I've been reading a couple of books lately about some of our Cold War Era technological advancements. It got me thinking if somehow a conventional war would have broken out in Europe that most of Europe would have been steamrolled by the Soviet conventional forces up until about the '80s. Is that an accurate assessment?
And what actually brought the Soviet Union to collapse? Was it economic factors or our massive buildup spurred by Reagan as some like to think? Or was it a combination of things?
I discussed this a bit in an earlier thread, which can be found here.
But very generally, the power of each military fluctuated wildly during the Cold War. As the United States got itself bogged down in Asian conflicts the quality of NATO's forces deteriorated. Generally, the period afterward was one of revitalization and growth. Take the 1950s, for example. Prior to June 1950, the US and the USSR were at rough parity, with the USSR possessing a slight advantage in terms of tanks and aircraft. But during the Korean War, the US diverted a huge number of men, tanks, fighters, and bombers to the Korean peninsula. By 1953, the US position in Europe was decidedly behind the Soviets, who had built up their stockpiles with modern tanks like the T-54, and modern fighters like the Mig-15. Further, the US doctrine had failed to advance following World War Two. Now, this slowly got better moving towards 1960, as the Army built better tanks, sent them to Germany, and then completely changed the way the Army conceptualized fighting wars.
A similar process happened in the Soviet Union, as resources, money, and manpower were shifted around to various industries, and to the military.
As for the actual collapse of the Soviet Union, I am no expert on that. However, the traditional explanation cites several factors. Mainly, Gorbachev's push towards "human socialism" liberalized the Soviet system, granted economic and intellectual freedoms, and tried to Westernize the system. The problem was, the entire system was built on fear, intimidation, and repression. By removing those factors, the Soviet system was operating in a manner in which it was not designed. Couple that with an unpopular war in Afghanistan, the always expensive confrontation with the West, and a general economic downturn in the late 1980s, and the Soviet system was primed for collapse. Gorbachev had tried to reform the Soviet Union at exactly the time when it was faced with pretty serious challenges. And Gorby took away the tools that the Soviets had traditionally used to solve those challenges, and the state simply couldnt adjust.
There is a lot more to it, but thats kind of a basic outline of the factors at play.