Yes. As I understand it from my readings, the US developed a deliberate strategy of investing in things (like submarines, or the "star wars" defence system, etc

Yes. As I understand it from my readings, the US developed a deliberate strategy of investing in things (like submarines, or the "star wars" defence system, etc) which would cause disproportionate investment on the other side to match them - ideally investment that would not help the offensive capability of the USSR. It switched to this model from the previous model which was to match USSR expenses (e.g. they buy more nukes, we buy more nukes too). This was deliberately designed to leverage the fact that the US economy was stronger and more flexible, and amplify that. According to "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" (great book) this was the result of a paper written in the 1970s where this strategy was conceived, which was then adopted by the US military as its main strategy against the Soviet.