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ConohaConcordia t1_j5025m4 wrote

Reply to comment by Core2score in Germany says it is no longer reliant on Russian energy by scot816

I think how the Cold War ended really made a lot of people forget how powerful the USSR once was. For a while, it was the world power with the most advanced technologies, with many renowned artists, and with an ideology that seemed to be the future for many people in the world. While the West ultimately emerged victorious in the Cold War, the USSR fought it at an equal footing — something the Russian Federation was never able to do.

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Decuriarch t1_j504l4v wrote

Not really, it became very evident after the USSR fell that most of their "power" was just smoke and mirrors. We thought they were ahead of us in the space race, when they really weren't. They never had parity with the US, they just also had nukes and knew how to cast a large shadow. Putin was just emulating the past.

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Downtown_Skill t1_j50qm2v wrote

Their technology was far behind and corruption was rampant domestically but there is no denying the influence they had in geopolitics. Shit many of Russia's current allies or sympathizers are left over from the cold war. I live in Vietnam which in general perceives the US as a partner and the US is very much liked here. You don't see any Russian flags anywhere but the hammer and sickle can be found everywhere. The Soviet union was a much more powerful ideological force than Russia if anything.

The Soviet union was a corrupt oppressive hell hole but the more I learn about the cold war the more it seems like the Soviet union at the very least supported a more humane foreign policy than the United States (a very low bar to clear in the cold war) which got them a lot of friends (that they're now losing at a staggering pace)

Edit: and just so no one thinks I'm a Soviet sympathizer because I'm very much not what I mean about the humane foreign policy is that while the USSR definitely had an unethical approach to foreign policy it's hard to beat the United States record of installing a corrupt dictator in the congo, illegally bombing Cambodia and Laos, installing violent dictators in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and pretty much all of Latin America, militarily supporting Pakistan's genocide of Bangladesh, and various other less violent but equally shady things amongst their allies.

The USSR just wasn't quite as busy as the United States, they were more focused on oppressing people back in their Soviet bloc (which included most of eastern Europe at the time)

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Core2score t1_j56dokd wrote

If you think the country that brought you the gulags knows anything about being humane you're prolly not right upstairs..

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Core2score t1_j56ddod wrote

I mean the USSR was easily on par with the US early on in the space race, then a combination of a much inferior economy and corruption took its toll.

As for their military tech, it wasn't necessarily on par with the US all the time, but they had a very decent defense industry. Meanwhile all Russia can do is design super weapons like the T14 and then execution flops so bad im they become memes among military and defense bloggers.

To say nothing of the much much smaller sphere of influence Russia has today compared to peak Soviet Union.

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