After the wall came down in Berlin, GHW Bush commented that the intel focus would shift away from military targets to economic targets. I don't remember the exact words, but that shift in focus stuck in my mind.
The cold war was an economic war. The USSR didn't have the infrastructure to survive an extended global war and we knew it. All we needed to do was keep the pressure on, force them to spend more on their military and wait. Osama bin Laden tried that same tactic on us and GW Bush fell for it hook line and sinker.