How powerful was the Soviet Union during the Cold War?

The Cold War was the half-century-long confrontation between the capitalist camp headed by the United States and the socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union after the end of World War II due to ideological, international interests and other reasons. . After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became the only two superpowers in the world. The United States and the Soviet Union, which were originally allied to fight Nazi Germany, turned into opposition.

The name of the Cold War comes from the fact that the two sides have never formally fought war, because during the Cold War, the large number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and the Soviet Union gave the two countries the capability of mutually assured destruction, but even so, the two sides China still engaged in an unprecedented arms race. Because the Americans were the first to create the atomic bomb, they had an advantage in the early Cold War; however, the U.S. military lost in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and the Soviet Union took advantage of the opportunity to develop rapidly and increase its strength greatly; after the 1970s, the Soviet Union attacked the world, but the war in Afghanistan It became "Soviet Vietnam". The Soviet Union was dragged down in the arms race due to its own political and economic system.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union vigorously developed their armed forces during the Cold War. The Soviet Union reached its peak after the US military fell into the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Let's take a look at how powerful the Soviet Union was at its peak.

By the early 1980s, the Soviet Union had spent 25% of its total national production on military purposes, thereby establishing a standing army that greatly exceeded the United States in number, and its number and types of weapons ranked first in the world. First.

On September 14, 1981, the Soviet army conducted the largest military exercise in human history in the western Soviet Union (now western Russia, all of Belarus, and the three Baltic countries) and some Eastern European countries, using the army , navy, air force, homeland defense air force and other forces totaling 128,000, 1,500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles. In addition, there are two airborne divisions, four divisions of the Strategic Rocket Force and the Army Rocket Artillery Force, the Navy 1 fleet and 3 marine regiments participated. In the exercise, the Soviet army planned to reach the coastal areas of Western Europe within a week; this was a symbol of the Soviet military power in the 1980s.

Let’s look at a set of data. This is the military strength of the Soviet Union in 1988:

Soviet Army: 1.99 million people, organized into 51 tank divisions and 142 motorized infantry division, 7 airborne divisions, about 10 air assault brigades and 16 front artillery divisions, equipped with 53,000 main battle tanks, 63,000 armored combat vehicles, 29,000 artillery pieces, and about 1,570 surface-to-surface missile launchers.

Soviet Navy: 451,000 people, equipped with 79 ballistic missile nuclear submarines, 268 cruise missile nuclear submarines and attack nuclear submarines, 193 major surface combatants, and 797 small surface combatants.

Soviet Air Force: 453,000 people, including about 100,000 long-range aviation, equipped with 752 medium and long-range bombers; Front Army aviation, about 315,000, equipped with 5,167 fighters, fighter-bombers and attack aircraft.

Soviet Homeland Defense Force: 635,000 people, 1,300 fighter jets of various types, 9,600 air defense missile launchers, about 7,000 radars, and 100 anti-ballistic missile launchers.

Soviet Strategic Rocket Force: 298,000 people, with 1,398 intercontinental missiles and 1,690 strategic combat aircraft; in addition, there are 250,000 Soviet border guards and 350,000 internal security forces.

During this period, the Soviet Union’s nuclear power also increased rapidly, and after the 1980s it had greatly surpassed that of the United States.

At the same time, the United States had: 731,000 Army, 517,000 Air Force, 580,000 Navy, and 195,000 Marine Corps, a total of 2.02 million, in addition to approximately 1 million civilian personnel. Compared with the United States, the Soviet Union has a greater advantage on land and is slightly inferior in the air. In the navy, the United States has an overwhelming advantage.

Militarily, the Soviet Union could compete with the United States, but its military power was based on militarism. With the economic decline, the Soviet Union was gradually left behind by the United States in the arms race.

May the world be peaceful and the motherland be strong!

This is a personal opinion, welcome to exchange and discuss!