The Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact era, the strength has always been far behind NATO and the United States. If the comprehensive national strength of the Soviet Union actually less than one-third of the United States, the strength gap is very wide, so it has never been the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to do concessions. The economy is completely unable to fight, military power, except for the nuclear arsenal in the Brezhnev era to catch up with the United States, in the nuclear balance. Both the USSR and the Warsaw Pact were exaggerated by many media outlets. The Soviet Union can pull the team and the United States for hegemony at the heart of the United States is not a centralized system, unless the outbreak of the Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland like World War II, can make the Congress bipartisan unity, most of the time the United States of America's administrative efficiency is relatively low, and the Soviet Union can mobilize the entire society of the vast majority of the resources, so there are times when it will be made to feel that the difference in the strength of the two countries is not very big, because the competition is the Soviet Union can also be out of the United States of 70% of the time The Soviet Union was also able to produce about 70% of the resources of the United States in competition, which made people feel that they were only slightly weaker. But this is only superficial, because when the two countries were at their closest economic level, the Soviet Union was only able to reach 40% of the United States' resources, and when the Soviet Union was at its best, the ratio was only 27%. The Soviet Union only in the Brezhnev era, the scale of heavy industry to catch up with the United States, but the U.S. economy in the 1930s after the heavy industry accounted for less than 20% of the total, scientific research, agriculture, commerce, light industry, education, health care, social security system or the natural environment, geographic location of the United States unique, while the Soviet Union, these industries have not reached the minimum level of security. The biggest disadvantage of the Soviet Union is that agriculture and basic light industry, especially daily necessities need to be imported in large quantities, and the United States of America's agriculture is exported in large quantities. The Soviet Union had the advantage of being able to export oil, but the United States is now the world's largest oil producer and oil exporter, that would the United States still need to import. The Soviet Union will also need to import large quantities of processing equipment from Western Europe, the United States and Japan, and will need to hire mechanics from Europe, the United States and Japan to repair factory equipment.
There is also the history of the development of the Soviet Union, many domestic information is not complete. After the collapse of the Soviet Union after the disclosure of internal information, first of all, the Soviet Union's science and technology in the two external technology input, the first is the Great Depression period of the United States, Europe in order to get rid of the economic crisis, to open up new global blue ocean market, a large number of investment in the Soviet Union, the first technology input. The basic implementation of industrialization in the Soviet Union relied on one side of the exploitation of farmers to buy machinery and equipment from Europe and the United States, and the other side of the dual-track market, to open up special channels for foreign investment. At the same time to hire a large number of European and American engineers to work in the Soviet Union, the most typical is the Russian automobile industry is the United States of America, Ford Motor full assistance to establish, so the early Soviet car has a very obvious characteristics of the United States car. The Soviet Union had very good relations with the United States in the early days of Stalin, until Stalin turned to Hitler in the latter part of the war, and the United States and the Soviet Union had a rift. The Soviet Union and Germany were briefly allies in the early part of WWII, hence the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. The Soviet Union because it needed to buy aircraft, but its own aircraft industry is very backward, Western European countries hostile to the Soviet Union, so Nazi Germany in order to revitalize the economy, the Soviet Union in order to aircraft and other technical support, the two countries are very close.
The second technological input is that after World War II, the Soviet Union got the national assets of Nazi Germany, obtained the chariot technology, artillery technology, processing technology, jet aircraft technology, aerospace science and technology of the spacecraft prototypes and satellite prototypes and research laboratories, and a lot of automobile production and processing equipment. All the so-called scientific and technological achievements of the Soviet Union originated here! Of course the US got all this technology too. The USSR just completed subsequent refurbishments on the basis of the Von Bryan pilot products, so the global aviation industry came up with the spaceship school and the space shuttle school. Von Bryan joined the US and became the father of American spaceflight, developing the space shuttle based on the original airship. After the global jet aircraft is also divided into three factions, the European faction to the French Rafale as a representative, the United States sent F15 F16 F22 F35, the Soviet Union sent Su30 Su27 Su35 Su57. but because the Soviet Union just got the Nazi production equipment and workers, the Soviet Union's aircraft development in the 70's fell into serious bottlenecks, the engine life is too short, the performance of the aircraft can not be and the same time Europe and the United States aircraft to fight against, has been continued to the present day. This has continued to the present day. There is also the typical Soviet AK47 rifle is also the German 1938 development to the end of 1944 finalized STG44 as the prototype improved, in addition to the gun machine has a difference in the caliber of the bullet is slightly different, the other performance is almost exactly the same. But by the 1970s after the Soviet Union had thoroughly digested the Nazi technology, the Soviet Union fell into a serious technological inferiority. The Soviet Union could not update the production equipment of the factory, the Soviet Union in the electronics industry is not built at all, the Soviet army invasion of Afghanistan because the AK47 effective range is too short, shooting accuracy is too poor, was seriously criticized by the Soviet army, the face of the guerrillas used 600 meters effective range of the M16 improved, 300 meters of effective range is simply being suppressed. Many people are still touting the AK47 is actually because the Soviet Union is financially tighter, the Soviet army or the Russian army are very criticized this World War II era weapons performance is very backward. Because it is not an independent design, Kalashnikov can only small repairs, to the AK74 effective range can only be raised to 400 meters. Vietnam War U.S. Army's main weapon is the elimination of the World War II era weapons M1 M2 M2 M14, to the last year of the trial installation of the M16, so the early stage is the U.S. Army's infantry weapons lagging behind the Vietnamese guerrillas of the AK47, the M16 is only the first time to put into actual combat. After that, due to Brezhnev's dictatorship and good old fashion, the USSR began to expand abroad, and it gave the US and the USSR the opportunity to become completely hostile.
By the 1980s Reagan had come to power and adopted the recommendations of the US Intelligence Department to impose an economic blockade and technology embargo, and to crack down on the Soviet Union internally. The Soviet Union was extremely dependent on oil exports for domestic development because of its own bureaucracy. The U.S. policy hit the Soviet economy so hard that equipment in Soviet factories began to experience downtime and maintenance difficulties, and could not be replaced or upgraded. At the same time, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made the Saudis very frightened of Soviet expansion into Saudi Arabia, so the U.S. pulled the Saudis together for five months to make the international price of crude oil plummeted to less than $12 a barrel, which was already lower than the Soviet Union's cost of extraction. Coupled with continued foreign expansion, the Soviet economy was in serious disarray by the mid-1980s. High fiscal deficits, the extravagance of the privileged Soviet bureaucrats, and the inability of the Soviet Union to import enough food and basic necessities due to continued losses from oil exports, but the shelves of the privileged stores were full of goods, eventually led to the collapse of the USSR due to a complete financial collapse. Although Russia inherited the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal and air force, most of its navy, and a portion of its army, Russia's development continued on the Soviet path. Just the Soviet **** privileged class into the oligarchs now, the Russian economy is the export of oil and gas resources, arms exports and the financial industry, Putin pursued de-industrialization, the national strength instead of a great decline, the national strength and NATO in these years of continuous expansion of power compared to the strength of the Russian Federation in a substantial decline.