USING ARMS TALKS TO GAUGE U.S. INTENTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605780002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/04` CIA, RDP90-00965R000605780002-7
ARTICLE AMUT 12 March 1985
-
ON
Using Arms Talks to Gauge U.S. Intentions
own acquisitions.
This December, the 27th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union will
cement into place the strategic require-
ments of the next defense cycle for the
years 1986-2005. The Soviets use these cy-
cles to define and pursue national military
goals in a systematic way, defining the
force structures and the main weapons
systems to be developed and acquired in
the next 20 years. Experience has shown
that these decisions are not significantly
amended by changes in Kremlin leaders.
A Protracted Process
For this reason, the current controversy
in the U.S. intelligence community about
the percentage of Soviet gross national
product spent on the military may be irrel-
evant. Soviet weapons are mission-oriented
and acquired in accordance with specific
long-range military strategies. Once the
weapon is decided upon, the U.S.S.R. de-
velops the technological-industrial infra-
structure and then the weapon itself. This
is a protracted process that may take as
much as 20 years to complete. Changes
in budget reflect problems in production
but not political or strategic decisions. In
any cycle, in the development of any
weapon, the bulk of the expenditure is the
cost of acquiring the industrial infrastruc-
ture to produce it at the beginning. Be-
cause we are now at the beginning of a cy-
cle, what we may be seeing is the shift of
resources toward these new products.
Soviet military thinking, on the whole,
may be one of the last refuges of Marxist-
Leninist orthodoxy: The dominant factor
that determines military strategic con-
cepts is "the scientific laws of objective di-
alectical relationship between military
technology and military thought." In a re-
cent article, Gen.-Maj. (Rt.) M.A. Milsh-
teyn, perhaps the most prominent Soviet
strategist, wrote that the military-strategic
concepts of the U.S. should be reevaluated
and examined in accordance with these ob-
jective rules that apply to all states, in-
cluding the U.S.S.R. Gen.-Maj. Milshteyn
develop new weapons systems, essential
information for Moscow in planning its
3 By'sbi W SAND
And -Y-ossEF-BODANSKY` _'
The death of Soviet Communist Party
chief Konstantin I. Chernenko will proba-
bly not greatly affect the disarmament
talks that begin today in Geneva. Mos-
cow's decision to return to the negotiating
table had more to do with the ending this
year of the Soviet 20-year Defense Cycle
than to the policies of any individual Soviet
leader. The Geneva talks provide the So-
viets with a preview of U.S. intentions to
quoted Marx's collaborator, Friedrich
Engels. when he wrote: "... the suc-
cesses of technology, as soon as they be-
come applicable and put into practice in
military matters, immediately-and al-
most violently, and frequently against the
will of the military command-cause
changes and revolutions in the methods of
waging battles...." And Engels goes on,
Gen.-Maj. Milshteyn points out, to say that
"not the 'free creativity of the intellect' of
brilliant commanders has had revolutioniz-
ing effect, but the inventions of the best
weapons." Gen.-Maj. Milshteyn writes that
"therefore, there exists a huge gap be-
tween (the U.S.'s) declared military policy
and its practical expression in concrete
military plans."
He argues that true military strategies
because they had as many strategic nu-
clear weapons as the U.S.-which they did
not. They believe parity was achieved be-
cause Moscow was recognized by the U.S.
as an equal and as the second superpower,
with legitimate global interests.
Furthermore, the Soviets believe that
the danger of nuclear war will be elimi-
nated when the West recognizes, according
to Mr. Ogarkov, "the historical futility of
the capitalist system. The correlation of
forces in the international arena has
changed irreversibly in favor of the forces
of peace and social progress .... In our
time the Communist Party ... has drawn
the conclusion that war is not fatally inevi-
table. Although the class nature and ag-
gressive essence of imperialism remain
unchanged, the deepening of the overall
The Soviets employ 20-year defense cycles to define
and pursue national military goals in a systematic way.
Experience has shown that these decisions are not signifi-
cantly amended by changes in Kremlin leaders.
of a state do not depend on transitory pol-
icy declarations but on concrete military
moves such as the emergence of contin-
gency plans and long-range operational-
strategic planning, and, even more, on
weapons-systems development. What
makes his article important is that the
same Engels quotes have been used by
Dimitri F. Ustinov, the late defense minis-
ter, and N.V. Ogarkov, marshal of the So-
viet Union, to support military decision
making about weapons and strategies.
