Upvote:-2
The United States has always had up to the present time a large, in fact, dominating military capability over the Soviet Union and this has always been well known to our military leaders and strategists, including the President.
The average American on the street with no specialized knowledged of military economics, logistics and technology, has often had an exaggerated idea of the threat posed by the Soviet war machine. This is largely because politicians tend to speak out mainly when there is some threat of some kind, so the news tends to disproportionately create stories which emphasize some threat or other, even though in the large, the Soviet empire has never posed a serious threat to the United States.
The Soviets themselves, and their successor state, the Russian republic, has always been acutely aware of their inferiority and has focused its resources on developing specific technologies that give them a defensive or deterrent capability.
ikalugin's comments about the various types of dysfunction in the NATO organization have a certain validity. NATO's purpose, however, is to be more or less a bureaucratic/diplomatic soldier's club, not an effective fighting force. In the event of a war, the Russians would be fighting the combined military forces of the United States, not NATO.
In a real war, technical superiority is usually secondary to material and manpower quantity, and in both of these departments the United States dominates Russia, especially in its productive capacity. For example, Russia has about 300,000 men in its army and the United States has over 1 million, and the American soldiers are much better trained, equipped and supported. If you factor in the US economy, which is 8 times the size of the Russian economy, it is obvious the US would annihilate Russia in any all-out war.
Upvote:6
The Soviet threat was much overestimated by the US/NATO for all of Cold War, for a variety of reasons, in particular these two:
The Soviets had a tendency to inflate their announced strength, as a way to impress both their external opponents, and their own population. Eric Schlosser, for instance, quotes a case where the US Strategic Air Command makes plans for nuclear war on the assumption that USSR had 100 of the then-new ICBM, as they boasted, whereas only 6 (six !) such missiles actually existed. Outrageous claims and impressive military parades on the Red Square were designed both the make the Americans hesitate before launching a "pre-emptive war", and to ensure internal stability of the country.
The "Red Menace" was a very convenient gimmick to flourish when trying to negotiate extended defence budgets. Painting the Soviets as having at least parity, or much more, with US/NATO has been a recurring theme in top US military circles in their dealings with the Senate and Congress.
If we want to make a military summary, it is fair to say that throughout the Cold War, USSR could muster more troops than USA/NATO, but Americans had better equipment. When considering planes, for instance, the MiG-25 was much faster in raw top speed than the contemporary F-14, and both USA and USSR were sure to point that out; but the F-14 was superior in actual fighting (much more agile, much better visibility...).
(As an exception, USSR almost always kept the lead for the number of nuclear warheads, and they had the biggest of them all.)