The major proxy wars against the USSR were Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Korea was a stale mate, Vietnam was a loss, and then there's Afghanistan. It was ce

The major proxy wars against the USSR were Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Korea was a stale mate, Vietnam was a loss, and then there's Afghanistan. It was certainly a victory, but I think that was more about the Afghans than us - the same reason we'd also go on to lose to them. They are one ridiculously hard and hardy people with completely unbreakable spirits. And of course the exact people we trained there would go on to form Al Qaeda, and generally form the backbone of radical Islam, which adds some further asterisks to that 'victory.' Similarly the Soviets have pretty much always sucked at propaganda. The idea of a worldwide worker revolution attracted no more than fringe contingents. But US 'propaganda' of freedom of speech, capitalism, and so on played a key role in the eventual decline of the USSR. I remember listening to an ostensibly stoic Russian chess grandmaster who lived through the fall of the USSR. Him slightly choking up while talking about how grown men were tearing up over Donald Duck media, which had become a symbol of the end of one era and the beginning of another, was extremely memorable. Similarly this [1] is media from the opening of the first McDonalds in the USSR. They served some 30,000 people on day 1 at exceptionally high (relative) costs, with McDonalds flags working as thinly veiled proxies for flags of capitalism. [1] - https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-mcdonalds-moscow-soviet-union-1990/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-mcdonalds-moscow-sovi...