THE IMAGINARY DEFENSE GAP: WE ALREADY OUTSPEND THEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 100
• Publication Date: February 14, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON--PAGE--t- It
THE WASHINGTON POST
14 February 1982
The Imaginary Defense map:
We Already Outspend. Them
By Richard A. Stubbing .
I F WHITE HOUSE tenants have long
painted rosy economic pictures that rarely.
'square with reality, those numbers have no-
thing on the doomsday reports we are treated
to nowadays contending that. the Soviet
Union is overpowering, us on defense.
We are told, for example, that we spend
about 5 percent of our gross national product
on defense, while the Soviets spend 12 to, 14
percent on theirs. We are not reminded, of
course, that our GNP is twice that of the
Soviet Union's.
We are told that in 1980, the Soviets spent
$175 billion, or 50 percent more than we did,
on defense, or that over the past decade their.
military outlays outpaced ours by more than
$300 billion. We are not reminded that de-
fense spending comparisons in the real world
'include outlays of American and Soviet allies
- those many other nations out there - and
that the publicly available evidence in this
area, as in others, tells. a verydifferent tale.
Studies by the prestigious International Institute for
Strategic Studies (IISS), for example, show that the Sovi-
ets' Warsaw Pact allies spend roughly $20 billion to $30
billion annually on defense forces. Our NATO allies, by
contrast, allocate three to four times that amount - more
than $100 billion annually.
In other words, while this margin has no doubt been
narrowing, the United States and its NATO allies out-
spent the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies on de-
fense by more thari $300 billion in the past decade.
In Asia, for example, the Soviets' principal allies are
North Korea and Vietnam. North Korea spends about $3
billion annually for defense, and Vietnam probably
spends something close to that. The principal U.S. allies
- Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -
spend nearly $20 billion.
This does not mean that Japan or others among our
friends should not shoulder a larger share of allied defense
spending, as some have argued, or that our own Pentagon.
outlays might not be increased to some extent as well. The
issue is one of magnitude, of the immensity of defense
spending increases proposed at the expense of all else, of'
the fears generated unnecessarily by incomplete informa
ton.
Consider what is behind a good deal of Kremlin spend-
ing., A significant portion of. it in recent years has been
aimed squarely at the People's Republic of, China. Cen-
tury-old border disputes between the two countries broke
into open fighting in 1969,. and in recent years China has
improved long-dormant relations with the United States,
d other Western nations.
Japan an
Americans can understand China's threat to Russia by
considering the long-undefended border we share with
Canada; a hostile nation with a 4 million-man military
force on our northern border would change our defense
emphasis quite rapidly. Published CIA estimates state
that 10 to 15 percent of Soviet.defense spending ($18 to
$27, billion) is for units with a primary mission against
In short, recognizing the impact of NATO, Warsaw
Pact, Asian allies 'and Soviet spending directed toward
China and other factors transforms an alleged 50 percent
Soviet spending advantage into a 15 to 37 percent edge for
the United States. No cause for fright there.
O .
Another critical element in dollar comparisons is the.
quality of our estimates of Soviet spending. Because
Soviet defense data obviously are not available to us, the
CIA develops its calculations by attempting to determine
the cost to equip, man and operate the Russian military
here in the United States - using U.S. market prices and
wages. While this approach certainly provides a good indi-
cator of trends in Soviet spending over time, its reliability
on specific spending figures is questionable.
The CIA estimates, for instance, ignore the relative effi-
ciency with which the U.S. and Soviet economies turn ma-
terials and labor into finished products. A Soviet factory
producing artillery rounds may operate at 20 percent, 50
percent or 80 percent of the efficiency of a comparable-
U.S. plant, but this is not considered.
An even greater deficiency is the absence of an attempt
to compare the net military value of Soviet products and
services with those in the. United States. For example, the
relative value of Soviet vs. U.S. tanks or Soviet tanks vs.
U.S. mines and anti-tank missiles to stop these tanks is
not addressed. ,
In an unclassified report, the CIA asserts that its esti
mate of Soviet defense spending is accurate within 15 per-
cent for each year of the 1.970s. Perhaps = but a look at
the problems in all four elements of the CIA estimate
quickly calls that claim into question.
