Who do you think won the Cold War ?

Delancey

The US won the Cold War hands down - they were able to maintain a vast military-industrial complex and also run a sucessful market and consumer-led economy unlike the Soviets who suffered shortages of everything from tampons to tea towels .
But ( and this is a major but ) the US borrowed massively to do this and we are now seeing the fruits of this borrowing - a budget deficit and debt that is undermining the US Dollar , we are seeing the end of the so-called ' American Century ' and Cold War spending has played a huge role in that decline.

tony007

golden lane wrote: »

the whole country gambled........only the banks were guarenteed, by the government.....but that was only to keep worried investers (pension funds, mainly german).....from stopping investing......to keep a dying economy going.......and the people were happy to carry on being rich........for a while longer..

I didn't.
Thebanks had their debt socialised.

smileyj1987

U.S.A all the way because the U.S.S.R is gone now .

Phill Ewinn

The cold war was great fun. I can't wait till kids get to study it in school.

Two paranoid, senile old farts had the world by the balls. Were willing to kill everyone but themselves to satisfy their vanity. One country voted for all this while the other had no say in the matter.

Says a lot about us. God made man on the sixth day and made a bunch of fvcking ejits shortly after.

foxyboxer

goose2005 wrote: »

Being able to provide a decent society for your people to live in rather trumps them both. The 'space race' was largely dick-waving, like having the tallest tower in the world - benefits were pretty minimal.

Ah but the technology, processes, procedures and lessons learned and derived from how to wave that dick were important too. Quick example, the spacecrafts needed a digital computer which required microchips. And not just any microchips, perfect microchips. Surely that had a knock on effect in computing and electronics?

Its like arguing that researching the atom was an exercise in satisfying the curiosity of physicists and it had no practical applications elsewhere.

Duggys Housemate

Obviously the West won the cold war, if it didn't we wouldn't be here asking who won the Cold war. We'd be in a gulag. Or some such. The USSR collapsed. In terms of what ideology won - simples. The mixed economy - which is not extreme capitalism either. And thats where China are going too. No libertarian economy would have kept pace with the USSR even were it a consumerist paradise, because, as people have pointed out, a huge amount of the discoveries of the age were due to WWII and the Cold war, most often in publicly subsidised universities, or defence contractors, or organisations like NASA, or CERN.

Which is why I am a fan of State capitalism, it directs resources and people to activities where we can do useful stuff, or push technology forward, rather than just writing apps.

Capt'n Midnight

Stiffler2 wrote: »

Good post Seamus, I agree 100%.
alot of technology comes out of wars. Sure look what the nazi's invented :

Germans had Radar too, as did the Russians, French, UK, US, Hungry and Japan

Main UK contribution was not the short wave magnetron - Germans had them too - but the realisation that the problems of keeping a stable frequency could be worked around by having variable frequency receivers.

Practical jet engine came about because US work on turbochargers meant alloys that could survive conditions in the engine.

Sonar came from WW1

Most of the inventions would have taken place anyway, but at a slower rate. However, since there hasn't been ground breaking development in civil aircraft since the 1957 Boeing 707 we'd still have the low cost holidays even if development had taken decades longer. Ryanair's planes still use fuselage sections and systems from the 707.

Capt'n Midnight

analucija wrote: »

Since there wasn't any direct war,

Korea, Vietman, Afghanistan etc.
You could also include the Iran - Iraq war and others where supplies were being offered.

Capt'n Midnight

cml387 wrote: »

SONAR - British
RADAR - British

So Britain won the Cold War

Sonar WW1

Except for the Tizard mission. They gave the US everything and got nothing in return.
They gave Tube Alloys (Atomic bomb), Radar (1,000 times the output of the best US system), Jet Engine ...

Capt'n Midnight

Domo230 wrote: »

America is still around and the world mostly embraces Capitalism.

The Soviet Union is gone and Communism remains in only a few minor places.

America are easily the winners.

China is a minor place. They don't even need nukes, they can just stop supplying more credit.

is the population of China greater than US, Eu and Russia combined ?

Duggys Housemate

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

China is a minor place. They don't even need nukes, they can just stop supplying more credit.

is the population of China greater than US, Eu and Russia combined ?

