Star Wars programme

[Beswad]

During the Regan Administration, was the Star Wars programme cooked up to criple the old Soviet Union's economy hence they would take counter measure to do the same as America. 

[archbishop]

Basically yes. And it worked. What we didn't know but do now was that the Soviet Nuclear Deterrent was and is a joke.

[NapoleonSolo]

Or is that what the Regan administration have claimed in hindsight? Where they just as suprised at did happen as the rest of us? But claiming that they intended to bankrupt the USSR & win the cold war made them look a lot cleverer than they actually were.

[archbishop]

We can all be clever with hindsight but I think history will show that Reagan was one of the great American Presidents.

[El D]

yes the idea is that Reagan revitalised the arms race forcing russia to keep up - when it couldnt it crashed. but 20/20 hindsight and all that.

[bernardo]

All of the answers so far seem to be answering a different question from the one which was asked.  It is true that the arms race (proliferation of large numbers of nuclear weapons) was designed to bankrupt the USSR, and helped in doing so politically, but the Star Wars programme was the opposite.  The Star Wars programme was a scheme to prevent the incoming missiles from coming to earth, and to intercept them in space.  The USA offered to help the USSR with similar technology but was refused.