> 1) america started out much richer than the soviet union because while much of the soviet union was invaded/destroyed during wwii, america was untouched, and made massive profits selling weapons during wwii. well, that's partly their own fault for their abysmal handling of continental politics. imagine the soviets don't overextend into poland with ribbentrop-molotov, but hit the culminated germans and swoop in as liberators. > 2) america essentially took over much of britain and france's overseas empires because they could no longer hold them. true, but an important distinction is they did so with soft power, which is much cheaper. they're the assholes footing our bill right now. > 3) america was getting its shit pushed in in vietnam, bretton woods was collapsing, and the whole world was turning against america. the only thing that saved america was the sino-soviet split and the petrodollar. without which we would have lost the cold war and fallen into financial ruin a long time ago. i think you underestimate the american situation. the petrodollar and sino-soviet certainly helped, but in hindsight the us would probably have been fine by pure dint of their economic inertia. all that manufacturing won't crumble to ash, many of those pessimist analysis are from contemporaries who were using conservative high estimates for the soviets and chinese.  > 4) the soviet union collapsed because it was both "contained" and "overextended". russia let its empire collapse because not only could it not afford it, but it would only get worse over time. by 1980, russia had lost almost all of their friends, and with no chance of regaining them. also true, and also possible because the western system was way more stable, because it was rewarding for its participants. the us could afford more because they weren't actively throwing money at britain or france, but because there is mutual benefit in that. cont'd
Germany