PRESIDENT BREZHNEV AND THE SOVIET UNION'S CHANGING SECURITY POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05S00365R000100050001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 25, 1979
• Content Type: REPORT

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U I
FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
FIB - !0Co7
PRESIDENT BREZHNEV AND THE SOVIET UNION'S
CHANGING SECURITY POLICY
INTRODUCTION
The Soviet Union's definition of national security policy has changed
markedly over-the course of strategic arms limitation negotiations
with the United States. The reigning orthodoxy in Soviet strategic
discourse in the 1960's equated security with preponderant military
power and optimizing the Soviet nuclear deterrent. As SALT began in
1969, Soviet policy statements stressed the importance of the
negotiations but were vague on how they would affect overall security
policy. Over the following decade, and especially since 1974, the
USSR has come to recognize the limitations of military power and the
benefits of military balance with the West in achieving national
security. The new approach has been codified in the USSR's formal
acceptance of strategic parity with the United States and public
acknowledgment that, given the balance that has developed, efforts
to achieve anything more would be pointless. The key changes have
been announced in a series of public statements by President Brezhnev,
who appears to have supplied the political impetus behind this
evolution of policy and strategic thought.
There were indications even before the end of Stalin's rule that
responsible officials in the military as well as the party were urging
a revision of traditional doctrinal postulates to accommodate the new
realities of the nuclear era. After Stalin's death, his successors
hastened to establish their understanding that the awesome destructive
potential of the nuclear arsenals that were accumulating on each side
required a rethinking of the issues of war and peace. Soviet state-
ments of the period on the probable consequences of a nuclear conflict
clearly recognized the reality of mutual deterrence.
Yet, at the policy level, the USSR stopped short of acknowledging
that this development placed limits on the ability of military power
to underwrite national security. In a period when Soviet strategic
power was measurably inferior to that of the United States, Soviet
officials showed no interest in military balance as an important goal
for the East-West relationship. Soviet discourse remained faithful
to a tradition which denied that the USSR's weapons were as threatening
to human values as those in the West and accordingly did not admit
that they were equally in need of restraints. SALT I brought the
concept of "equal security" as a goal for the negotiations. It also
saw a slackening of support for some traditional strategic postulates--
but only limited movement toward a declared security posture to
replace them.
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CONFIDENTIAL FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
The results of the 1972 and 1973 U.S.-Soviet summits--the agreements
on principles of mutual relations, limiting strategic arms, and the
/ prevention of nuclear war--appear to have opened the way to a new
V push by those advocating a more radical adjustment of Soviet' security
policy to the reality of nuclear weapons. Evidence of debate on
these subjects appeared in the wake of the 1973 summit in Washington.
Although the full outline and implications of this debate were
obscure at the time, it centered on whether a change in the Soviet
Union's traditional approach to military power was appropriate given
the emerging strategic balance and the development of detente in
relations with the West.
In retrospect, it is apparent that the revisionists in this debate
won a significant victory. Beginning in 1974, President Brezhnev
introduced new concepts and accompanying vocabulary into Soviet
strategic discourse, signaling a clear break with the notion that
security derives directly from military power. Brezhnev began by
describing the world's strategic arsenals as excessively large and
already redundant and arguing there was greater risk in accumulating
arms than reducing them. He completed the process of adjustment,
beginning in 1977, by embracing the concept of military parity with
the West and suggesting that the pursuit of anything more was pointless.
The new security posture introduced by President Brezhnev, while in
the first instance a recognition of the realities of military balance,
was not brought about without controversy; there was evidence of
resistance to the idea that security could be enhanced by arms control
arrangements with the West that restricted the core elements of Soviet
military power. They thus represent a cardinal victory for proponents
of change in the USSR who have argued, since early in the nuclear era,
that the mutual vulnerability introduced by nuclear weapons required a
departure from traditional doctrine on war and peace. The changes
establish a more hospitable domestic environment for joint efforts
to restrain the strategic arms competition than existed during SALT I
or even the early stages of SALT II. They also challenge the traditional
dominance of military professionals in the sphere of defense policy by
clarifying that the primary goal of strategy in the nuclear age is to
prevent war, not to win it.
