A second and very different school of thought emphasizes less what the West did and more what the Soviet Union was. In this narrative, the Cold War was not so much won by the US and the West as lost by the Soviets, the inevitable result of Soviet economic weakness and political decay.
除此之外，另一种截然不同的思想流派则较少强调西方的作用，而更多地强调了苏联的所做作为。这个流派认为，与其说美国和西方打赢了冷战，倒不如说是苏联打败了，冷战的结束只是其国内经济硬伤和政治腐败的必然结果而已。