It was called “the containment of Communism” strategy, and it was necessary and successful.
The Soviet Union had to be contained until it fell from within.
Check your premises!
“the containment of Communism”
The success of the effort to contain communism is questionable. Of the three main superpowers today, neither Russia or China has a true communism. But neither can be stopped form what they want to do. We don’t have enough of a threat to stop Russia or China from doing what they want to do or how they want to go about it. And both countries not only are self sustaining in their military, but they are capable of destroying the world no different that we are. Conventional conflict is impossible as long as they care what it contains.
Russia has stepped in to Syria and has assisted them with all kinds of armaments that we are not being told about. So tossing a few missiles into Syria to hit “reported” caches of chemical weapons, probably originating from China through North Korea into the region is a good show, but is not going to stop anything.
And remember that Russia supplied the missiles to Saddam that he fired into Israel during the American “intervention” in Iraq and Kuwait.
Reagan beat Russia financially for about 5 minutes. He never stopped them from exporting weapons to the middle east as we were doing it too. And as late as Nov 14, 2016 - Russia and Iran negotiated the supply of $10 billion worth of weapons and hardware to Tehran following the successful delivery of Russia’s S-300 air defense missile systems to the country. Sound like they fell? Nope.
rwood