I think you have the cause and effect reversed. US/USSR conflict was used to fire up fear and unity (paranoia and nationalism) in the population for the people in power and that complex became independent when it started to make believers out of the people who created it and their followers.

Standalone complexes like that flip around and start controlling the people who created them to control others and take on a life of their own nurtured and directed by people who want to use them to gain power – nurtured but no longer controlled.