The U.S.S.R did three major reforms before it imploded. It had nothing to do with our military build up. The buildup helped cement that the U.S.S.R as a political and economic bloc was no longer viable for the Russians. This was after uncovering the cult of personality of Stalin, the military issues with Cuba, China, S.America and Afghanistan. The fact that technologically the Russians were regressing after they took a strong leap in the 60's. They could not compete with Japan nor the U.S.A whom was competing against Japan technologically in the 80's. The Soviet Union's reality was, it was not economically strong to set the global fiances compared to the United States. The economic power leading into the 80's eclipsed the Soviet Union whom was facing issues brought upon by bad internal policy. I'll add a caveat here. The military buildup we did was in part to spur our economy, domestically. The technological innovations and subsequent transfer those technologies helped spur our technological edge. Mind you since our containment policy the U.S has spent a huge chunk of GDP on build up. Yet our biggest achievements against the reds were not military. They were the Moon Landing and giving birth to the information age mid-80's to 90's that is shaping our history today.

This is why if you think about it, China by far is a more dangerous communist enemy compared to the Soviets. The soviets expanded far too fast and never shored up their internal workings. They fought on the global state. China on the other hand it worked on itself internally once Nixon opened them up for trade. They worked using IP theft, selling their population as free slave labor to their enemies. Now they have the economic capital to rival the United States, worse of all with this Covid-19 issue, its proving that if China sneezes the world catches it.