Don't confuse the soviet union with Russia.

In the Soviet union only half the population was Russian. 15% of the Soviets where Ukrainian for example

I think we in the West underestimate just how severe the '90s were in Russia. You can observe the fall of the USSR by looking at a graph of average life expectancy in Russia, the scale of state failure was really enormous.

It’s because the soviets were investing the full output of their nation in the military and space program to sprint forward on that front. While the U.S. was doing all that as just a side hustle.

The USSR spent its demographic and industrial transition on this. When you have a booming population and a low industrial base, you can squeeze the people a lot harder: they still see that their lives are improving and the lives of their children will improve even more. This means you can continuously consume their savings via inflation, stoking the national economy.

South Korea famously did this very well, turning from a war-torn former dominion of Japan into an industrial and cultural powerhouse.

The Soviets went all-in on building a military-industrial complex without growing their civilian economy, basically eating all the gains their growing population provided. Very charitably, you could say they went all-in, expecting to win the conflict with the West and get their economies "for free", but badly miscalculated their chances.

The Soviets tried to transition from an economy focused on war and heavy industry to a consumer oriented economy, and they failed massively. See the book 'Building a ruin'.

Just one thing: the western semiconductors went illegally to Soviet Union through German Democratic Republic. That’s why area about Dresden is called Silicon Saxony and from my viewpoint is doing fine right now. There was no Intel in Soviet Union. No Traitorous eight. Only talented guys trying to copy last generation western parts or working on workarounds while the west was innovating. The backwardness accumulated in Soviet Union over time in semiconductor design and manufacturing areas and the whole industry became obsolete. You couldn’t see it in the other side of the pond or Iron Curtain. Many novel Soviet things were happening outside of current russia. I think, Ukraine was big in ship and plane building, but that’s not my domain.

One of the mistakes in viewing Russia/USSR is applying similar social/cultural patterns typical for the Western civilization. But they are a very different culture and mentality.

Their space achievements are an impressive proof of how far one can go in faking progress at scale by massive technology theft, enslavement, and violence. You can really achieve a lot this way! Rockets and nuclear devices have been designed by captured Nazi scientists and imprisoned engineers (later designs by home-grown engineers have been largely based on those designs). Key technologies were not invented but stolen, copied, and reverse-engineered. Factories designed and built by US design bureaus (before WW2). Cheap labour provided by enslaved peasants who didn't even have the freedom to move to a big city. Borders closed to prevent brain outflow. And lots lots of violence against their own people just for the sake of "looking like a global power".

And since it was always fake, no major technology went out of the USSR and became widespread globally such as computers, networks, internet, software stacks, protocols, etc. Nothing major and widely useful came out of the USSR or post-USSR Russia.

So what you see with Russia happening now, is just the bubble popping. Long due.

Neighbor was Soviet too.

then just read some history books from different perspectives and make you own conclusions. it's rather baffling to see how many tech people on hn are die hard believers of old clichés and western war propaganda.

You're not surprised the same happened to every other large empire in history, but the USSR baffles you? What about the British Empire? Dutch? France? Austria-Hungary, ffs? The same will happen to the US one day.

Westerner's fascination with russia is what baffles me.

Only 'special' weapon russia has is a disregard to human life westerners can't even comprehend for some reason. They call it 'winter' or some other silly thing. All their 'achievements' can be traced to inhumane treatment of enslaved peoples. Whatever achievement you think russia had - you just just lift the top soil, no need to dig deep, to be absolutely disgusted by what it was built on.

Ukraine is not weaker, it is smaller. Big difference. It was a powerhouse of the USSR, producing majority of talent. Be it in Ukraine or deported to Siberia. Russia is, and always was, a parasite on other peoples.

Why would it? The 'much weaker neighbour' in question and other satellites did most of the work on these kinds of projects. Korolev was Ukrainian, they launched from Kazakhstan. The most famous USSR planes, i.e. Antonov, are Ukrainian. Odessa shipyard was the main ship manufacturer.

Communism socialism. Does it every time.

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Despite what some of the replies say, it isn't because of their fall, but because we beleived the stories of their rise.

In the 1960s, some American economists were starting to argue & beleive that "communism" was just a better economic model. Then it all came to a crashing halt.

Once you get past the basics of industrialising serfs, ie they started from a sadly much lower starting point than most Western economies of the time, and account for the compound growth the West had gone through in the 18th & 19th centuries, and then are finally able to look past their Potemkin villages of the 20th century, they were left with no way to proceed. No market signals, no major improvements in consumption. Yes, they had a large (miltary focused) industrial sector, and a large primary economy (as they do now), but their bureaucracy, nepotism & corruption were always going to catch up with them.

Without economic growth, as they got through the 'easy' phases of industrialisation, the periphery was always going to be a problem, then the core.

I'm not sure the "fully dependent on China" slight is needed though, as it could apply to a good chunk of the West at this point. Still, as Europe has learnt with reliance on Russia, these things can be at least factored in.

Let me remind you of three things: 1) This weaker neighbor is aided and funded by a block of countries with a total population of 1b, 6 times that of Russia. 2) The same block is doing all it can to crash the Russian economy. 3) Nevertheless, this union of a weak neighbor + 1b block is steadily loosing land.

The 1990s happened. And a lot happened in the last quarter century, so you should update yor world model (preferably without resorting to MSM propaganda).

As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.

As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.