Answer: Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971.
Détente ended after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which led to the United States boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980, based in large part on an anti-détente campaign, marked the close of détente and a return to Cold War tensions and eventually to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Explanation: Ronald Reagan envisioned the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI (a missile defense system). Reagan visualised lasers and other state-of-the-art technology that would neutralize incoming missiles. Reagan wanted the demise of the Soviet Union and eventually that happened.
