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| quote: | Originally posted by Beat Blog
Agree to disagree then.
By all accounts I've read, the Cold War ended mostly because the US had missiles with far superior range and location (i.e Turkey) to the USSR, and about 5-6 times more of them too. The war ended because the US was a far superior combatant to the USSR, who realised it too.
Let's not forget that the USSR as a state completely collapsed soon after, while the US has been stable ever since 1900 odd.
Again, it's funny to say "post-cold war test of power" because the cold war never WAS a test of power. It was an arms race and a war of politics, but never direct conflict between the two nations as far as I know, though I could be wrong. |
The Cold War ended because of economic ruin and social unrest in the Soviet Union and its puppet countries caused by a number of factors including a long drawn out war in Afghanistan, Reagan's massive build up of strategic nuclear forces during the 80's and having to maintain a massive conventional force in Eastern Europe and the accession of more progressive and open parties in Russia.
If you want to go by military prowess then the US is ahead, both in conventional and nuclear capabilities, but when you talk about the nuclear capabilities its talking in terms of how many times over you can destroy the earth, and in that regards the Soviets win, but the score is something like the US 10 and Russia 16... either way everyone on the planet is fucked.
The USSR and the United States had not had non-parity in terms of strategic nuclear forces since the late 1950's.
Also, in terms of range, the USSR, China, and the United States all have missiles that can be launched within their territory and hit most anyplace on earth within 30 minutes and it has been that way for going on 45 years now. Not to mention all three of those nations, plus France and The United Kingdom have strategic nuclear submarines that can lay silently off any coast in the world and hit any target on the planet within 7 to 15 minutes. It was never, ever a question of range.
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