Star wars

• Reagan was determined to win the cold war
• He believed that the USSR could be forced to disarm by his new initiative- SDI
• SDI (strategic defence initiative) was the idea of a 'nuclear umbrella' which would stop soviet nuclear bombs from reaching American soil
• This scheme soon became known as star wars
• Reagan believed this technology would make soviet nuclear missiles useless and therefore force the USSR to disarm

SDI: to launch an army of satellites equipped with powerful lasers. These would intercept soviet missiles in space and destroy them before they could do any harm to America

• Evenly matched, the superpowers had worked to limit the growth of the stock piles of nuclear weapons
• SDI was a complete break frm this policy
• Infact, it broke the terms of the outer space treaty of 1967
• In response the USSR boycotted the los Angeles olympic games

• America had won race to the moon in 1969- getting ahead in space race
• Soviet economy was not producing enough wealth
• USSR was behind in terms of computer technology

• Brezhnev dies in 1982
• Suceeded by Yuri Andropov
• He dies in 1984
• Andropov is suceeded by Konstantin Chernenko
• Who dies in 1985
• Unstable
• 1985 Gorbachev became leader

Problems he faced

• Alcoholism- caused decline in soviet industry (deaths)
• Lack of technology (arms race)
• Afghan war
• Lack of consumer goods
• debt

Gobachev's solutions

• Glasnost (openness)- Censorship of the press was relaxed
• Perestroika (restructing)- economic reforms designed to make the soviet economy more efficient