Интереснейшее исследование контрактора Пентагона, BDM Corporation - Soviet Intentions, 1965-1985, о том, что в действительности думало руководство СССР о возможности ядерной войны, основанное на рассекреченных советских документах и массе интервью с советскими военноначальниками. Вкратце, получается, что во время Холодной войны американцы значительно переоценивали агрессию СССР и значительно недооценивали страхи Москвы, что США могут нанести упреждающий ядерный удар.
Even when Moscow had more ICBMs than Washington, the Soviets did not feel secure because "they perceive[d] U.S. intentions to be aggressive and did not believe the superpower nuclear balance to be stable." For example, "virtually all interview subjects stressed that they perceived the U.S. to be preparing for a first strike." From satellite photography, the Soviets observed that U.S. missile silos were "relatively poorly protected by overhed cover and grouped rather close to each other and to the cluster's launch control center." The vulnerability of U.S. ICBM deployments convinced the high command that the ICBM "fields were first-strike weapons."И чудесная история по теме из комментариев на metafilter:
When I was in the sixth grade, in the mid-80s, our teacher had us do "USSR week." During that week, we simulated life in a contemporary Soviet classroom. We weren't allowed to sit without permission. We weren't ever allowed to laugh. We weren't allowed to ask questions. During recess, while all the other classes were out being kids, were were required to do calisthenics. That especially was no fun, as we were all pretty much ridiculed by the other kids the whole time.
The teacher went out of her way to be unhappy: no smiling, no laughing, everything very stern. Every infraction was severely punished: talking out of turn got you five minutes in a closet, the first time. Corporal punishments (swats w/ a paddle) were routine.
The classroom was dead silent, all the time, but not in that conducive-to-study way (although I'm sure my teacher dug it.)
This was more like boot camp than anything else, and while it wasn't hard or anything, it wasn't fun. I think that was supposed to be the point: here in America, we were lucky to live the way we did. But even at the ripe old age of 12, I wondered how in the hell my teacher could possibly know what school was actually like in the USSR, and also I very much doubted that kids living under a communist regime were little automatons who never cut up like every kid does. The whole thing was well-meant but utter bullshit, stemming from fears that the people on the other side of the world were just inhuman, which is just a terrible thing to teach to kids.