Robert Farley
Security, Asia
The Soviet military combined grandiose vision and global aspiration with a defense-industrial base that had severe limitations. In some cases, these limitations produced remarkable weapons, such as the T-34 and the MiG-21. In other cases, the limitations precluded disastrous decisions, such as the giant heavy bombers, the huge battleships, and the giant tanks of the interwar period. The true lesson, however, is that while decisions about weapon systems often reverberate across an entire defense-industrial base, they only rarely change the fates of nations.
For nearly seven decades, the defense-industrial complex of the Soviet Union went toe-to-toe with …read more
Source: The National Interest
