Maybe for capitalist countries because an external threat is the only motive that will get the bourgeois to fund science instead of consolidating power, but the USSR and Chinas rise were during peaceful times.
Technical development in non-capitalist societies is suppressed by war. Kalashnikov wanted to design farm equipment. Instead he designed weapons. Ask any scientist if they’re working so they can develop X before <insert adversary>, let alone as part of a war effort, 99% of them will say no. Ask the politicians why they are funding that research, and you will get a very different answer.
Maybe for capitalist countries because an external threat is the only motive that will get the bourgeois to fund science instead of consolidating power, but the USSR and Chinas rise were during peaceful times.
Even their technology was driven by war. No human civilization has been immune that. Maybe in story books, but never in the real world.
Technical development in non-capitalist societies is suppressed by war. Kalashnikov wanted to design farm equipment. Instead he designed weapons. Ask any scientist if they’re working so they can develop X before <insert adversary>, let alone as part of a war effort, 99% of them will say no. Ask the politicians why they are funding that research, and you will get a very different answer.