Amid accelerating geopolitical competition and ongoing debate about Australia’s defence spending, we would do well to avoid the lessons of the Soviet Union, which sought to compete militarily, leaving its economy woefully simple, unproductive and frail.

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union presented an imposing picture of military might, endless columns of tanks on Red Square, rocket silos and the reach of a global ideological project.

But behind that spectacle lay an economy that by the 1970s and 1980s was creaking: low productivity, faltering technology adoption, chronic shortages and a growing burden from astronomical defence outlays.

That confluence of economic stagnation and military competition is now a cautionary tale as Australia confronts its own fiscal and industrial pressures while lifting defence spending in a more tense Indo-Pacific.

The Soviet story is often told as one of political failure or ideological collapse and while those elements certainly were contributing factors, the truth is as always far more nuanced.