The USA won the Cold War by pushing the Soveits to the breaking point. When Ronald Reagan was elected President, he created Reaganomics. Reaganomics was the idea of playing the USA's strengths against the Soviets. Reagan saw the USSR as an evil empire and would not negotiate with them. He created the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka-star wars) to prevent missile attacks from the USSR. This was the USA's strength- money. The idea of this building weapons into space to shoot down nuclear missiles forced the USSR to spend tons of money to achieve the same security. The Soviets thought they had an advantage against the USA because they knew their secret, however, it actually but the Soviets in a worst position. Since the US had made it known to the Soviets that they were investing tons of money into the massive defense network called Star Wars, the Soviets tried to match it. They could not come up with a solution. They kept spending more and more money trying to come up with an answer. Eventually their economy sank. America was never successful in building star wars, but they were successful in putting themselves ahead of the Soviets. Once the US found the Soviets weak spot, they used it against them. The Arms Race contiued and the Soviets kept loosing money until Gorbachev came into power. Gorbachev brought an end to communism and the cold war. The US won the Cold War because of the Soviets weak economy at the time.