CONFIDENTIAL
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CONFIDENTIAL FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
POST-STALIN DEVELOPMENTS
A signal development of the Khrushchev era was the USSR's official
acknowledgment that the advent of nuclear weapons presented new
imperatives for Soviet policy on the issues of war and peace.
Khrushchev and other leaders announced their understanding that the
vast destructive potential of nuclear weapons ruled out resort to
war as a means of settling East-West disputes. That understanding
clearly was behind Khrushchev's revision of the Stalinist dogma on
the inevitability of war. Nonetheless, the Khrushchev era's
accommodation of the harsh realities of the nuclear age was limited.
Soviet discourse continued to approach security as a national concept
dependent on unilateral decisions and determined by military power.
Soviet leaders did not acknowledge that the mutual vulnerability
of the nuclear era or the search for a stable relationship with the
West legitimately raised the prospect of balanced restraints on the
dimensions of the West's and its own, then rudimentary, strategic
arsenal.
Through the mid-1960's, as the USSR strove to overcome its position
of strategic inferiority, Soviet posture statements reiterated the
traditional maxim that a superior military force was the best way
to insure Soviet national defense. It was not uncommon for Soviet
political leaders to echo that idea, however ill-defined. A notable
example was the June 1966 Supreme Soviet election speech of First
Secretary Brezhnev, who claimed that the USSR would seek "to preserve
Soko oV,s~ the superiority" of its armed forces over those of the West.
66 k) SALT I AND EQUAL SECURITY
While clearly a step away from the notion of Soviet superiority the
precise implications of "equal security" remained somewhat ambiguous.
It was on occasion employed in Soviet SALT commentary to justify the
notion that the USSR should be allowed special compensation--for its
long border with China and its greater vulnerability to attack from
The notion that national security should be considered in a broader
international context began to emerge in Soviet official discourse
after the initiation of strategic arms limitation negotiations with
the United States in the fall of 1969. The USSR's initial public
statements in connection with SALT gave little insight into Soviet
goals in the new diplomatic venture. In his benchmark address to the
24th CPSU Congress in 1971, however, Brezhnev--by now party general
secretary and increasingly the dominant force in foreign policy--set
forth the Soviet desideratum in the talks as "the security of the
parties considered equally" and the renunciation of attempts to seek
unilateral advantage. Shortened as "equal security," that formula
served as the USSR's stated goal for the SALT I negotiations.
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CONFIDENTIAL
FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
short- and medium-range systems. Even more illustrative cstrictly
the equal security formula was employed tl
me
issueaofrtheir percepbeluctonsant and throughout
nature of the concepts in the SALT context while Soviet
SALT I to address the broad
USSR was responding a
the Even
regarding the East-West strategic West balance.
periodically to assertions in
position of advantage, Soviet officials weresltreatedntheeissue
in rejecting unequivocal
p them. Typically their resp thical the notion
strictly as one of intentions: They dismissed as my offered reassurances that
that there was a Soviet threat to the West, offered
but stopped short of
the USSR had no intention of attacking ies.
directly addressing the question of capabilities.
IMPACT OF SUMMIT ACCORDS: DEBATE OVER DEFENSE POSTURE
significant evolution of the USSR's policy on
A further and more appropriate security
nuclear weapons, the strategic balance, and an of
'
posture has occurred since 1974, coincident with the beginning
serious negotiations on a SALT II treaty. Its final result has
nition of the benefits of stabilizing
og
been the USSR's official recognition ed
the East-West military balance--a recognitthe ion bthat has en xs with
the by its West acceptance and by of strategic parity a oith
its acknowledgment that increments of military p
The Soviet change of
will not by themselves add to Soviet security. hen So by Pchaigent tem posture was made evident in a series of keyntstaernal disputes over the
Brezhnev, apparently aimed at resolving
issues.
