It wasn't just the Navy buildup...IMHO
Because of my point of view, I see things somewhat differently. It wasn't just the Navy buildup that pushed the Russians to the economic breaking point, there were other things as well. Besides the general military buildup (Navy included) there was a reactivation of our nation's ability to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. A lot of money got spent there, forcing the Soviets to do their best to keep up. And there was the SDI (called Star Wars by the media) which also forced drains on the Soviet economy, trying to come up with a counter, even though SDI didn't deploy, the fact that it might meant they could not ignore it.
And there was Reagan's political will. No one else for decades had had the political will to actually confront the Soviet Union. Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis had a US president and administration taken anything but a rather concilliatory tone towards the Soviets. While there were occassional incidents of tough sounding talk, the general attitude was to get along, don't push them, we signed treaties more favorable to them and to us, we nearly bent over backwards to keep from doing anything that might irritate the Soviet Bear. Until Reagan. Reagan publically called them an Evil Empire. Reagan built up America's offensive capabilities, and made it clear that if necessary he would use them. Reagan called for them to "tear down this wall". History proved him right.
"Guns vs butter" is the traditional description of every governments fiscal dilemma of defense vs social spending. The Soviet Union actually spend about the same amount of money on their military as we did. The big difference is that because of our different economic systems, that amount of money was a huge portion of the USSR's GNP, and they literally ran out of money. At that point they only had two choices, and one of them was insanity. Eastern Europe, so long held in their political fist was let go. And after that, the whole system fell apart, because those in power were no longer willing to do what they would have had to do to keep their system going. Sanity actually prevailed, for once.
Obama will not "disarm" the military. But his administration will certainly change it if they can. We did not "disarm" the military after WW I, but we did drastically cut back funding. New weapons were not built, or only built in tiny numbers for testing. And even that testing was minimal, due to fiscal restaints. A bit iover a decade later we went into WWII with weapons systems that were largely untested, and often unreliable, and inferior to those of the enemies we faced. While we did overcome these deficiencies, it left a lasting impression on a great many people, and after WWII, we did not cut back nearly as much. The "threat" of communism was more than sufficient justification to maintain our military at nearly wartime levels. Things change, times change, but some things remain, and one of those things was the memory of what can happen to us if we decide we no longer need a powerful military. But not everyone remembers, or cares. And so we are likely doomed to go through something very similar again.
