MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX- RUSSIAN STYLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01439R000500160024-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 25, 2000
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: August 1, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Rel#a 2001 !Ol ti4E,~( I* tDP8OB0 OOO5OOi~Qg94:-6 )i.
i Y ?x., ai r } 4 4s"3 ,~3 FZ [3 pcA (~ Ca r '. L
t ~. ; to ~~ ~~ M) t? 7 ~,q FF.- A ~~9.~? j ~J ... ~ ~ _ A. .
and. n n
~ ' ii to e p p"G G ls' En t ne
us , ,
'With c+: ~ of Its o'J n G"c' : 1 ! C a
it is atr3f'. CI , m- { _c_ concept that simultaneously in- For the West, it was a sobering show.
cued a "balanced forces But the invas77on
lrz mii sve
gic and its conventiont:l produ ca fir om what . wis s trill r a this many ~~f Ysmal
use ed the power of its sti?ate
creased e.
(I.
c.apabilil;ies, The Soviet Union has 3,470,000 men under. chine
indiplomat, vasion -,,,asion,basback On ked his tat 118 ial~
aced to 3,487,000 for the U.S. After a steady country. whA ile German
arms, comp
.and rapid buildup, the U.S.S.R. has 1,035 IGI3),T s in place, (1iesrow t Yue the xe.,i-
marine-}used missiles (656 to The 129) American lead in sub- driver why the streets were so empty and was told. "The
ared to 1,0 i' in U.S, silos.
compared in son+, -r altL,'e?; trucks have all gone to the front." In Prat,
,? "City ~
bombers (640 to 155) is offset somewhat by the Soviet dents.na?iced of Kiev" and various Russian factory
beneath a hasty coat of
Union's 750 medium-range missiles and 1,050 medium? markings on Soviet Army trucks,
b~f the gasoline Wums st ht)lmru'to th
s.
ch country has about 3,700 jet fighters. olive paint. So-me
bombers, Ea
c new
The Soviet land force may well be the finest in the Soviet tanks that is the Soviet of Un2 nearest
solve two million ',hen, and nd of its 140 di The slay crvero'r e seemed full of An-22's, the ne~~r 200-
world. It totals
r > >viet eiwas deceptave. Only
visions, perhaps sixty are combat ready. Sixty divisions' man tur uopr p tha1
louvers overwhelrnillg compared twenty-two for the lent to the -22 but the `'lrclc bata]s of men and se.pl!]l+.g
lo t ru'S are yet in gervice, and all Nx. ere being
ust be borne in mind, however, that Soviet di- about ten ii
U.S. It m
ti nht 1'.+.k a for Of only M a'fetil tl t~' xrlt'.
vie contain U.S. 7,000 divto 10,500}-' ,a t `000 ? Ail(] tlierp The Soviet Army broub 20, r;t:rentngtls for a ivisio3r is 13,rfo to o the ~ after t,"n~ti; lived off the land. In Ingistic, obviausl;, t ,.r;
ainount.of ground ,ar tl:e Soviet Army to
is an c normau;
cover, including the world's sans}` st l~t frontiers, r conlb~tt tr~lo ;:lnintril tp Ii.S.S.II,.:stikl tr~~il:~ the i~T.
Europe, the U.S.S.R. has put as n y ~
forward position, 320,000, as there r?.rc. NATO troop
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP8OBO1439ROOO5OO16OO24-6
 A Soviet: fleet is now on lier?tiianent i,atrol in the v s,rli
a vas s.11r i
The IsraC~ PIRTIRY i s2+ .~ l~ tni1 ! liot 'e ov e l-n 6"0-44`e, It~cban 01,_, ;,
tars equipment in the Sinai in 1967 and, now that they .
as well, and have turned up as far away as Montevide
have turned it around and pointed it the other way, ar(l
quite pleased with its performance. They fours i th Soviet;.
122-millimeter and 130--millimeter grins to be powerful
and highly accurate weapons and used them to destroy
the Egyptian refineries at Suez. They rate the Soviet T-65
tank among the finest instruments of destruction in the,
world. It has a low silhouette and is fast and highly 'na
neuverable. Like U.S. tanks, it is equipped with a snorkel.
for fording, and has an infrared , guidance system for
night fighting. The Israelis have grown so fund of thq
Russian infantryman's storm riffs, the' fully automatic.
AK-54, that they plan to produce their own copy.
The standard Soviet fighter, the alliG-21, a mach-2 air-,
craft, has only half the range and payload of its NATO
o.
The apparent sine., as the Institute for Strategic Stcciie;
put it, is "to control conflict in the developin;; v.?c:r
"We shall sail all the world's seas," the Soviet chief o
staff, Marshal Matvei Zakhurov, warned Last Year, "Talc
imperialists can no longer have there to themselves."
Growth pays the bill
Land-based missiles, missile submarines and warships,
a conventional army in a high state of readiness--these
are costly trappings of power, the sort that have produced
a severe budget pinch even in the U.S., where the gross
national product of $860 billion is about twice the Soviet
G.N.P., as the U.S. Government reckons it. A feeling pcr?-
sist:s among sonic critics of the U.S. defense establishment
that the Russians must have figured out some way to get
more defense readiness for their money than the A iiieri-
tudes, Its chief flaws are a vulnerable belly tank and a. ;cans. There are indeed a few substantial economies that
large blind spot to the rear of the pilot. The Israelis, i> the Soviet armed forces enjoy. Commandeering civilian
Mirage--111C's, routinely shoot down MiG-21's, though trucks for an invasion is obviously less expensive than
their victories may well be due to pilot superiority rather
than to the planes. A variable-wing fighter on the order
of the F-111 has been displayed at a. Moscow air show but
is apparently not yet in service.
