For nearly half a century following the Second World War, the Soviet Union stood as the United States’ principal strategic adversary. The Cold War divided the international system into two competing ideological, political and military blocs. Washington championed liberal democracy and market capitalism, while Moscow promoted centralized communist governance. Their rivalry extended far beyond military confrontation; it encompassed economics, science, technology, diplomacy, intelligence, space exploration and global influence.The Soviet Union possessed virtually every attribute of a superpower. It maintained one of the world’s largest industrial bases, commanded an immense conventional military, developed strategic nuclear parity with the United States and became the first nation to launch both an artificial satellite (Sputnik) and a human (Yuri Gagarin) into space.

Through the Warsaw Pact and extensive political relationships across Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, Moscow projected global influence that challenged American leadership for decades.However, sustaining competition with the United States imposed enormous economic burdens. Central planning increasingly failed to generate innovation and productivity. Industrial inefficiency, declining economic growth, fiscal strain from the arms race, and political rigidity gradually weakened the Soviet system.

The decade-long Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979–1989) further strained national resources and damaged international prestige. While Afghanistan contributed to Soviet exhaustion, historians generally agree that the collapse of the USSR resulted from multiple structural causes rather than any single conflict.In December 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved into fifteen independent republics. Russia inherited........

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