It is indeed. But it is not really a communist state anymore.

Nothingbetter2d

the chinese have won the cold war... they own everything these days

golden lane

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

China is a minor place. They don't even need nukes, they can just stop supplying more credit.

is the population of China greater than US, Eu and Russia combined ?

the money china has.....is only good if other countries recognise that money....

a conversation in the white house can turn that money into worthless paper.....

just as simple as saying........one new greenback....is equal to...one billion old ones......it has been done before...

Jimoslimos

ejmaztec wrote: »

I think that was done by the British i.e. Rutherford.

foxyboxer wrote: »

He discovered the Nucleus and proposed the first model of the atom (subsequently discredited) and he was a Kiwi.

I always thought the atom was first split by an Irishman, Ernest Walton with John Cockcroft.

I Heart Internet

Cold War - US backed liberal, capitalist democracy VS USSR backed totalitarian communism.

Liberal, capitalist democracy clearly won. USSR is no more. Remaining formerly soviet backed communist states are a joke except for China which saw the error of its (economic) ways in the late 70s and has fundamentally changed. Democray to follow.....perhaps.

For better or worse and whether they want to be or not USA is now a hyperpower - globally dominant in political, cultural, economic and military realms.

China is an up-and-coming superpower.

But yeah, OP, USA and liberal, capitalist democracy won the cold war.

Delancey

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Sonar WW1

Except for the Tizard mission. They gave the US everything and got nothing in return.
They gave Tube Alloys (Atomic bomb), Radar (1,000 times the output of the best US system), Jet Engine ...

The British were great at inventing things but when it came to mass-producing them into usable items they were not nearly as good as the US.
The Radar magnetron is a classic example , Penicillin is another.
Only the US had the industrial capacity to take these great inventions to the next step.

The US economy in WW2 is what won the war in many respects - the irony is that virtually all that huge manufacturing base has since been wiped out and replaced by a ' service ' economy - were a similar conflict to erupt now there would not be the shipyards , steel plants or factories to repeat the staggering output of 70 years ago.

Capt'n Midnight

goose2005 wrote: »

Being able to provide a decent society for your people to live in rather trumps them both. The 'space race' was largely dick-waving, like having the tallest tower in the world - benefits were pretty minimal.

the list of NASA spin offs is very poor , a
and most are adaptions of previous technology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

yes there was lots of good - project specific - engineering ,
and a lot of miniaturisation , which would have happened anyway for defense - though Sony would also busy inventing markets for portable electronics

they probably did more in their Naca days

ceekay74

Antarctica

Chuck Stone

The only real advances that happened that otherwise might not have (total supposition ofc) was in rocket and space technology imho. The combustion engine and powered aircraft were invented long before the cold war (or even WW1).

Some of the advances in communication satellites (and GPS) are probably attributable to the space race but I believe that communications would have accelerated anyway through undersea cables had the space race not taken place.

ianobrien

ejmaztec wrote: »

I think that was done by the British i.e. Rutherford.

The first self-sustaining nuclear reaction was done by Enrico Fermi (an Italian) in the squash courts of the University of Chicago. Imagine that, building the first primitive nuclear reactor under the stand of a football field on a university campus.....

The first man to break an atom was indeed Earnest Rutherford, colliding an alpha particle off a nitrogen nucleus.

ianobrien

OP, read "The Dead Hand" by David E. Hoffman. That'll answer your question.

The book examines the US-USSR relationship in the '80's and explains the actions that in the timeline of the death of Brezhnev to the fall of Communism.

wendell borton

Neither the USA or USSR won. The USSR is gone and since the 1970's american industry was been decimated and the economy dependent on outside factors, oil and credit.

Sisko

pipelaser wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

This Guy won the Cold War. Sounds like he was one cool customer!

Excellent comment. Everyone should know who this guy is.

oppenheimer1

To determine who won the cold war you first have to recognise the participants and also the date it ended. Most people agree that it ended around the time of the fall of the Berlin wall. At the same time the USSR collapsed. Ultimately all wars are about existence and survival, since the USSR no longer exists they lost. The reason the USSR lost though was through the failures of their own system.

Its a pretty straightforward answer so, the USA were the clear victors.