Joseph S. Nye: Can Russia Be Great?
[Joseph S. Nye Jr., a former U.S. assistant defense secretary, is a professor at Harvard University and author of the forthcoming book “The Future of Power.”]
In the 1950s, many Americans feared that the Soviet Union would surpass the United States as the world’s leading power. The Soviet Union had the world’s largest territory, the third-largest population and the second-largest economy, and it produced more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, the Soviet Union possessed nearly half of the world’s nuclear weapons, had more men under arms than the United States, and had the most people employed in research and development. It detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1952, only one year after the United States, and it was the first to launch a satellite into space, in 1957.
In terms of soft power, communist ideology was attractive in post-World War II Europe, owing to its anti-fascist credentials. It was also popular in the Third World because of its identification with popular national-independence movements. Soviet propaganda actively fostered a myth of the inevitability of communism’s triumph.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously boasted in 1959 that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States by 1970 — or by 1980 at the latest. As late as 1976, Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev, told the French president that communism would dominate the world by 1995. Such predictions were bolstered by reported annual economic growth rates of about 6 percent and an increase in the Soviet Union’s share of global output, from 11 percent to 12.3 percent between 1950 and 1970.
After that, however, the Soviet growth rate and share of global output began a long decline. In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev described the Soviet economy as “very disordered. We lag in all indices.” A year later, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze told his officials, “You and I represent a great country that in the last 15 years has been more and more losing its position as one of the leading industrially developed nations.”
What is surprising in retrospect is how wildly inaccurate Western assessments of Soviet power were...
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In the 1950s, many Americans feared that the Soviet Union would surpass the United States as the world’s leading power. The Soviet Union had the world’s largest territory, the third-largest population and the second-largest economy, and it produced more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, the Soviet Union possessed nearly half of the world’s nuclear weapons, had more men under arms than the United States, and had the most people employed in research and development. It detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1952, only one year after the United States, and it was the first to launch a satellite into space, in 1957.
In terms of soft power, communist ideology was attractive in post-World War II Europe, owing to its anti-fascist credentials. It was also popular in the Third World because of its identification with popular national-independence movements. Soviet propaganda actively fostered a myth of the inevitability of communism’s triumph.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously boasted in 1959 that the Soviet Union would overtake the United States by 1970 — or by 1980 at the latest. As late as 1976, Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev, told the French president that communism would dominate the world by 1995. Such predictions were bolstered by reported annual economic growth rates of about 6 percent and an increase in the Soviet Union’s share of global output, from 11 percent to 12.3 percent between 1950 and 1970.
After that, however, the Soviet growth rate and share of global output began a long decline. In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev described the Soviet economy as “very disordered. We lag in all indices.” A year later, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze told his officials, “You and I represent a great country that in the last 15 years has been more and more losing its position as one of the leading industrially developed nations.”
What is surprising in retrospect is how wildly inaccurate Western assessments of Soviet power were...