Image of the Soviet Union in the Context of the Contemporary Confrontation between the United states and China. the view of raNd Corporation 2022 (Political-Military aspect)

Abstract

The primary source for this article is the report on “The Return of Great Power War: Scenarios of Systemic Conflict Between the United States and China”. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation; 2022 (hereinafter referred to as the Report). When considering the current confrontation between the United States and China and trying to outline its future boundaries and plots, American analysts refer to the Soviet experience more than 70 times and give various assessments of the Soviet Union, including in the context of the former global rivalry with it. This retrospective view from across the ocean is of considerable interest in itself. However, this article is not so much about reproducing the perceptions of RAND Corporation analysts as it is about explaining why these perceptions are wrong in certain cases, which, in turn, makes it necessary to outline an alternative, more relevant picture of the USSR’s capabilities and realities. And since they are considered in comparison with the capabilities of other global leaders, the article incorporates consideration of a fairly wide range of topics. Given that the Report compares four global leaders of the last centuries (starting from the mid-18th century), the article includes subjects related to the British Empire and contemporary China. They make it possible to more fully reveal both the specificity of the Soviet experience and to demonstrate the reasons for some aberrations, which, in the opinion of the author of the article, are present in the Report.