The most striking nevi departure for the Soviet mili-
tary is a vast and expensive program to acquire global
reach by means of a blue-water Navy. "The flag of the
Soviet Navy now proudly flies over the oceans of the
world," said the commander of the Soviet fleet, Admiral
Sergei Gorshlcov, last year. "Sooner or later the U.S. will
have to understand that it no longer has mastery of the
seas." "In a mere ten years," says Admiral Thomas
Moorer,-the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, "the Soviet
Union has transferred itself from a maritime nonentity
to a major sea power. By any measuring stick, it is today
the second-largest sea power in the world."
The Soviet Union now has 380 late-rm.odeI submarines
of which 50 are nuclear powered. (The U.S. has 142, in-
cluding 81 nuclear subs.) These are formidable under
water navies indeed, that of the Soviet Union being six
times the size of Hitler's at the start of. World War II.
And according to recent testimony by the Secretary of
Defense, Melvin Laird, the Russians are building more
nuclear submarines at the rate of eight a year. The Soviet
surface fleet includes thirty-five major missile-firing
warships (versus seventy-one for the U.S.). The Russians
have even. organized a minuscule marine corps of 6,00Q
picked men, and they have built 3.00 landing ships. The
oily category of warship they have shunned is the air-
craft carrier, of which the U.S. has fifteen. The 1tussianf3
have built three helicopter carriers instead. They have
been constructing merchant shipping at a prodigious rate,
to supply their far-flung allies such as North zrieti,am and
Cubit, a :is well is to carry out all a mbitious program of
expanding forcen trade. The U.S.S.R. uow has 10,400,000
tons of shipping (versus 14,800,000 under the U.S. flag)
and has stet a target of 20 million by 1980.
counterparts, the F-4 Phantom and the F-105. The MiG-
21 is slightly slob wer, but more maneuverable at high alai=
.buying them. But, in general, the Soviet Union hay;
matched the U.S. in military power by matching the U.S.
in Spending.
The Stanford Research Institute, which laboriously
compiles and analyzes Soviet budget figures, estimates
that Soviet expenditures for defense and space have been'
increasing by about 61/e percent a year for the past decade
and this year reached a total somewhere between $iiL,', bil-
lion and $62 billion. The Central Intelligence Agency's
estimate of Soviet defense and space expenditures, $60
billion, falls within the range of the Stanford estimate.
By the CIA calculation, the Soviet Union is spending 2,241
billion less than the $84 billion the U.S. has budgeted fo'
defense, space, and the Atomic Energy Commission in the
coming fiscal year. But the U.S. is spending an estirnated
$27 billion a year on the war in Vietnam, while the Soviet
Union is spending less than a billion annually in its role
as supplier to North Vietnam. If these Vietnam costa are
excluded, the Soviet Union is spending slightly more than,
the $57 billion that the U.S. is budgeting for defense,
atomic energy, and space.
The Soviet Union has been able to maintain these enor-
nlous and constantly rising defense costs without lower-
ing the already rather meager Soviet standard of living.
In fact, per capita disposable income has increased 7i /~
percent a year since 1964, and investment in consume:
industries was increased last year alone by 25 percent.
The Soviet Union, like the U.S., enjoys an annual iis.ere-.
ment from the growth of the economy. In the Soviet case,
with an average growth rate of 5.4, percent in recer,n,
years, this increment amounts to about $30 billion a ar,
out of which the. U.S.S.R. has been able to pay for the in-
crCasci irt defense costs as well as provide some dived` ra1`'
to the Consumer.
`hulking about the large Soviet arms program in West-
ern terms, the presumption would be that ab strong _aili.
Lary-industrial clique has been dominating budge! a -
Approved For Release 2001/03/04: CIA-RDP80B01439R000500160024-60, ',::ln.,,,,~
 decisions inpi l b tFd3intR. r2003E/zQ.13IQ4L;. IA4RDPaOBO" E1500,16-0024 8tutions ass ,: c:
Sovietologists, this is loolcitig at the gsi.>stion the wrong more importance, and the military is the strongest ir:,ti-
wacy around. "The modern Soviet state is a military-in- tution in Soviet society outside of the Communist party
dustrial complex," ,says John Ilardt of the Research Anal',- itself." All of the truly disastrous posyiibilities t ;e
sis Corp. in McLean, Virginia, "It was blatantly designed 1 Politburo, including satellite uprisings or a border i;ar
that way by Joseph Stalin, beginniiig with the first: is ive- with China, are, of course, military 1'mtatters, and the ni1i-
Year Plan in 1928." The Soviet leadership, ainee Stalin, tary leaders are consulted on foreign policy.
has been trying;, with only fitful suc.cess, to broaden the But military influence does not mean military contr. ol.
pattern without radically changing; it. The argument in Matthew, Gall agrher of the Institute for Defense Analyses
this country. is whether the U.S. defense industry has in Arlington, Virginia, points out that the Soviet leader-
gained too much power within a civilian society. By con- :ship continues to seek ai,m:s control talks with the U.S,
even though the military press has been openly critical
of the whole idea. The political--military relationship in
the Soviet Union is one of continuing and inevitable ten-
;~ sioIl, according to the institute's Roman Kol}towicz, who
the subject. Ever since the
wrote the definitive study of
l Red Army was organized by Leon Trotsky in 191x, it
1 i l has been run on a system of "parallel hierarchies," with
;rte r?:, ' tz military and a political officer sharing power at etch
tscendini level of command. An officer caste has grrowi
c
up through the years, and indeed has been encouraged by
the politicians. An officers' club in Moscow is as well ap-
The master builder of the Soviet de- pointed as a gentleman's club in London, with deep leather
couches wood >, and mess-jacketed attendants.
Tense industry is Dmitr! Fedorovich 1 lii sky o"