• GONADS125@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Their stockpiles and equipment were neglected over years. They once held a significant strength in their military. But it was systemic corruption that eroded their status as a military superpower. That’s clearly a myth at this point, no doubt…

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I mean, they both have/had rampant corruption and cronyism, so they aren’t actually that different. Russia just stopped pretending to be communist.

        • Windex007@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I think they are referring to the relative societal priority of maintaining a large modern fighting force. USSR was investing and developing bleeding edge weapons tech. Russia has just been sitting on that same stockpile.

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Ehhhh… if you look up the history, they weren’t THAT successfully industrious. They had LOTS of engineering screwups all in the name of the motherland. They helped win the war NOT with rampant successful technological advancement, but by throwing insane numbers of people towards Germany.

            Not to say they had none, just that there were many, many flaws and shortcutted projects that were never the less still greenlit to much disaster and economic waste.

            • Windex007@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I’m talking about the 60/70s where they were legitimately on par (arguably more successful) with their space-tech. Advanced weapons and space-tech are absolutely linked, the entire space race was a thin facade over demonstrating the capacity to deploy novel weapons systems. And, I can’t stress this enough, the USSR dominated in that realm.

              I guess what I’m saying is that modern day Russia being a paper tiger is pretty valid… This has been the consensus for a long time in the West. Everything that we are seeing aligns with the rational assessment of military professionals.

              That doesn’t mean this has ALWAYS been the case. The assessments of those professionals at the time, was that the Soviet military in the 60s-70s had the capacity to pose a legitimate military threat to the western world.

            • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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              6 months ago

              Sorry are you referring to WWII in a discussion about the cold war, which really wouldn’t ramp up for at least 5 years afterwards and would be mostly characterized by the 60s-80s and saying “if you look at the history”??

              Maybe you should take a gander at some history books buddy, it’s not like 10 years between medieval wars where technology would barely have inched forward, instead being an age of innovation where we went from planes to space travel in <50 years with the Soviet engineering beating the US at 2 out of 3 steps of the space race lmao.

              Not to say the soviet Union was some glorious infallible place or anuthing, I just think your comment is absurd and kinda irrelevant.

              • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Right, the soviet union wasn’t some glorious infallible place. Thanks for agreeing with me.

                • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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                  6 months ago

                  That wasn’t your comment tho, dumbfuck, your comment was that the soviet union wasn’t industrially successful during the cold war. I disagree with you and think the justification you provided for your (shitty and baseless) argument was irrelevant to the discussion. Feel free to prove otherwise, but until then, enjoy deluding yourself into thinking you’ve won the argument because your ego can’t handle the notion of being wrong. Good day sir.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The Soviet Union included a dozen nations not held by Russia today (one of whom was Ukraine), and Russia has suffered rampant corruption and neglect since the fall of the union 30 years ago

    • mochisuki@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      What we had was an excuse to spend unlimited money on weapons, destabilizing anti-business foreign governments, and demonizing unions and social programs.