The Cold War is a pretty interesting point in history. Absolutely everyone was convinced that America and Russia would start bombing each other any moment, and while Russia was busy training it's youth how to maintain and operate (blog post) heavy armor America (blog post) prioritized duck and cover techniques. On (blog post) the plus side, Hollywood never let up on casting Russia as the bad guy in the 80s, and there's just something nostalgic about the big bad Soviet Union coming to fuck up some shit. Also, this is a Rocky movie. Yup.
Source: Rocky IV Movie Review - Decker Shado