Keep pulling the thread on Sarah Paine.
The massive military buildup under President Ronald Reagan is argued by some to have bankrupted the Soviet Union, leading to its collapse.
The combined GNP of the United States, its NATO allies, and Japan was seven times larger than the Soviet Union's GNP, making it economically unsustainable for the Soviets to match the US military buildup.
Post-Cold War analysis of more accurate statistics revealed the Soviet Union's defense spending was at least 40-50% of its GNP, with some estimates reaching as high as 70% when including associated infrastructure.
Soviet expert Georgi Arbatov asserted that the Soviet war in Afghanistan was highly advantageous for the United States, which funded the opposing side, creating a "Vietnam" for the USSR.
Dissidents in the Eastern Bloc and activists in the West used the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Accords to hold communist governments accountable for their promises versus their dictatorial practices.
Former CIA Director Robert Gates stated that the Helsinki conference, which the US resisted, ultimately laid the foundations for the end of the Soviet empire, yielding benefits "beyond our wildest imagination."
A theory for the Soviet collapse posits that President Richard Nixon's strategic opening to China allowed the US and China to "gang up" on the Soviet Union, overextending it financially and militarily.
Following the 1969 border war, the Soviet Union approached the United States to gauge its reaction to a potential nuclear strike on China, but the US advised against it.
China's military posture forced the Soviet Union to establish a heavily militarized, nuclear-armed border with China, in addition to its border with Europe, creating a significant financial strain.
Under Presidents Carter and Reagan, the US Navy began aggressively targeting Soviet submarines in their home waters, leading the Soviets to fear their second-strike nuclear capability was vulnerable to a US first strike.
In 1987, Soviet Marshal Akhromeyev told his American counterparts, "you know where our submarines are, but we don't know where yours are," highlighting a critical strategic imbalance.
Unlike previous Soviet leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev did not use military force to suppress uprisings in the Eastern Bloc and instead encouraged political and economic reforms.