And the same military that we kept in check? Yes.
USSR - No longer in existence.
USA - Still here, and still the most powerful military on Earth.
Meh.
I recall a few very spirited "Coastie vs. Squid" bar fights back in the day...it's part of the military culture. As long as we can all report to muster the next morning, then no harm done.
It's actually very simple, Luci.
The US has not gone to war since 1945. Everything we have done since WWII has been for a limited objective, not a "total war". If we had, Vietnam would reducing light-bills across south Asia from the glow, and Iraq and Afghanistan would be sheets of glass with little person-sized lumps in it. Look at what was done to Tokyo and Dresden, both of which killed more in incendiary attacks than the two nukes we dropped.
The US is just a little too "civilized" now to indiscriminately bomb civilians the way we (and our enemies) used to do in the "good old days". This is both a point of pride and one of frustration.
The US DID cause the collapse of the USSR, mainly by forcing the USSR to run an un-sustainable defense budget that eventually caused their system to collapse. We didn't out fight the USSR, we out-spent it which is often overlooked and I believe is one of the greatest achievements of our time. We "won" without firing a shot. Read your history (not that I expect a concession from you, Luci, just letting everyone else see what an idiot you are...but I repeat myself!).
That's why you 'kept them in check' whilst they destroyed Afghanistan for 10 years? Yet, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, only THEN did you decide it was time to 'help' the fucking ragheads? You fucking hypocrites did nothing because you feared the Soviets, so you let them rip a nation apart. Hmmm? You kept no one in check, bitch. Any time the Soviets went on a military adventure, you Americans sat back, and shut the fuck up like the good little wussies you are.
Oh please. The Soviets failed to take Afghanistan, and we did supply the native resistance with weapons. What would Canada have done? Prolly sent flowers for the dead, and apologize, but that's it. Ever see the movie "Canadian Bacon"? Yeah, it would kinda go like that.
Afghanistan was one of two "stan" countries never under Soviet control. Granted, the Soviets turned Afghanistan into a blasted hell-hole, but did they actually conquer it? No. The war was deemed "unwinnable" by Gorbachev.
Despite the fact that the majority of troops in Afghanistan are American. Despite the fact that Canada is pulling out of the war. Despite the fact that Canada has payed only a fraction of the monetary cost that the U.S. has over there.
LOL!
Luci, "Star Wars" was Regan's weapon, one that was never really created, just the idea. The USSR went broke trying to create weapons to counter it. Just like they built the MIG-25 and the TU-160 to counter the XB-70 program that we never had to take beyond the prototype stage to "win" the resource war...and note the decades-long lag in the USSR's response.
The USSR was always built upon the idea that an ideological conquest (like in China...and now disproved even there) would be what would win the world for them, that the "paradise of the proletariat" would be ideologically un-stoppable. The military build-up was the RUSSIAN defensive response after hundreds of years of invasion and military loss. "Never again" was quite logical given their history. However the Communist philosophy was supposed to win on it's own when the "western" powers fell into decadence. Per Lennin's theories (not so much Marx's), it was inevitable, all the USSR had to do was wait us out.
As for the rest of your response, the number of troops we put on the ground in various police actions since WWII only reinforces my point. We put troops on the ground because a bomb can't make a shoot/no-shoot decision. The USA values lives deeply enough to put our OWN service-members in harms way rather than simply the whole "Nuke 'em from orbit" philosophy of someone like Sadam who used chemical and other WMD type weapons to sterilize an area.
The real difference between Canada and the USA with regard to how we fight wars is that we are willing to engage, while Canada has to be dragged kicking and screaming (by us, your Economic and political in fact Masters) into supplying support for such endevors.
Was it a good idea to go into Afghanistan? Nope. Why the Soviets ever bothered is completely beyond me other than to grab it as an invasion gate-way into the middle east or to threaten China.