[txroadkill]

That’s pretty much where my paper goes. But I completely give Reagan credit for forcing the Soviet Military budget to rise from $101 Billion to $130 Billion in just a few years and forcing the Soviets into an bigger arms race that came at the worse possible time for the USSR. I argued that Reagan was so well informed by the CIA that he knew the Soviets could not resist spending to prevent SDI and it would topple what was left of the economy. He knew they were already spending 14% of their GNP on defense as it was. Absolutely brilliant.....and the Dems called him stupid.

[Draco]

Not to overstate but Soviet economic figures were notoriously off. They used a system called “GOSPLAN” which set 5 year production targets — command economy style. Managers claimed to meet these figures, but often did not. The 14% GNP figure is in my estimate, rather low. The real numbers would never be publicly known. Moreover, with so much inefficiency in the system, a good fraction of defense spending was wasted.

[Army Air Corps]

Don’t forget Reagan’s efforts to undercut key supports of the Soviet economy. His team cajoled the Saudis and others to glut the petroleum market so that Soviet petroleum revenues would drop. His team also is said by many scholars to be responsible for doing the same to Soviet gold (encouraging over production so as to devalue Soviet gold).