Was the then USSR a paper tiger?

Answer 1

If you were to ask the citizens of Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, I think they would tell you that it was far from a paper tiger.

Having served during the cold war in Germany, I can tell you that we and the West Germans took the threat very seriously.

WWII Germany is proof that the USSR had sufficient numbers of tanks and people to throw at an enemy that they would defeat it, even if better trained and armed.

Nope, it wasn't a paper tiger.

Answer 2

Paper tiger is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐ lǎohǔ (Chinese: 紙老虎), meaning something which seems as threatening as a tiger, but is really harmless.

The phrase is an ancient one in Chinese, but sources differ as to when it entered the English vocabulary. Although some sources may claim it dates back as far as 1850. it seems the Chinese phrase was first translated when it was applied to describe the United States using propaganda tactics. In 1956, Mao Zedong said of the United States:


In Mao Zedong's view, the term could be applied to all allegedly imperialist nations, particularly the United States and the Soviet Union (following the Sino-Soviet split): Mao argued that they appeared to be superficially powerful but would have a tendency to overextend themselves in the international arena, at which point pressure could be brought upon them by other states to cause their sudden collapse. Khrushchev at some point may have remarked that although the "U.S. is a paper tiger, it has atomic teeth".

Neither country was a paper tiger and we both had atomic teeth!

Answer 3

Not in my view.

They had a well-equipped and trained military with ponderous numbers, and they had nuclear weapons.

Definitely not a paper anything, they were cast iron.

An Armadillo instead of a tiger, perhaps, but they were as much of a threat as they chose to be.

Answer 4

If it was, then it kept us on our toes all through the sixties and into the seventies.

Between the USSR and Timothy Leary, they made the world a more paranoid place to live ( for different reasons)

Nick

Answer 5

No, baby.
Otherwise US Govt would not create such monsters as Pentagon, CIA, NSA, train a whole freaking bunch of Kremlinologists like Condoleezza Rice, spend billions on nukes, bombers, missiles, submarines, and all that's effort to be stuck in Iraq?

Answer 6

endure in ideas this my buddy,never underestimate the ability of the Russian military.And no,their militia is extremely solid,they have approximately 30 000 tanks,15 000 nukes and area military.to no longer point out that they are springing up scalar weapons...