Return to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1981-1999

For some time to come, historians and political scien
tists are likely to ponder the reasons for the transfor
mation that occurred in Reagan's Soviet policy
beginning late in his first administration. One inter
pretation, the so-called Reagan victory school, con
tends that his administration's military buildup
during his first term was motivated by a preconceived
plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Even Reagan sup
ported this interpretation. On December 16, 1988,
almost a month before leaving office, he said that the
changes that were taking place in the Soviet Union
were in part the result of U.S. firmness, a strong
defense, healthy alliances, and a willingness to use
force when necessary. ¹

The Strategic Defense Initiative, this school of thought argues, was the real key to the transformation in U.S.-Soviet relations. Reagan's Arms Control and Disarmament Agency director, Kenneth Adelman, asserted that "SDI played into our comparative advantage-technological prowess--and discounted theirs--big ballistic missiles." When "the Soviets realized that we intended to capitalize on our high-tech, embodied by SDI," he added, then and only then did they become willing to deal. Even

-251-