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Answer by Igor Markov, EECS professor at Michigan:
It fluctuated throughout, as technology changed many times over, and the economic fortunes of the USSR became very sensitive to oil prices.
As of 1945 (before the Cold War), the USSR had the strongest conventional land-based military. After the U.S. withdrew most of its troops, it essentially dominated in Europe (the U.S. returned some of the troops, but the USSR still held a vast numerical advantage, especially in tanks).
The U.S. had the strongest navy and dominated both the Pacific and the Atlantic uncontested; this didn’t change throughout the Cold War, even though naval technologies changed a lot (nuclear subs, etc.), and the USSR invested heavily in surface and submarine navies.
The air forces were more or less evenly matched in 1945, except that the U.S. and the U.K. had better air defense networks. In subsequent years, the USSR developed very competitive air defense equipment and networks. Other air force technologies also made major leaps forward, but the USSR eventually lagged behind due to systemic weakness in digital electronics.
Early nuclear weapons affected the balance in several ways. In addition to its demonstrated use of offensive nuclear weapons, the U.S. developed several categories of defensive nuclear weapons, including area air defense and a strategy to block a possible Soviet armor advance through the Fulda gap using tactical nuclear weapons such as artillery shells. As a result, the stronger Soviet ground forces in Europe could not fully realize their potential. In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. developed medium-range missiles, anti-tank weapons, robust ground attack planes (A-10), and attack helicopters to neutralize the Fulda gap threat.
At early and mid-stages of the Cold War, the USSR had a larger count of nuclear missiles, but that was partly explained by the perceived unreliability of missiles and warheads. There were also rumors of the so-called Bomber gap and Missile gap between the U.S. and the USSR, most of which turned out false.
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