That some further movement in Soviet security policy might be in
prospect during SALT II was first suggested by indications of debate
sensitive issue:
ses of the issue:
1972
that appeared in the summer of 1973 on an obviously s
Whether the improving international climate, the military balance had
and 1973 U.S.-Soviet summits, and the emerging to insuring
a new look at the Soviet approach o program to those pro
a posing
made necessary Although the precise p g
channgge e n neevrer surfaced fully at the time, their public contributions
hey Were objecting to the traditional pre-
a chav
to the debate made clear tow r as the wellspring of Soviet security o acnghmi litaryP
the
on the
and suggesting that diplomacy was the besInt re way of responses those building defending
recent improvements in the situation.
sufficient thhaa the that the
the orthodox position argued in strongly Polemical terms
enets a to was improvement questioning the fttraditionaltmili ary-p yolitic t and
justify any y oo the
that adding to Soviet power remained the best way of improving
USSR's position.
h 1973 and into early 1974 occasional evidence appeared that
Through with little apparent resonance at the
the debate was continuing nificant contributions to the debate it
official level. The most sig
CONFIDENTIAL
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CONFIDENTIAL FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
the Soviet press suggested the possibility of a civilian-military
dichotomy. The USSR's leading academic Americanologist, Georgiy
Arbatov, and his colleague at the Institute of the USA and Canada.
IZVESTIYA political observer Aleksandr Bovinwrote key articles for
the revisionists. RED STAR's propaganda department head Col. I.
Sidelnikov, Col. Ye. Rybkin, and Rear Admiral V.V. Shelyag--the latter
two with the Lenin Military-Political Academy attached to the Ministry
of Defense--weighed in with the most significant responses.
Arbatov, in a 22 July PRAVDA article entitled "Soviet-American
Relations in the New Stage," acknowledged the importance of the changed
correlation of-forces and the USSR's enhanced defense might in bringing
about the improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations and relaxation of
international tensions. But he went on to warn that excessive
reliance on military power was a self-defeating approach and stressed
the importance of diplomacy in the recent changes:
The consistently peace-loving foreign policy course
of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries
is a very important reason for the current relaxation
of tension. For of itself power does not guarantee
peace and still less detente, The growth of power at
one pore can in the final analysis, as has happened
quite often in the past, lead to attempts to build up
power at the other--in other words to unrestrained
military rivalry. Also important is the direction in
which this power is turned and the aims which he who
has acquired it sets himself.
the significance of international trends, Bovin argued that the
advent of nuclear weapons had led leaders-in boththe socialist and
Bovin's article, which had appeared earlier in the evening edition
of IZVESTIYA on 11 July, provided insight into the specific arguments
of the revisionists that were to shape the further evolution of the
debate and the pronouncements of President Brezhnev.* Summing up
political` objectives: Bovin underscored the policy implications of
`this development:
capitalist worlds to rule out nuclear war as a means of attain'
At the basis of the agreements (between the USSR and
the United States) lies sober calculation, under-
standing of the catastrophic nature of _a_ global
thermonuclear conflict, awareness that under conditions
oT a nuclear missi a balance further growth of nuclear
arsenals loses political meaning and does not increase,
but diminishes, the security of the parties.
There were indications at the time of the sensitivity of Bovin s
arguments. Articles published in the evening edition of IZVESTIYA
are normally carried in the next morning's editions that are mailed
abroad, but Bovin's article did not so appear.
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
Apparently anticipating a doctrinal objection, Bovin noted that
this development raised questions about thea~propriateness of
the Clausewitzian formula, expounded by Lenin, that war is a
'H- - other means." But he insisted that
continuation of 'policy by
the realities of the nuclear age could not be ignored: "Stock-
piles of nuclear-missile weapons are such today," he argued,
"that it would be possible to destroy all life on our planet."
Hence, Bovin argued, "the-time has come to solve practically
another problem--the preservation of human life."
