USING ARMS TALKS TO GAUGE U.S. INTENTIONS

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000605780002-7
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RIFPUB
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K
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2
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December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
May 4, 2012
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2
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Publication Date: 
March 12, 1985
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OPEN SOURCE
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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