Gorbachev revived the policy of dentente with the USA and the West with an eye to providing some relief from ruinous spending on the arm race.Lacking an economic base comparable to that of the USA,the Soviet Union found matching American efforts to expand its conventional and nuclear arsenals extraordinarily expensive. Put another way, the United States during the early years of the Reagan administration was better able to afford outspending the Soviets on defense, although doing so contributed to trebling the U.S national debt during the twelve Reagan-Bush years