Rob. Pull ANY ARBITRARY bit of text out and enter it into GOOGLE and you get this hit:
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/treaties/inf1.htm

I think you copied this verbatim and without credit. But, since you are not taking one of my courses, I won't flunk you. Instead I will respond to your source. Point by point.

Point by Point, Rob....
"You do not know that the USSR was finished, but say it was"

Yes, I do know. Their economy was in decline, their production of goods was in decline, their ability to provide foreign assistance was in decline. Their military spending was not increasing at the rate they maintained through the 50's and 60's. Where they were able to advance, it was by marginal rates. Their communist economy just did not grow at the rate of a captialist democracy, So yes, I do know. They had a 60's economy in a late-80's world. They were doomed.

Rob wrote:
"They still saw the US as their enemy and they still has enough nukes pointed at us to wipe us out many times over."

Yes, and we had them targeted too. I rooted for our side, never fear, but it takes two to have an armed standoff :-)

Again, this is a non issue. Of course they were our enemy, what does this have to do with Reagan?

rob wrote:
"The US military was weak. President Reagan built up our military and initiated new programs to counter the powerful Soviet military."

No, it was NOT weak. We, LIKE THE RUSSIANS, had decided to focus on strategic arms. We could have nuked them and bacteria back to the cambrian period. They knew it, We knew it, We all knew it.

Our Navy (due to our carriers) was MUCH stronger than theirs then as now. ONLY America could conduct C.O.T.S. then and Now. The conventional forces of europe, combined with US forces was a FINE equal to Russias, and even superceeded it in MANY respects (Technology, NAVY, and COTS). That the military was weak is a RELATIVE claim that you cannot prove.

Rob:
"President Reagan built up our military and initiated new programs to counter the powerful Soviet military."

Yep, Reagan built up our military, it was not weak and it already countered the powerful soviet army. That he built it up I will not debate, but the reasons I will.

Rob
"The USSR could not country the US arms build up. "

Actually, Russia was not *that* interested in matching. They knew that any conflict with the US would go
Conflict->Gunshot->Nuclear war. Conventional forces are somewhat absurd in the context of that military doctrine.

Rob:
"Their economy crashed. This made Chernenko very unpopular and was the first step in the fall of the USSR and the Cold war
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/20th/coldwar6.html";

Their economy had already crashed/was in a long-term prolonged crash. The link you provide just reviews military armaments of the 80's, id it a mistake or are you trying ti use it as a source?

Rob
"In 1985 Gorbachev replaced Chernenko - began "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring) in USSR 1st Reagan-Gorbachev."fireside" summit Nov. in Geneva, but argued over SDI."

Yes, the dates are about right. But the Open-ness was because Russia was IN CRISIS already.

Rob
"As time past, Reagan and Gorbachev worked together to reduce nuclear arms. This friendship between the two world power leaders was the final step in the end of the Cold War. "

Russia could not afford a miltary any more and it could not even see a clear path to continued political unity. We are really lucky that some hard-liner from the red-army did not get into power and start throwing Nukes at A'stan! Reagans brinkmanship COULD have lead to that event.

Rob:
"On November 12, 1979, the NATO ministers unanimously adopted a "dual track" strategy to counter Soviet SS-20 deployments. One track called for arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce INF forces to the lowest possible level; the second track called for deployment in Western Europe, beginning in December 1983, of 464 single-warhead U.S. ground-launched cruise (GLCM) missiles and 108 Pershing II ballistic missiles.
Initially the Soviet Union refused to engage in preliminary talks, unless NATO revoked its deployment decision; however, by July 1980, the Soviet position changed, and preliminary discussions began in Geneva in the fall of 1980.
The U.S. approach to the negotiations, developed through extensive consultations within NATO, required that any INF agreement must: (1) provide for equality both in limits and rights between the United States and the Soviet Union; (2) be strictly bilateral and thus exclude British and French systems; (3) limit systems on a global basis; (4) not adversely affect NATOs conventional defense capability; and (5) be effectively verifiable.
Agreement to begin formal talks was reached on September 23, 1981. On November 18, President Reagan announced a negotiating proposal in which the United States would agree to eliminate its Pershing IIs and GLCMs if the Soviet Union would dismantle all of its SS-20s, SS-4s, and SS-5s. This proposal became known as the "zero-zero offer." "

Okay, this is all out of the textbook, no real complaints. HOWEVER, this does not change the fact that Russia came to the table because it no longer had the political and economic capital to carry its army and to persist the standoff. This had nothing to do with Reagan and more to do with the fact that Russia was doomed. Marx groaned from the bad humor: The seeds of the downfall were sewn into the system.

This is a waste of my time.......

Look, the facts are facts, but the causal underpinnings are abscent from your pirated text. Go look up another source and dump it at me and I'll respond again

http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/treaties/inf1.htm