Robert Gates noted that early during the Reagan administration, there was a buildup in U.S. defenses with the additions of tanks, planes, ships, submarines, combat vehicles and nuclear weapons.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issued a series of reforms and the Communist Party gave up its 70-year monopoly of political power in the Soviet Union.
President Trump’s blueprints to build a space-based missile defense shield could help him push for cuts in atomic weapons arsenals with Russia and other nuclear powers.