lol
To say the USSR invented nothing would be wrong, but they were technologically backward in many areas, especially electronics. The gap started in 1947 when Bell Labs invented the transistor. The USSR was very good at building vacuum tubes, but the transition to semiconductors was slower.
By the early 1960s, integrated circuits were already appearing in the West, while Soviet electronics still relied heavily on discrete germanium transistors and only began developing their own ICs in the mid-1960s. By the 1970s, with the arrival of microprocessors, the USSR was already well behind and often resorted to reverse-engineering Western chips.
Here’s an already extensive yet incomplete list of Western techs:
Spoiler
Civilian
transistor (Bell Labs, 1947)
integrated circuit (Jack Kilby / Texas Instruments, 1958)
microprocessor (Intel 4004, 1971)
Internet / ARPANET (DARPA, 1969)
UNIX (AT&T Bell Labs, 1969)
personal computer (Altair 8800 / MITS, 1975)
GUI (Xerox PARC, 1973)
fiber-optic communications (Corning, USA, 1970)
laser (Theodore Maiman / USA, 1960)
semiconductor lithography / mass silicon fabs (Texas Instruments / USA, 1958)
CNC machining / industrial robotics (MIT Servo / USA, 1952 first demo)
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) (Damadian / USA, 1977 first full scan)
recombinant DNA / genetic engineering (Cohen & Boyer / USA, 1973)
PCR (Kary Mullis / USA, 1983)
modern microelectronics / VLSI chips (Intel, USA, 1970s)
carbon-fiber composites (Union Carbide / USA, 1963)
Ground
First Surface-to-Air Missile (Nike Ajax / USA, 1953)
First Night Vision(M1/M1A1 Sniperscope / USA, 1944)
First Thermal sight(US Army / Late 70s)
First laser-guided artillery round (M712 Copperhead / USA, early 1970s)
Kevlar (DuPont, USA, 1965)
Air/Space
First production helicopter ( R-4 / USA, 1942)
GPS (U.S. DoD, 1978 first satellite launch)
Jet engine (Frank Whittle / UK, 1937 first run)
First Sweep-wing aircraft (F-111 / USA, 1964 first flight)
high-bypass turbofan (Pratt & Whitney JT3D, 1958)
Pulse Doppler radar (MIT Lincoln Lab / USA, 1950s)
Fly-by-wire (F-16 / USA, 1976 first operational)
satellite communications (Telstar / USA, 1962)
precision-guided air munitions (AGM-62 / USA, 1967)
stealth technology (F-117 / USA, 1981 first flight)
Naval
nuclear-powered submarine (USS Nautilus / USA, 1954)
Tear drop shape submarine (USS Albacore / USA, 1953)
nuclear-powered surface ship (USS Long Beach / USA, 1961)
First naval SAM (Sea Slug / UK, 1961)
SLBM (Polaris/ USA, 1960)
The West invented and industrialized so much of the foundational technologies that shaped the world of today that it’s not even a fair competition.