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To estimate, compare, distinguish,
discuss, and trace to its principal
sources everything
Notice that this chart is put together from different sources. I used % of National Income (GDP for usa, and
NMP converted to GDP for the Soviet Union) for both countries, but different procedures for computing
Soviet GDP will yield different estimates. The huge dispersion in 1980 comes from Harrison (2003), where he
collects many different estimates.
Even today we don’t have fully reliable numbers on Soviet military spending. During the Cold War there
was a whole literature (Dudkin & Vasilevsky 1987, Noren 1995, Steinberg 1990) devoted to these estimates.
One example from Noren’s paper:
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Given my chart, one would say that military spending was around 10-20% of Soviet GDP, so perhaps a
compromise figure of 15%, around twice USA spending. However, Harrison 2003 leads some support to the
idea that actual military spending was around 20%, at the upper range of the Cold War estimates. Being
street bayesians, let’s conclude that it was 18% for now.
Bonus: Was US military technology more advanced than the Soviet’s? Yes, but not by a large margin (Perry,
1973)
Bonus2: Did Reagan induce a Soviet increase in military spending that in turn lead to the collapse of the
Soviet Union? (For the thesis see Busch 1997, against the thesis Dobson 2005. For more, see the
AskHistorians subreddit) Reagan’s policies were at much a secondary factor in explaining why the Soviet
economy crashed. In that sense, he didn’t win the Cold War. Rather, The Soviet Union committed suicide by
virtue of the deterioration of its economic system in the late 70s.
(Edit)
We can also look at military spending on a per capita basis, and see also the absolute amount of spending.
For that, I multiply my values above by GDP as measured by Maddison (I assume 18% of GDP spending for
the Soviets in the 78-85 period), and then I multiply by population. Population for the US comes from the US
Census, population for the USSR comes from the UN.
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If this is so, then Reagan’s buildup didn’t really increase the Soviet’s military burden. Reagan’s increase
from valley to peak was of 62.5% while the Soviet answer to that was a mere 12%.
Here someone got a figure that looks like mine, and it also shows that the Soviet increase in spending
came way before Reagan:
References
Allen, R. C. (2003). Farm to factory: a reinterpretation of the Soviet industrial revolution. Princeton University
Press.
Busch, A. E. (1997). Ronald Reagan and the defeat of the Soviet empire. Presidential Studies Quarterly,27(3),
451-466.
Daggett, S., & Belasco, A. (2002, March). Defense Budget for FY2003: Data Summary. CRS Report for Congress,
March.
Dobson, A. P. (2005). The Reagan administration, economic warfare, and starting to close down the cold
war. Diplomatic History, 29(3), 531-556.
Dudkin, L., & Vasilevsky, A. (1987). The Soviet Military Burden: A Critical Analysis of Current Research.
Hitotsubashi journal of economics, 41-61.
Harrison, M. (1988). Resource mobilization for World War II: the USA, UK, USSR, and Germany, 1938‐1945′. The
Economic History Review, 41(2), 171-192.
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Harrison, M. (2003). How much did the Soviets really spend on defence? New evidence from the close of the
Brezhnev era.
Noren, J. H. (1995). The controversy over Western measures of Soviet defense expenditures. Post-Soviet
Affairs, 11(3), 238-276.
Nove, A. (1992). An Economic History of the USSR, 1st edn, London: Allen Lane, 1969; revised 1989; revised as
An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991.
Steinberg, D. (1990). Trends in Soviet military expenditure. Europe‐Asia Studies, 42(4), 675-699.
SIPRI http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database
Appendix
Soviet Military Spending
Year Source % of NI
1929 Allen(2003) 1
1930 Allen(2003) 1
1931 Allen(2003) 1
1932 Allen(2003) 1
1933 Allen(2003) 1
1934 Allen(2003) 2
1935 Allen(2003) 3
1936 Allen(2003) 5
1937 Allen(2003) 4
1938 Allen(2003) 6
1939 Allen(2003) 8
1940 Nove(1992) 15
1940 Allen(2003) 11
1940 Harrison(1988) 20
1942 Nove(1992) 55
1942 Harrison(1988) 66
1943 Harrison(1988) 58
1944 Harrison(1988) 52
1950 Nove(1992) 19
1951 Nove(1992) 21
1952 Nove(1992) 24
1970 CIA1(1977) 12
1971 CIA1(1977) 12
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1972 CIA1(1977) 12
1973 CIA1(1977) 12
1974 CIA1(1977) 12
1975 CIA1(1977) 12
1976 CIA1(1977) 12
1980 Harrison(2003) 17
1980 Harrison(2003) 17
1980 Harrison(2003) 16
1980 Harrison(2003) 15
1980 Harrison(2003) 25
1980 Harrison(2003) 13
1980 Harrison(2003) 8
1980 Harrison(2003) 8
1980 Harrison(2003) 3
1980 Harrison(2003) 25
1987 FAS(2000) 13
1988 FAS(2000) 13
1988 Cooper(1998) 16
1989 FAS(2000) 11
1989 Cooper(1998) 14
1990 FAS(2000) 11
1990 Cooper(1998) 12
1991 FAS(2000) 10
US Military Spending
Source Source % of NI
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In "Blog"
akarlin says:
Jun 3, 2016 at 2:50 am
Rather, The Soviet Union committed suicide by virtue of the deterioration of its economic system in the late 70s.
That was a factor, but far from a critical one. The centrally planned economy was inefficient but stable. The key
mistake was conducting political and market reforms at the same time (thus provoking a recession while
simultaneously making the Soviet state both answerable for it and enabling the airing of formerly repressed
nationalist sentiments). Incidentally, Andropov planned to do the latter before the former, but he died too early.
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Artir says:
Jun 3, 2016 at 12:32 pm
Yes, I agree with that. The Soviet Union could have lasted far longer (See North Korea, it’s still happily
there).
The downfall of the USSR deserves a post of its own, and I’ll come to that at some point.
Nintil
Blog at WordPress.com.
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