These Soviet strategists are fully aware
of the economic and military-technical su-
periority of the U.S. They know that in the
past the U.S. succeeded in introducing in-
novative strategic-weapons systems before
the Soviet Union, and that once Washing-
ton committed itself to a national chal-
lenge, it could overcome any conceivable
technological obstacle.
But Soviet strategists believe that they
nevertheless reached parity with the U.S.
in the early 1970s. They consider it a deci-
sive milestone in history, the equal of their
October Revolution and the war against
Hitler. Moscow is determined not to lose
that parity under any conditions. However.
partly due to a successful Soviet campaign
of disinformation, Soviet concepts of parity
have been perceived erroneously in the
'West as quantitative. Rather, the Soviet
thinkers see parity as a qualitative indica-
tion of the position of a state in relation to
other friendly and hostile states or coali-
tions. The Soviets believe they reached
parity with the U.S; in the early 1970s not
crisis of capitalism and the intensification
of the role of socialism in international life,
the formation and steady development of a
world socialist system, the raising of the
defense capability of the socialist commu-
nity countries to the level of the assured
destruction of any aggressor, and the in-
crease in the cohesion and activation of the
Non-Aligned Movement and of other peace-
loving forces and movements considerably
restrict the opportunities of imperialism
for unleashing aggressive wars, especially
against socialist countries, and create so-
ciopolitical and military-technical precon-
ditions for preventing a new world war.
Here, of course, the threat of war remains,
but it can be neutralized."
The Soviets believe that neutralization
of the West lies in creating a belief in the
West in the futility of resisting Moscow's
might-and especially its nuclear capabil-
ities. That would enable Moscow to attain
the inevitable victory with little or no fight-
ing. But at the same time, the Soviets
should be able to deliver a crushing defeat
to the West in any form of warfare if the
need should arise. Thus, by definition the
Soviet perception of parity is to strive for
growing military superiority.
But the Soviets are confronted with an
unprecedented scientific-technological
challenge in the development of new gen-
erations of weapons. Mr. Ogarkov has em-
phasized that "there are now other purely
military preconditions restricting the op-
portunity for imperialism for unleashing
continued
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605780002-7
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605780002-7
new wars. These preconditions are caused
by the rapid scientific and technical revo-
lution in military affairs.'' President Rea-
gan's espousal of revolutionary new weap-
onry in the Strategic Defense Initiative
proposals has further complicated this as-
pect of the Soviets' strategic problem.
With the beginning of a new Defense
Cycle, the Soviets are attempting to inden-
tify the long-term military-technological
outlines of future weapons systems. Ar-
kady N. Shevchenko, the Soviet diplomat
who defected to the U.S. at the United Na-
tions, explains that ' sophisticated (Soviet)
military officers approached SALT as a
means to achieve by negotiation what the
.Soviets feared they could not attain
through competition: a restraint on Amer-
ica's ability to translate its economic and
technological strength into military advan-
tage and a breathing space during which
the U.S.S.R. would work to narrow the
gap.'' Therefore, the Soviets are deter-
mined to try to minimize the risks and un-
certainties in strategic-weapons develop-
ment through, successful negotiations.
Moscow Learned a Lesson
The SS-19 incident where the Soviets, by
developing and deploying a major new
strategic system brought on a hew and cry
in the U.S., taught Moscow a lesson. The
Soviets now must take into consideration
the growing awareness of Soviet treaty vio-
lations in the U.S. For as their weapons
systems are mission-oriented, it is virtu-
ally impossible for the Soviets to cancel a
weapons-system development and deploy-
ment once it has been inaugurated. It is
therefore necessary for them. with their
more limited resources, to determine
which weapons systems will he totally un-
acceptable to Washington before commit-
ting themselves to any development. Any
wild card that would bring about concen-
trated development by the U.S. would
force the Soviets into the difficult strategy
of seeking a counter to surpass it.
The Soviets, therefore, want to maintain
what they perceive as their superiority-
parity without having to risk a major mili-
tary-technological race, and if forced to, to
limit its gray areas. It is therefore prudent
of the Soviets. on the eve of their new critical '
long-term decision-making process, to
clarify the U.S. position and its objectives.
Past experience with SALT has taught the
Soviets that that can best be accomplished
through arms-control negotiations.
Mr. Sanders is a former international
outlook editor for Business Week. Mr. Bo-
dansktt is a researcher on Soviet military
affairs for the State and Defense depart-
ments.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605780002-7