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Originally Posted by zZz
Your assertion that the U.S. won the Cold War is wrong. It's a fallacy that it's over. It just entered a new stage. The Soviet Union was basically outspent because its economy was a dinosaur and couldn't keep up in the modern world. All that has happened is that the nation-state formerly known as the Soviet Union, modernized and decided to adopt more capitalistic practices. For the U.S. to crow that it won the Cold War, is simply ridiculous.
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Soviet Union was always behind, it always had to rely on spying, stealing technology and spreading fear. I think it could have competed militarily with US if management was more competent - the problem was the old communists were so fearful of revolutions they didn't allow younger ones to participate so in 1980s they ran out of steam. But it couldn't have competed in many fields though - lack of freedom of individual being the main cause. They simply reached their limit while US continued to grow. And now as you say, Russia is back with KGB in power and learnt from its past mistakes. But if you consider it was still a feudal country more than 100 years ago its not that bad.
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Originally Posted by zZz
Oh, and by the way, if anybody should get the credit for "ending" the Cold War, it should be Mikhail Gorbachev, not Ronald Reagan.
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This is true, but if we go back further then the dying communists who elected Gorbachev should take the credit.