concerned in our own right. We had no ABM, they did. We had no air defense. They certainly had deployed enough (however effective it was judged) to say that they had one. And finally,
(d)Deterrent Non-Credibility increases Nuclear Preemption Risks. Our non-survivable retaliatory arsenal becomes (for a tyranny such as the Soviets) a powerful temptation in any clash with the U.S. To the extent we followed the Jimmy Carter/Paul Warnke/Harold Brown view of the feebleness of the Soviets, and deployed minimally, in accordance thereto...the more likely the Soviets would assume the worst...that the U.S. in desperation intended the first strike, since our deterrent in reality would not be as credible to them, as it was in our liberal's eyes. This suspicion thus would place the Soviets on more of a hair-trigger posture than otherwise. Maintaining a credible triad, ended these kinds of speculations on their part...while convincing them of the futility of their own arms race. Donald Rumsfeld's old strategic response approach to the Soviet deployments was vindicated....by Reagan and Caspar Weinberger's Administration.
If anything, they've gotten worse. They don't have early-warning coverage for several key axes of approach (the radars that covered those approaches suddenly ended up in other sovereign nations, who proceeded to shut them donw when Russia didn't pay the rent and electricity bills). Meanwhile, the money for building new radars kept getting raided to pay for the bleeding ulcer of Chechnya.
Evidence of likely curing...the increased state of readiness for their missiles to be launched on warning in the 90's when the Norwegian satellite launch was misidentified as a missile attack and Boris Yeltsin was minutes away from turning the key.
However, this incident also points up just how bad their early warning is: any radar worth a damn can tell you the point of launch to within a very small circle, and the "zone of uncertainty" for that launch took in the entire Norwegian Sea. and then some.
While certainly alarming to the degree we dodged a bullet, as it showed the hazard of the Russians decrepit surveillance...and communications... but, it also bespoke a much higher state of readiness than we had thought.
All it showed is that they could get a message to the President quickly under ideal peacetime conditions--i.e., no cyber attacks against the Russian national infrastructure, etc. It did not show whether it would work under a wartime scenario--nor did it show how ready their strategic forces are.
The primary issue was always the Soviet First Strike Plan.
How many first strikes have the Soviets executed against the United States?
This is why I tend to disregard the "conventional wisdom" of "nuclear strategy experts," because (a) nobody's actually fought a nuclear war (therefore, we are all equally amateurs, "expert" status or not--we are about as knowledgeable about what would happen in a real nuclear exchange as the generals in Europe were about how a full-blown industrial war would proceed in August, 1914), and (b) the alleged logic of nuclear strategy and each sides' allleged national security goals would have resulted in a final Gotterdammerung between the US and the USSR in August, 1991--and that didn't happen.