[Serious] Does Trump deserve some credit if Iran...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Actually, again, no.  The notion that Reagan build up contributed to Soviet break up is largely self-congratulatory wishthinking by conservatives in the west.   Soviet documents, archives and independent Russian historiography all show in fact the Soviet Union did not perceive the defense burden the Soviet state had to bear to have been appreciable increased by the need to respond to the Reagan build up or the strategic defence initiative.    

What did the Soviet Union in was a strong perception that the general trend where Soviet Union was catching up to the US in economic and technology through the 1950s and early 1960s had reversed through the 1970s, and by the mid 1970s the Soviet Union was falling further behind in total economic productivity and emergent technologies like computers.    The perception was this malaise demanded a fundamental reorganization of Soviet economy and society to overcomes.    Gorbachev wasn’t the first senior Soviet leader to perceive the need to implement this reorganization.  The KGB had been aware of it since early 1970s    In fact it was the KGB leadership that maneuvered to advance gorbachev’s career through the 1970s to put him at the top Soviet leadership to implement this reform, believing him to be both capable enough and young enough to see the reform through.  As it turns out Gorbachev handled the reform terribly and it was this that did in the Soviet state.

KGB head Yuri Andropov’s misjudgment of Gorbachev in the mid-1970 to early 1980 was to a far higher degree responsible for the break up of the Soviet Union in the end of 1980s than any thing Reagan did.

And, so, you don't think that Reagan's supposed "Star Wars" (which everyone today recognizes to have been nothing more than a paper tiger, and quite possibly, even today, impossible to implement on at least a practical level) program did not cause a burden on the Soviet Union's military & industrial complex, which perceived it to be a real threat to nuclear detente and the status quo?  Were not the Soviets themselves trying to keep-up with the West militarily, which caused additional strain on their economy which led to Perestroika?  Are you saying that the Reagan administration deserves no credit for the reforms that led to the Soviet Union's breakup?

Do you not read what you respond to? There is no evidence - internal or external - that the Soviets out-spent themselves trying to keep up with the West’s military expansion. 

Lech Walesa had more to do with the dissolution of the USSR than Reagan did.

Boru