Uploaded July 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video is a discussion of the common conservative talking point that Ronald Reagan caused the collapse of the USSR by re-starting the strategic arms race with his "strategic defense initiative" which was nicknamed "star wars"
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Stream channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Background image: reddit.com/r/Viki1999/comments/ul0kdt/5th_version_of_my_poster_when_i_first_made_this
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:47 ICBMs
6:20 Star Wars
9:40 Gorbachev’s reforms
12:23 Afghanistan
13:55 Chernobyl
16:08 Why it really collapsed
18:07 Outro
This is a 5 person discord invite. After 5 people use it it becomes invalid. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video! And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/rwZfDfAwu3
Transcript:
The year was 1977 and a science adjacent space opera was in the cinemas and people loved it. It features spaceships laser guns, magical forces and every story beat of the classical Hero’s journey with a young protagonist being drawn into conflict and eventually fighting the evil forces. This movie is of course called Star wars and has nothing to do with this video.
Instead we are talking about something known as the strategic defence initiative which was a military program the US missile defense agency worked on during the 1980s. The stated goal was to create weapons that can protect the united states from a nuclear war. It was of course nick named the star wars programme.
There was a second goal, that was to re-start cold war arms races between USSR and USA, the story goes that the USSR could not afford this arms race and that this caused the collapse of he USSR 7 years later. Because of this some conservatives will tell you that Reagan won the cold war, even though he was out of office when the soviet bloc fell.
Is this correct? Was it really the Star Wars programme that made the USSR dissolve? It’s complicated, that’s why the video is so long. We will discuss the cold war, the purpose of the star wars programm, the things the USSR faced while regan talked about his his missile shield and eventually I’ll answer whether Regan really bankrupted the USSR and won the cold war.
If that sounds interesting to you and you want to hear more then stick with me while I thank my sponsor. My sponsor is YOU! By watching my video, leaving comments, likes and donations you make it possible for me to make videos full time which enables me to make one video every week, so thank you to everyone who supports me in any way you can, my patreons are the only reason I wasn’t forced to get sponsorships, thank you. Also patrons get access to the discord, you know?
Our story like many stars in the cold war, famously the USA and friends who loved capitalism and free markets and the USSR and friends who really loved state socialism had a bit of an disagreement over the future of all mankind. It was about the better way to organise and run a society.
For this these countries would fund and arm movements all around the world to promote their ideology and way of life. While there were many wars like in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and half of Africa, the two superpowers never went to war. And that is down to a major player in the story I am telling here. Nuclear weapons.
As you know in 1945 the second world war in the pacific ended after Japan was hit with two nuclear bombs. Whether those nuclear bombings were justified is sadly a contentious topic, they were not, Japan was on the brink already and those nukes mostly killed civilians.
As you know only 3 years later the soviet union surprised the world by building and testing it’s own nuclear weapon way faster than anyone in the capitalist west assumed they could do it. This was because of the help of spies that worked right in the American nuclear weapons development program. True heroes of socialism.
The threat of nuclear war now existed, but initially people were not that scared of it. The US had assembled many nuclear weapons between 1945 and the soviet test in 1948, so for a few years at the start of the cold war America had a so called bomb gap, which means there was a large difference between the nuclear capability of the countries.
Back then the way to get a nuclear bomb to the enemy was a plane, there was nothing else that could carry those things that far. And this likewise made people not respect nuclear weapons. You see bombers that carry nukes are large and slow.
This video is a discussion of the common conservative talking point that Ronald Reagan caused the collapse of the USSR by re-starting the strategic arms race with his "strategic defense initiative" which was nicknamed "star wars"
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Stream channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Background image: reddit.com/r/Viki1999/comments/ul0kdt/5th_version_of_my_poster_when_i_first_made_this
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:47 ICBMs
6:20 Star Wars
9:40 Gorbachev’s reforms
12:23 Afghanistan
13:55 Chernobyl
16:08 Why it really collapsed
18:07 Outro
This is a 5 person discord invite. After 5 people use it it becomes invalid. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video! And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/rwZfDfAwu3
Transcript:
The year was 1977 and a science adjacent space opera was in the cinemas and people loved it. It features spaceships laser guns, magical forces and every story beat of the classical Hero’s journey with a young protagonist being drawn into conflict and eventually fighting the evil forces. This movie is of course called Star wars and has nothing to do with this video.
Instead we are talking about something known as the strategic defence initiative which was a military program the US missile defense agency worked on during the 1980s. The stated goal was to create weapons that can protect the united states from a nuclear war. It was of course nick named the star wars programme.
There was a second goal, that was to re-start cold war arms races between USSR and USA, the story goes that the USSR could not afford this arms race and that this caused the collapse of he USSR 7 years later. Because of this some conservatives will tell you that Reagan won the cold war, even though he was out of office when the soviet bloc fell.
Is this correct? Was it really the Star Wars programme that made the USSR dissolve? It’s complicated, that’s why the video is so long. We will discuss the cold war, the purpose of the star wars programm, the things the USSR faced while regan talked about his his missile shield and eventually I’ll answer whether Regan really bankrupted the USSR and won the cold war.
If that sounds interesting to you and you want to hear more then stick with me while I thank my sponsor. My sponsor is YOU! By watching my video, leaving comments, likes and donations you make it possible for me to make videos full time which enables me to make one video every week, so thank you to everyone who supports me in any way you can, my patreons are the only reason I wasn’t forced to get sponsorships, thank you. Also patrons get access to the discord, you know?
Our story like many stars in the cold war, famously the USA and friends who loved capitalism and free markets and the USSR and friends who really loved state socialism had a bit of an disagreement over the future of all mankind. It was about the better way to organise and run a society.
For this these countries would fund and arm movements all around the world to promote their ideology and way of life. While there were many wars like in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and half of Africa, the two superpowers never went to war. And that is down to a major player in the story I am telling here. Nuclear weapons.
As you know in 1945 the second world war in the pacific ended after Japan was hit with two nuclear bombs. Whether those nuclear bombings were justified is sadly a contentious topic, they were not, Japan was on the brink already and those nukes mostly killed civilians.
As you know only 3 years later the soviet union surprised the world by building and testing it’s own nuclear weapon way faster than anyone in the capitalist west assumed they could do it. This was because of the help of spies that worked right in the American nuclear weapons development program. True heroes of socialism.
The threat of nuclear war now existed, but initially people were not that scared of it. The US had assembled many nuclear weapons between 1945 and the soviet test in 1948, so for a few years at the start of the cold war America had a so called bomb gap, which means there was a large difference between the nuclear capability of the countries.
Back then the way to get a nuclear bomb to the enemy was a plane, there was nothing else that could carry those things that far. And this likewise made people not respect nuclear weapons. You see bombers that carry nukes are large and slow.
