A professor of mine insists that the USSR was, for essentially all of its rivalry with the US, at a significant disadvantage. He makes the case that the Cold War was "already won" by the time Reagan assumed office, but I feel like he may be biased by hindsight.
Did any respected scholars predict that the Russians would win the Cold War? If so, why? Did the prevailing international scholarship say that the United States would emerge as a dominant world power?
I'm especially interested in academics who are neither American nor Russian. The thoughts of somebody from a non-aligned state would be amazing.
The CIA itself has a great deal of work on the subject of how well they predicted the downfall of the USSR. Since the 70's there were unclassified documents that showed the USSR's economy was struggling. These ppapers include the unclassified testimony from each of DCI Admiral Stansfield Turner's annual appearances before the JEC from 1977 through 1980 which described the economy as 'bleak' with an 'inevitable' downward trend. Other papers describe how much the USSR was suffering from over investment in defense and lacking in agricultural mechanization.
They did not predict Gorbachev's rise to power though that was because it was impossible to predict Chernyenko's death. When Gorbachev entered the CIA adjusted their predictions saying that his plans could delay the downward spiral but it was still coming because he could not cut defense spending without huge political controversy. In 1988 the CIA predicted Gorbachev would have to make a radical changes to consolidate power to make the changes to sustain the economy. "Gorbachev's September Housecleaning" was an intelligence paper describing the changes he would have to make. This also cited problems stemming from the 1970's and called the USSR less stable than any time since Stalin's rise to power.
What the CIA did not predict was the collapse. They thought there was going to be civil unrest.
TLDR: The economic and societal conditions made it inevitable that something would happen. That was clearly reported by the CIA. What actually did happen depended on people and decisions that were not inevitable.
Sources:
Not a political scientist but Paul Samuelson was a dominant figure in postwar economics and his famous principles textbook which was used everywhere for decades had a famously wrong analysis of the Soviet economy overtaking the US (the dates varied and were constantly pushed out as Soviet growth stalled). Brad Delong breaks down the economic analysis that led to this conclusion here, the tldr is that central planning could keep investment in capital high which implies higher growth. Whether that would have constituted winning the Cold War is another discussion but it's a claim along similar lines of thinking.
As a follow-up question, was it generally assumed that the Cold War would eventually go hot, so to speak? Or was there more optimism about things being wrapped up or toned down more peacefully?
My grandfather wrote a book called "no wonder we are losing" I will post the Amazon description below.
As counsel for the US Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee and similar bodies investigating Communism in the United States during the last 17 years, Bob Morris has examined more than 500 witnesses under oath. He has interviewed hundreds of Communists and ex-Communists. No other American has interrogated so many informed persons on the subject of the Communist underground and its efforts, sometimes overt, sometimes covert, to undermine the foundations of moral and political authority in the United States. Here in NO WONDER WE ARE LOSING are Bob Morris' evaluations and conclusions - about use of the Fifth Amendment, America's security system, Communist influence in our schools and in the United Nations, the Yalta Agreement, recent Supreme Court decisions - and glimpses behind official Committee reports. Bob Morris believes that the nation is not awake to the lateness of the hour - nor to the proximity of the peril. NO WONDER WE ARE LOSING will provide an incisive understanding of the Soviet enemy.
Edit. Here is another book he wrote. Our Globe Under Siege
You're right to question this and identify the possible bias of hindsight. For example, there was a time when North Korea looked like it would be the success on the peninsular, instead of the South (as hard as that is to believe now). Interesting question!
I once saw an interesting study which said most of the defense spending of the USSR was linked to what effectively amounted to US subsidies. Is there any merit to this theory?
edit: It was a question, sheesh.
If you look at Dinesh D'souza's biography of Ronald Reagan, he cites a number of prominent political scientists who believed that Russia would win the cold war, and mentions that many gloss over how important Reagan's work was to end things.
On a similar note, were there any well known Soviet political scientist counterparts who correctly predicted the west's "win?" Meaning, any who were able to get their views heard in the west and east before being silenced one way or another? Were there any political scientists or prominent journalists that had some relatively unhindered access to international media outlets?