Reagan was, at the time, very clearly interested in breaking the Mutual Assured Destruction paradigm and replacing it with Assured Defense. He figured that would change the whole strategic atmosphere. And, I have read a statement by an inner party of the then Soviet government that the effort to counter the SDI would have bankrupted them, and provoked the breakdown of the Soviet rule. Thus, we won the Cold War, but the role of the SDI has been muffled.
Reagan was, at the time, very clearly interested in breaking the Mutual Assured Destruction paradigm and replacing it with Assured Defense. He figured that would change the whole strategic atmosphere. And, I have read a statement by an inner party of the then Soviet government that the effort to counter the SDI would have bankrupted them, and provoked the breakdown of the Soviet rule. Thus, we won the Cold War, but the role of the SDI has been muffled.