OGARKOV TELLS HOW SOVIETS CAN WIN WAR IN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100580003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100580003-8
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WASHINGTON TIMES
23 July 1985
Ogarkov tells
how Soviets
can win war
in Europe
By Yossef Bodansky
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov is the Soviet Union's most
important man in uniform.
He has formulated and implemented a new, compre-
hensive "grand strategy" for the Soviet Union holding
that not only are nuclear wars winnable by the side that
strikes first and without warning, but that, through a
massive lightning strike by modern conventional forces,
NEWS ANALYSIS
Soviet forces could achieve victory over NATO without
a single nuclear weapon being fired.
This Ogarkov "grand strategy" will dominate Soviet
defense policy until the next century.
By the mid- 1970s, the Soviet military had achieved the
capability of mounting sudden, strategic deep offensives
without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. Based
on his high-level experience with U.S. attitudes in the
SALT I negotiations, Marshal Ogarkov realized that
American political and military leaders would agonize
over, and perhaps even forgo, making a decision to esca-
late unilaterally to the use of nuclear weapons in the
event the Soviets launched a non-nuclear invasion in
Europe.
Marshal Orgakov argued that, if the Soviets would
capitalize on the emotional biases of the United States,
they could complete the occupation of Western Europe
in the non-nuclear initial period of
war before Washington could decide
whether to resort to nuclear weap-
ons to stop the Soviet advance.
In other words, the deeper into
Western territory the Soviets could
penetrate in the initial non-nuclear
stage of the war, the less likely the
Americans would be to use nuclear
weapons to stop them.
Furthermore, reasoned Marshal
Ogarkov, if the Soviets, having in the
first instance a clear nuclear superi-
ority, threatened to escalate the con-
flict into an all-out nuclear attack on
the North American continent, they
would further complicate and pro-
long Washington's agonizing over
whether to use nuclear weapons.
This would buy more time for the
Soviet armed forces in which to com-
plete their non-nuclear occupation
of Europe.
The man who has sculpted those
forces is a professional soldier,
utterly loyal to Russia and the Soviet
system, and in return enjoys the total
trust of the "nomenklatura;" the
high-ranking, privileged bureau-
crats.
Earlier this month, Marshal Ogar-
kov's de facto supreme military
position was recognized publicly -
when the Kremlin reappointed him
first deputy minister of defense and
commander-in-chief of the Warsaw
Pact forces.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov was
born on Oct. 30, 1917, in the Kalinin-
skaya Oblast in central Russia. He
finished vocational high school in
1937 and joined the army the follow-
ing year. In 1941 he graduated from
the Kuybyshev Military Engineer-
ing Academy and was posted to the
Karelian front against Finland
where, as a senior fortifications
engineer, he used slave and forced
labor supplied by Yuri Andropov.
This was the start of a 42-year
relationship with a man who later
rose to the highest ranks of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU), serving as a Central Com-
mittee secretary in the 1960s, then
KGB chief and finally, as CPSU gen-
eral secretary, becoming the nation's
top leader.
During the war, Mr. Ogarkov
accumulated diversified combat and
command experience in staff and
engineering posts in the Kola penin-
sula against Finnish-German forces.
After the war, he opted for a mili-
tary career, returning for advanced
courses at the Kuybyshev academy.
Until 1957, he served in senior com-
mand and staff positions in the Far
Eastern military district. In 1959, he
graduated from the Voroshilov Mili-
tary Academy of the General Staff,
a key event in the career of a future
senior commander of the Soviet
Armed Forces.
In December 1961, Mr. Ogarkov
was promoted from commander of a
motorized rifle division in East Ger-
many to chief of staff and deputy
commander of the important
Belorussian Military District and, in
mid-1963, to first deputy com-
mander o that district. These posts
gave him valuable experience in
command and control of combined-
arms formations.
After Mr. Ogarkov was made com-
mander of the very important Volga
Military District in December 1965
- which contains the supreme com-
mand post at Zhiguli near Kuyby-
shev (a city forbidden to foreigners)
on the Volga River, which would be
the supreme headquarters in the
event of nuclear war - he resumed
his close cooperation with Mr.
Andropov, who had become the KG B
chief.
The Zhiguli command post was
entirely rebuilt under Mr. Ogarkov's
overall supervision - a post for
which his engineering background
made him particularly qualified. In
recognition of the excellence of his
work, and with the rank of colonel
general, he was made a candidate
member of the Central Committee.
Gen. Ogarkov's brilliance in
trickery and deception operations
was displayed at this time, when he
began preparations for military
exercises intended to restore the
land battlefield as the prime form of
warfare. Some of the initial tests of
new weapons and tactics and the
development of the airborne forces
for the exercise were conducted in
Volga Military District in strict
secrecy. Gen. Ogarkov devised for
these exercises a major deception or
"maskirovka" project that would on
the one hand intimidate Western
observers by demonstrating the
might and sophistication of the
Soviet military and, on the other
hand, persuade NATO observers
that it was futile to consider the
Rhine as a defensive line.
