Geopolitical and cultural effects of a surviving Soviet Union?

If the Soviet Union survived as a powerful, hostile nation consisting of the entire Warsaw Pact, what would be the effects on geopolitics and culture?

There would of course be a continued arms race. A continued space race. Maybe a cloning race and an artificial intelligence race?

Would western economies have grown slower without Russia becoming capitalist?
 
I don't think it would really be viewed as a hostile nation. Even before the Soviet Union fell the cold war was pretty much thawing already. There is no reason this trend would've suddenly been reversed. They had a lot more to gain than the West considering their financial state.

Maybe economically they would've gone the Chinese route with China never rising above cornering the market on plastic crap and the Soviet Union producing the worlds consumer electronics.

Culturally they would've remained powerful. A cultural counterweight to the United States. The internet, even a heavily censored version, might've brought that culture streaming into Western Europe. Creating a American/European/Russian mix. It would've made it more difficult for Japan to do the same.

It depends on the rise of terrorism if they would have remained the bad guys in movies. If the age of terror still begins Russia would've made a valuable partner in the Middle East. Their tolerance for terrorism is low enough that they don't mind shooting (or gassing) the hostages to get the terrorist. I can easily see them co-operating with the US in the Middle East if they become a problem.
If Afghanistan still plays out the same, they even have a moral high ground with having to selfishly sacrifice themselves to fix the problem the US created.

Technologically the world would've been a bit more ahead of OTL I believe. Investments in non-consumer sciences have dropped since the Soviets Union fell. Pure science really benefited from a bit of healthy competition.
Not the war-paranoia of the middle of the 20th, but just the knowledge that you aren't the undisputed ruler of all you survey and no one can touch you.
God knows what we would've been doing in space. Dare I speculate about a manned Mars mission? At least a lot more probes and a few bigger space stations.
 
Ok, moral high ground might've been a bit much there. I was specifically referring to al-Qaeda in the context of a global war on terror.

Or the Taliban. The Communist regime in Afghanistan was a miserable place, but at least women didn't have their thumbs amputated for wearing nail varnish...:eek:
 
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