1. Soviet Manpower. Soviet troop strength is
known with accuracy, and the CIA prices this force of low-
wage conscripts at U.S. pay rates. One major error in ap-
plying this method is that every pay raise for U.S. military
personnel widens the U.S.-U.S.S.R. spending gap simply,
because the Russians have more troops in uniform than
we do. Eliminating this misleading way of assessing man- !,
power costs would, by itself, eliminate a quarter of the
1980 spending "gap.,'.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
2. Soviet Weapons and Facilities. Sigmti-
cant uncertainties about the quantity and quality of.Rus-
sian equipment undermine our ability to determine Soviet
inventories and to assess the capabilities of Soviet weap-
onry. For instance, we at first overstated the capabilities
of several generations of Russians fighter aircraft.
,The Mig25 Foxbat is a classic case. When initially ob-
served, our analysts credited this aircraft with major tech-
nolrogy advances. But after a Russian pilot flew a Mig25 to
Japan, U.S. experts found the aircraft's performance
greatly overrated. Its range was far more restricted than
we had estimated, its acceleration and turning capability
were poor, and it was equipped with 20-year-old, tube-
type electronics.
Estimating what eacIItype of Soviet equipment would
cost if produced in the United States is extremely diffi-
cult. Final price tags on our own weapons systems often
.vary wildly from contractor estimates; attaching costs to
Soviet weapons we know little about is fiendishly difficult.
Among other things, self-interest argues for U.S. contrac-
tors (who provide the initial estimates- used by the CIA) to
attribute high unit costs- to Soviet systems, thereby
widening the supposed spending gap and enhancing their
prospects for more defense business. About 50 percent of
the CIA-estimated U.S.-U.S.S.R. "gap" is in this area.
3. Soviet Operating Costs. Large unknowns
dominate this area. We do not know with any reliability
the operating techniques or the activity rates of Soviet
combat and support units. Measurement yardsticks are
essentially lacking, and confidence in these estimates can-
not be high. After correcting for the military manpower
pay raise distortion, total Soviet operating costs for their
larger forces are estimated at about U.S.levels.
4. Soviet Research and Development
Costs. The CIA states it has the least confidence in the
accuracy of this spending category. Differences in Soviet
and U.S. approaches to R&D are major. For example, the
Soviets historically have had two or three weapons design
bureaus competing on new systems development - a
more costly R&D approach than the U.S. method. Reli-
able data is simply .not. available. Nonetheless, the CIA
concludes that Soviet R&D efforts in recent years were
twice as much as the U.S. About 25 percent of the identi-
fiedU.S.-Soviet "spending gap" is identified here.
=None of this is. intended to suggestthat Soviet forces
haven't continued to improve in size and capability; they
have. The Soviets also continue to outproduce the West in
armored vehicles, submarines, fighter bombers and strate-
gic missiles. But the picture is far from glum.
A close look, for example, at the Pentagon's allegations
in "Soviet Military Power," the special brochure issued
several months ago, should swiftly dispel that report's
suggestion that Russian forces are practically ten feet tall:
"The Soviet Union now exceeds the United
States in the number of strategic nuclear vehic-
les. True, but the United States now has more strategic
warheads in its inventory. In the 1980s, defense posture
statements state that we will possess some 10,000 strategic
nuclear warheads to provide the strategic punch needed
in any contingency. Only 5 percent of this total - 500 de-
livered warheads - could destroy the Soviet Union as a
viable society.
panded their ground forces to more than 180 divi-
sions." True again, but almost all this Soviet expansion
sinc',e- the mid-1960s reflects the increased divisions de-
ployed against China. As "Soviet Military Power" itself
shows, the Russians today assign 45 divisions, or 25 per-
cent of their ground forces, against China.
The report also concludes that only 46 of the 180 divi-
sions are highly combat ready. An additional 98 divisions
are classed as cadre units with less than half strength;
they would require months to reach full combat status.
MIT defense analyst William Kaufmann, who helped pre-
pare the Pentagon posture statements for more than 15
years, observes that the Red Army seems to take about
three months to set up a major attack force, whether
against Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, or
Poland in 1981.