Gen. Ogarkov had a special
floating bridge built and invented a
totally bogus "First Guards Bridge-
Laying Division" to lay it. An empty
train and truck caravan were raced
across. Until the defection of a
Soviet officer 10 years later, the West
was convinced that the bridge was
genuine.
Gen. Ogarkov's outstanding per-
formance brought him to the Polit-
buro's attention. In April 1968 he was
promoted, ahead of schedule, to gen-
eral of the army and was named first
deputy to the chief of the general
staff. His main assignment was
reactivation of the Chief' Directorate
of Strategic Maskirovka - the
GUSM, or 13th Directorate in
charge of "strategic deception"
The Russian term "maskirova"
includes camouflage, concealment
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100580003-8
 I
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100580003-8
and deception, and it does well to
consider the expertise, flair and tal-
ent for maskirovka of the Soviet
Union's commander-in-chief against
NATO.
As chief of strategic deception,
Gen. Ogarkov expanded his close
work with the KGB, and he and Mr.
Andropov personally were involved
in some of the most daring decep-
tions and disinformation operations
against the West. Many of these took
place during the 1969-71 SALT I
negotiations where Gen. Ogarkov,
while head of strategic deception,
was the top Soviet military delegate.
One would have thought that this
might have told the American SALT
negotiators something about Soviet
intentions.
Defectors from Soviet military
intelli ence, the GRU and the KGB
credit Gen. Ogarkov personally wit
the clever maneuver by WhICE Tic.
succeeded in drawing the United
States into self-exposure o its intel-
ligence ca pa capabilities esta is ing
the precedent that all future negoti-
ations would be based solely on data
-provided by the American side.
In recognition of his contribution
to SALT 1, Gen. Ogarkov was ele.
vated to full membership in the Cen-
tral Committee. In March 1974, he
was appointed deputy minister of
defense. In January 1977, he was
promoted to marshal of the Soviet
Union and appointed chief of the
general staff and first deputy minis-
ter of defense. He was also made
Hero of the Soviet Union.
All of his promotions and honors
came earlier than would have been
expected and were unprecedented.
Marshal Ogarkov worked tire-
lessly for the modernization and
professionalization of the Soviet
military forces. His engineering and
command experience puts him in
the unique position of being able to
comprehend the latest scientific-
technical developments and to follow
the development of military doc-
trine, science and the art of war.
Furthermore, Marshal Ogarkov
entered the general staff deter-
mined to make a major impact. His
first task was to complete formula-
tion of a unified "grand strategy" for
the Soviet Union. He established a
small group of senior general staff
officers and theoreticians from the
main military academies to function
as his think-tank, studying the chal-
lenges of warfare in the future.
Ile himself is a prolific writer on
military theory and strategy. His
many articles and monographs, dan-
gerously neglected by Western mili-
tary strategists, provide a clear
picture of his sophisticated strategic
thinking and the depth of his mili-
tary knowledge.
Marshal Ogarkov was responsible
for the Zapad-8l military exercise,
in which the Soviet military forces
confirmed their ability to conduct a
non-nuclear, strategic deep offen-
sive. In this exercise, Soviet forces
were able to move in just a few days
across distances exceeding the dis-
tance between Minsk and Paris.
Subsequently, the Soviets have
committed themselves to winning
total victory in the non-nuclear ini-
tial period of war as their preferred
form of warfare if they go to war in
Europe. This is demonstrated by the
fact that the Soviets have profoundly
reorganized their entire armed
forces. The senior combat com-
manders have been entrusted with
unprecedented battlefield authority,
and they are assigned diversified
weapons ranging from air force
through chemical troops to tank
armies.
' he Soviet Air Force, the fleet and
other forces were reorganized and
stripped of power in order to facili-
tate Marshal Ogarkov's new combat
command structure.
Marshal Ogarkov envisages a bat-
tle fought in the future as it series of
swift and massive engagements in
which huge combined-arms
superunits advance rapidly, despite
mounting casualties caused by a
massive use of guided munitions by
the West.
Marshal Ogarkov believes most
emphatically that the Soviet
scientific-technological effort
should be dedicated principally to
integrating high technology into
weapons and fighting capabilities.
Every new industrial facility and
most agricultural systems are built
as military systems temporarily
employed for non-military uses -
putting a further strain on Eastern
economies.
Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov
Last month, Marshal Ogarkov
went still further in his advocacy of
forestalling the ability of the enemy
to strike the Soviet Union. It should
be a chilling, but not daunting,
thought that the leading Soviet gen-
eral, the master of strategic decep-
tion, camouflage and concealment,
is a believer in pre-emptive first
strikes. U.S. strategic planners and
arms control negotiators should be
concerned that Marshal Ogarkov
has been allowed to remold Soviet
forces to carry out a pre-emptive
first strike and that he now has been
confirmed as commander over those
very forces.
Yossef Bodansky is an analyst for
Mid-Atlantic Research Associates.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100580003-8