> can you guess why ? there are no such things as friends in international relations. there are only allies. and an ally is someone with enemies who is too weak to fight them by himself. what you had during the cold war was russia and its vassals, then america and its vassals, including west germany which had been defeated and occupied by the united states. we also occupied italy. while the soviet had defeated and occupied eastern europe. the united states was actually losing the cold war during its early years. having "lost" china to communism. then almost immediately afterwards the korean war began and the united states was pushed back by china and agreed to an armistice at the current border. then came vietnam. lost by the united states. the only thing that saved the united states in the cold war was the sino-soviet split. basically, china had no interest in being vassalized by the soviet union because china has a massive population with massive resources. the united states took advantage of the sino-soviet rivalry to separate china from russia(especially after a border dispute led to a short war).   6-hf1wtg&t=1353s at the same time, the muslims in the middle-east had their own civilization with massive oil reserves. they also had no interest in being under the domination of america or the soviet union. for most of the cold war, the arabs were defacto allies of the soviet union, but with the "invasion" of afghanistan, russia had become completely encircled by hostile countries. the united states did not necessarily have many friends either, but america is in the western hemisphere, with two wide open coastlines, and zero fear of being invaded by land. russia on the other hand had to spend massive amounts on its military to protect both from nato to its west and china to its east, as well as fighting islamic insurgencies. the soviet union collapsed because it went bankrupt by overspending on its military.
United States