When US president Reagan entered office in 1981 he immediately believed that in order to achieve peace with the Soviets, he needed to 'talk tough' to the Russians, taking a firm anti-communist line in Central America and the Middle East, dramatically escalating the arms race and thus seeking a clear shift away from détente.
A few years later when Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed as the Soviet leader in March 1985, Reagan immediately sought after good relations with the new and younger leader, but he made sure they would be on his terms, in order for him to re-assert America's dominance on a world stage.
The United States, in the years before and during the Reagan presidency, underwent a revolution in high technology that the Soviets could not match. …