"The Soviets today in Europe have a substan.;
tial advantage both in numbers of. troops and
quantities of armored assault vehicles." Not true,
when NATO and Warsaw Pact forces are considered. The
1981 IISS report concludes that NATO actually has a
slight edge in total military manpower over the Warsaw
Pact. -
Z
-- The NATO allies, in fact, have a surprisingly large (27
percent) advantage in the number of ground forces actu-
ally in place in Central Europe (excluding forces in the
western regions. of the Soviet Union and in the United
States). The Russians do have a large edge in tanks and
armored vehicles, but NATO forces have a clear lead in
anti-tank missiles, mines, and tactical aircraft with tank-
killing capability. NATO also will have an initial advan-
`tage in fighting from defensive positions against a Soviet
attack.
Another key concern here must be the reliability of the
U.S. and Soviet allies. There has been a reduced cohesion
among the NATO nations in recent years, but in a Soviet
attack against Western Europe; the full support of the en-
tire NATO bloc can reasonably be expected.
,With the recent unrest in Poland and other nations,yn
the other hand, the Soviets surely pause in assessing the
steadfast support of their Warsaw Pact members other
than East Germany. Soviet allies comprise almost half the.
Warsaw Pact ground forces in Europe, fully 30 percent of
the main battle tanks, and a surprising two-thirds of anti- ?
tank missile launchers.
"High Soviet priority is being devoted to anti-
submarine sensor technology applicable against
ballistic missile submarines." American capability_
far outstrips the rudimentary U.S.S.R. antisubmarine
technology. Our submarines will remain essentially invul-
nerable for the foreseeable future. Soviet submarines, by
constrast, have a high noise level which makes them kil-
nerable to attack, and they face great resupply difficulties
in wartime.
"The widely publicized KIEV-Class aircraftt
carriers are the largest warships ever completed
by the Soviet Union." The Soviets have two KIEV-.
Class carriers, each displacing about 38,000 tons, but they,
can only accommodate helicopters and vertical take off
and landing (VTOL) aircraft with limited capability. The
U.S., by contrast, has 18 ships of greater or equal capabil-
ity - including 13 carriers of between 60,000 and 90,000'
tons, each equipped with the world's most capable air-
craft, and five assault transports of 38,000 tons which sup-,
port helicopters and VTOL aircraft.
!C0
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4
^ ^
Finally, one must remember that dollars alone are not a
serious basis for judging the strength of our enemies,or of
ourselves. There is scarcely any reason to believe that a
defense budget twice the current size, for example, would
have prevented the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or the
Iranian seizure of American hostages, the two events
which triggered a major shift in U.S. public opinion, for
greatly increased defense outlays.
Consider the case of the BI bomber. The Defense De-
partment projects costs of about $28 billion for 100 air-
craft, but estimates by the Congressional Budget Office
and the General Accounting Office suggest costs of up. to
$40 billion. If the higher estimate is more accurate, then
- using the CIA pricing methodology - the United
States would close the "spending gap" faster by laying out
the higher amount - even though the same. 100 aircraft
are delivered. The ludicrous nature of this conclusion is
obvious.
Conversely, greater efficiency in the use of U.S. re-
sources (substantial opportunities exist within the mas-
sive defense budget) could increase real Pentagon output
each year by large percentages without one additional dol-
lar-spent. Again, this would not be reflected in CIA spend-
ing 'comparisons, which is further reason to question those
comparisons. -
'The case for massive escalation in U.S. defense spend-
ing has yet to be made convincingly. The real opportuni-
ties to improve U.S. military capability require a funda-
mental reexamination of basic policies and structures in
sizing and equipping forces - a task which, unfortunate-
ly, is not currently under way.
Maybe, just maybe, both sides can recognize their
'mutual interest in beginning talks to slow the apparently
never-ending upward spiral in defense spending, thereby
freeing resources to attack other longstanding problems' at
home in both nations. -
Richard Stubbing, assistant provost
of Duke University, was deputy chief
of the Office of Management and
Budget's national security division,
which reviews the defense budget, from
the end of the Nixon administration
until October.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700100-4