America didn't win the Cold War as Reagen claimed.

[Big Blue Machine]

I stand by my opinion

[udawg]

Everybody's looking too deep into it. Whether the US won or not depends on your view of what winning means. If, in this case, it means that the losing side changes political systems and conforms to the winner's ideals and systems, since that is essentially what the Cold War was about (keeping it simple), then the US won... or at least, is currently winning.

If you decide the winner based on who is the more powerful nation at the end of the conflict, then the US (by most yardmarkers) won again.

If you want to complicate it a bit, and say the Cold War was about having the superior nation in terms of athletics, technology, and economy, it's a split decision. The USSR won the athletics, won most of the major technological races (space), but lost the economic race. (theirs collapsed first)

As I originally said, it depends what you want to define a win by.

[Hugo]

The USSR won the athletics, won most of the major technological races (space), but lost the economic race. (theirs collapsed first)

It depends if you believe that the means become part of the end. The USSR won in athletics by drafting the able into athletic programs that were, by Western standards, cruel, and often caused lasting damage. A very high percentage of Soviet athletes were, in fact, Soviet Special Forces (spetznaz). Soviet society encouraged athleticism and sport not for fitness and health, but to ensure that they had a good number of fit young men and women to draft into their vast military.

Regarding their technological feats, it's worth noting how many human lives were sacrificed. The USSR had lost dozens of cosmonauts in accidents and tests before the USA had lost even one. In another example, the first Soviet nuclear submarine (the November class) was observed running at very high speeds, far faster than comparable US subs could do. US intelligence puzzled over this for years, until they learnt that the only reason Soviet subs went so fast was because they did not carry any reactor shielding at all, whereas US subs had to carry several hundred tons of lead shielding to protect the crew from radiation. It goes without saying that the crews of those subs all died very early.

Even the achievements of the USSR highlight the fact that to Communism, human life and suffering is of no importance and citizens are resources to be spent and discarded like any other.

[Big Blue Machine]

America won the space race.