Was the USSR even a superpower? I really don't think the

In 1980 it had a smaller economy than Japan.

All its territory and client states together had a lower population, GDP, and industrial capacity than modern China on its own.

>>2928712
Doesn't matter, nuclear arsenal trumps it all.

>>2928724
Modern China also has nukes, and Japan can build some whenever they want.

Not really a superpower - just a different ideology which America wouldn't stand.

>>2928725
They have 300, USSR had about 20000 at peak

>>2928706
it tried to out arm the USA, and it failed

China is now trying to outhink/outdiplomat the USA, which seems to be somewhat working better

>>2928724
Nuclear arsenals that for 40% of the cold war they had no way of actually delivering into the US.

Most of their strength was perceived strength through misinformation.

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>>2928726
>starves tens of millions
>just a different ideology

[helicopter engines warming up]

Reminder that while the USSR lost the actual cold war they won the cultural war.
Raw power was not a concern. Infiltration was.

>>2928725
i dont believe japan is allowed either by the peace treaty after ww2 or by nato conventions to build nukes any time soon

>>2928778
he knows what he's talking
for plebs:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

USSR was much stronger in the 50s, but then its economy started to fail

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what about the political influence you dumbos?

Communism is an economic and political ideology that is incompatible with capitalism. So, the Soviet Union's power was intentionally overblown to create in people's minds an enemy worth attacking. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has again done this with terrorism. A small number of radicalized Middle Eastern people may have the ability to hijack a plane or two, but they cannot seriously threaten the whole of society. But they're made out to have that power, to justify US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, military support of Israel, etc. If they did nothing to make it psychologically justifiable to the population, it would border on conspiracy.

>>2928944
worthless if you don't have money to back it or enforce it... that's one of a ton of reasons communism fails

Every military metric they eventually exceeded the us. Number of tanks, intercontinental missiles, yield of nukes, bombers. The us kept on moving on to other means when the Soviets exceeded them in sheer numbers and is what contributed to the idea of SDI.

>>2928778
back to /pol/

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>>2928770

Convincing ideological narratives are important OP. Besides non-interference in internal affairs the PRC doesn't promote a certain ideological model to garner influence

>>2928778
back to pol

no one gives a shit about the ussr. most people dont even know it existed you faggot.

>>2928944
>political influence
>okay goys lets do something
>uhh no money xd
>goes back to irl shitposting
retard

>>2929942
just because commies had no pepsi doesn't mean they had no money, you handsome and thoughtul human being

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btw they even had pepsi since april 1973

>>2929937
take your baits back to /leftypol/ you scum

>China today is much stronger than USSR back in the Cold War and we don't consider China a superpower.

We don't???

>The US had 1500 operational strategic bombers by the early 60s while the soviets had no more than 40. The USSR could never throughout most of the cold war threaten the US continent. Even if a single strategic bomber had slipped US air defense, the Soviets would not live to order the next nuclear bomb.

what about the ballistic missiles in Cuba??

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>>2928706

It legitimately kind of depressing that Russia completely squandered all their post-war economic potential by pursuing the communism meme.

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>>2928706
>At the time of Khrushchev the soviet union barely had any strategic bombers.
Anon what. They had far more strategic bombers than that - almost 1,500 Badgers alone had been built by then. If you're referring to the Bomber Gap craze, that was over a single failed bomber - the Bison.

And bombers weren't all that big a part of Soviet strategic doctrine, especially during the Khrushchev era. Khrushchev (somewhat rightly so) believed ballistic missiles were the future, and he almost went out of his way to kill of a lot of aircraft development to focus on missiles. Bombers would actually end up being arguably more important to their "conventional" war plans than to their plans for a strategic nuclear exchange.

>>2928706
>China today is much stronger than USSR back in the Cold War and we don't consider China a superpower.
That's debatable, especially on the subject of power projection. Part of what made the Soviets a superpower was their ability to project power. Although they couldn't do it as well as the US, they still had tremendous power projection capability - they had enough ICBMS to thoroughly fuck NATO (albeit not without suffering a similar fate themselves), their land forces were a serious threat to Western Europe, and the Soviet Navy at times had a very real chance of clearing the Atlantic according to their plans.

China, on the other hand, lacks that kind of force projection. They don't even have full control over waters right on their doorstep, and they won't for some time. They lack the strategic airlift capacity of even the USSR, let alone the US, and even taking their propaganda at face value, they seem to have a decidedly defensive focus. And that's not even getting in to nuclear arsenals. The Chinese nuclear arsenal is tiny compared to even the post-Cold War US arsenal, and the Chinese can't compete in a nuclear arms race like the Soviets because they're already so far behind.

Economically, they're definitely doing far better than the USSR was, but they've got a lot of work to do before they're a real superpower.