Authors often credited with having predicted the dissolution of the Soviet Union include Andrei Amalrik in "Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?" (1970), French academic Emmanuel Todd in "La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: An essay on the decomposition of the Soviet sphere)" (1976), economist Ravi Batra in his 1978 book "The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism" and French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse. Additionally, Walter Laqueur notes that "Various articles that appeared in professional journals such as "Problems of Communism" and "Survey" dealt with the decay and the possible downfall of the Soviet regime." Some Americans, particularly conservatives, view Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative as not only predicting but causing the dissolution of the Soviet state.