It’s long been an opinion (Patton most famously) the USSR/Russia was vastly overrated militarily. The frantic expenditure of resources to obtain such a massive nuclear arm shows they were correct. The true top leaders in Russia knew they were weak and compensated by nuclear weapons.
Patton should have had Ike’s position and later became C in C. If this thing ever goes even tactical nuclear his prediction will have been verified 10 fold:
“ We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no Air Force anymore , their
gasoline and ammunition supplies are low.I’ve seen their miserable
supply trains;mostly wagons draw by beaten up old hoses or oxen.
I’ll say this ;the Third Army alone with very little help and with
damned few casulaties,could lick what is left of the Russians in six
weeks. You mark my words.Don’t ever forget them. Someday we
will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six
million lives.”
In addition to the tactical calculations, Russia would have immediately collapsed if we took lend-lease away.
They recovered, sort of, following WWII, giving them funds to develop a strategic missiles, a space program, start to build a blue ocean navy, as well as modernize their ground forces. In those days, money came in mostly from arms sales to client states. Keynesian economists greatly over-estimated the growth of the economy of the Soviet Union, in part because they envied central-planning and in part because they accepted the fake statistics of communist countries as real. It turns out, the communist countries were all third world nations, in terms of economics.
Then we had the naive belief that elections are all you need for democracy. No. Democracy is a subtle thing. It’s good to have a Constitution that ordinary people can understand (like the Ten Commandments). But, for that to be real, it has to be written on the hearts and minds of the people. All democracies have problems, some worse than others. And, besides, we really don’t want a democracy. We want a republic.
So, Russia having one or two elections did not guarantee that country would have a successful future. We need to offer the people of Russia the possibility of a successful future, while dealing with the kleptocrats who are in charge right now. This requires a combination of long-term vision and short-term realism that is woefully lacking in our country.
The USSR would have been destroyed totally. Most of their missiles would be destroyed in their silos. However, some would be launched. Enough to still destroy many US and European cities and military complexes. So, their philosophy became quantity not quality. Sheer numbers of warheads.