... but primarily they were nicking the ideas from others; I'm not convinced they put terribly much investment into developing their own ...
This point of view certainly appears to be the canonical dogma in the West.
I do not have any hard evidence to claim otherwise, but it does seem inconsistent with my personal, anecdotal experience. While I am a little too young to having experienced the full joy of the Soviet military-industrial complex, both my parents made their living designing aircraft and missile systems. From what they were willing to share about their work - which in retrospect wasn't as much as I would have liked to know now - their work was far from nicking somebody else's ideas and designs.
Later, when I was about to graduate from the uni and started sniffing around for science-related work, most of what was on offer was connected to the defence research in one way or another. Whether that means anything or not I can't say.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
