I don't see the implied dichotomy here. The separate goals of 'zapping incoming missiles' and provoking the Soviet Union into a destructively expensive arms race are not incompatible.
The point is that if it was a head-fake to provoke the Soviet Union into destroying itself by defense spending (which is NOT the reason the Soviet Union collapsed), then 'zapping incoming missiles' was a lie. And if it really could 'zap incoming missiles', then it wasn't a head-fake.
The fact of the matter is SDI was a fraud on the American people, the United States wasted huge amounts of money on it, it couldn't 'zap incoming missiles', the defense contractors cheated, took the money and ran, which could have been used for much better purposes, because the Soviet Union collapsed for completely different reasons than overspending to compete with SDI.
>For the first time, after years of level financing at around $4 billion, opponents are on the verge of pushing through deep budget cuts in the program, which so far has cost $20 billion. The House leadership is moving to slice in half the Bush Administration's request of $4.7 billion for Star Wars for the fiscal year 1991, to $2.3 billion. The Senate voted to set aside $3.7 billion.
>[...] In a dozen or so major tests conducted this year, half have experienced problems, ranging from runaway rockets to warhead explosions to satellite malfunctions. The failures have marred the most ambitious and costly agenda in the program's history, intended to be the first broad demonstration of anti-missile technologies that have been incubating in laboratories, often amid great secrecy, for more than seven years since President Ronald Reagan started the program in March 1983.
Reagan's great lie in the sky: Star Wars scientists may have deceived Moscow and Congress about the project, writes David Usborne in Washington
>Now, however, allegations are being made that the entire experiment was a scientific fraud. According to a New York Times report based on interviews with four unidentified former Reagan officials, the two missiles had secretly been fitted with radio beacons to guarantee their meeting in space.
