He had to start out slow and gradually work his way into defeating the "evil empire- (Busch, 196) as he called the Soviet Union. .
Reagan's first four years in office included taking care of issues at home and "increasing pressure on the Soviet leadership and encouraging new approaches beyond détente- (Apel). He put much pressure on the Soviets by building up the military and weapons stockpile. By doing this, he forced the Soviet Union to keep up with the United States, which cost them money they didn't have to spare. The Soviets were so busy invading .
other countries they didn't bother to care about what military resources they wasted. To make it worse, some Soviet military leaders decided to take control over the military and do what they wanted to do, even waging their own private wars that the Soviet leaders had to pay for. The Soviet economy was in bad shape, and had been for some time, which Reagan knew this, so he proceeded with his plan (Schaller, 516).
After reelection in 1984, Reagan started communicating with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. The two seemed to have a very strange bond, almost like they were old college roommates instead of two world leaders. This made all the .
difference in making peace with the Soviets. Gorbachev was also different from his predecessors, in that he had " a far more sophisticated sense of international relations-.
(Schaller, 517). There were many summits held between the two leaders during this time and they proved to be "milestones in the Reagan presidency- (Reagan). After the catastrophe at Geneva, Reagan held back his feelings about SDI and tried to show that some progress could be made. Nuclear weapons was a main topic with the two, as both sides had a surplus. Some people believe that eventually the Soviet Union would have caught up to us, and maybe outnumbered us in weapons, if the talks had not gone well. Both leaders knew that a nuclear war would never show a true winner and would result in mass destruction of the land.
