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Whatever the outcome of the current constitutional reforms, the Soviet Union will remain a military superpower with global security interests. The doctrines, practices, and capabilities of its still formidable armed forces are shaping world politics just at the time that the future of the country that created them is in doubt. This is the first book to examine the Soviet defense outlook and military forces in the light of these developments. In Soviet strategy and new military thinking a group of leading strategists and Sovietologists, writing from within the US national security community, analyzes the unprecedented changes, as well as the troubling continuities, that characterize Soviet military thinking during the 1990s. The authors confront the range of Soviet military strengths, including intercontinental nuclear power, conventional ground forces and naval capabilities and special operations. They address questions of weapons research and development, military planning and policy-making, and the role of civilian critics on Soviet military objectives. Other chapters explore the erosion of the Soviet Army's diminished influence on Eastern Europe as well as the lessons of Afghanistan. Based on primary Soviet sources and extensive personal experiences, Soviet strategy and new military thinking is an authoritative and comprehensive evaluation of Soviet military power amid kaleidoscopic political and strategic change. It will be widely read by students and specialists of security studies, international relations and the Soviet Union; by journalists, diplomats and military professionals.
List of contents
1. The stakes of power Derek Leebaert; 2. Soviet nuclear strategy: objective conditions and strategic culture Colin Gray; 3. Mutual security and the future of strategic arms limitation Raymond L. Garthoff; 4. Soviet theater forces on a descending path Edward B. Atkeson; 5. Military doctrine and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact Christopher Jones; 6. Soviet naval strategy: past as prologue Gael Donelan Tarleton; 7. Counter-insurgency and the lessons of Afghanistan David Isby; 8. Research and development of new weapons Mikhail Tsypkin; 9. Civilian analysis and Soviet military policy Benjamin S. Lambeth; 10. Soviet military foresight and forecasting Jacob Kipp.
Summary
This book, first published in 1991, analyses the unprecedented changes, as well as the troubling continuities, that characterized Soviet military thinking during the early 1990s.