The potential scope of what was at issue in the arguments by Arbatov
and Bovin became more apparent from the orthodox response. In a
14 August 1973 RED STAR article entitled "Peaceful Coexistence and
the Security of the People," Colonel Sidelnikov acknowledged that
unnamed "military theorists and publicists" were "now returning" to
Marxist-Leninist teachings on defense and many were "connecting
their interpretation with the relaxation of tension and the Soviet-
American agreement on the prevention of nuclear war (signed by
President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev at the June 1973
i
i
ons
t
summit)." Sidelnikov responded by defending orthodox pos
and pointing to the limitations on what U.S.-Soviet negotiations
had yet achieved. The prevention of nuclear war agreement,
Sidelnikov noted, still does not mean a prohibition of nuclear
weapons, and, pointedly listing all four opposing nuclear powers, he
contended that as long as they possess nuclear weapons the Soviet
Union must remain ready to "wage war with the use of any means of
armed struggle." Clearly taking issue with Bovin on the best
defense posture to accompany detente, Sidelnikov argued that further
adding to Soviet power was the best way to consolidate what had
been achieved:
The higher the military might and combat readiness
of the armed forces of the USSR and all armies of the
fraternal socialist countries and the better their
cohesion and cooperation, the more durable (is) peace
on earth, the more reliable the security of our peoples
and the broader the opportunities for consolidating
and developing the successes of the policy of peaceful
coexistence and for making irreversible the positive
changes in the international arena.
Several more orthodox spokesmen subsequently weighed in with attacks
on the revisionist arguments. Notable among them was Col. Ye.
Rybkin--a conservative spokesman in earlier military debates of the
1960's. In an October 1973 issue of COMMUNIST OF THE ARMED FORCES,
Rybkin attacked Bovin by name for a "notable methodological mistake"
in "several" recent publications: questioning the validity of the
Lenin-Clausewitz dictum and failing to make a "scientific analysis
of the essence of war."
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
Perhaps the most important rebuttal to the revisionists, and
certainly the most illuminating of what was at issue, came in
a 7 February 1974 RED STAR article by Rear Admiral Shelyag.
Entitled "Two World Outlooks--Two Views on War," the article
strongly reiterated the orthodox viewpoint on how nuclear
weapons affected the matter of national security. Shelyag
took strong exception in particular to the arguments on the
excessive level of current strategic arsenals and the potential
consequences of using them that Bovin had offered in his article
in IZVESTIYA the previous July:
If arguments about the death of civilization and
about no victors in a nuclear war are to be pre-
sented in an oversimplified manner, they are based
on mathematical calculations. The authors of these
arguments divide the quantity of the accumulated
nuclear potential in the world by the number of
people living on earth. As a result it emerges
that all mankind really could be destroyed. This
is an oversimplified, one-sided approach to such
a complex sociohistorical phenomenon as war.
To such arguments suggesting that weapons on both sides were part
of the problem, Shelyag countered that nuclear weapons in the
West are indeed a threat to mankind but those in Soviet hands
are dedicated to its defense. As for the consequences of nuclear
war, Shelyag reaffirmed the traditional view:
Our understanding of the consequences of a possible
world war are defined in the CPSU Program (approved
by the 22d CPSU Congress in 1961): 'In the event
the imperialists nevertheless dare to unleash a new
world war, the peoples will no longer be able to
tolerate a system which plunges them into devas-
tating wars. They will sweep imperialism away and
bury it.'*
* The early outlines of this debate and some of its individual
contributions are discussed in several FBIS publications of the
period, including the TRENDS SUPPLEMENT of 23 August 1973,
"Soviet Debate over Role of Military Power during Detente," and
the TRENDS of 26 September 1973, pages 3-4; 13 February 1974,
pages 2-4; and 21 February 1974, pages 6-8.
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
BREZHNEV AND THE REDUNDANCY OF NUCLEAR ARSENALS
Within a year of the first signs of this debate, Brezhnev entered
the dialogue, borrowing directly from the language of the revi-
sionists, making precisely the argument to which Shelyag had
objected, and clarifying some of the policy implications. In a
series of speeches beginning in the summer of 1974, Brezhnev
pointed to the excessive and indeed redundant levels of current
nuclear arsenals and argued that restrictions rather than further
additions were the best way to further enhance Soviet security.
Brezhnev's intervention effectively ended further public arguments
from the traditionalists.
In his 14 June 1974,,,USSR Supreme Soviet election speech, Brezhnev
observed that "supporters of the arms race" argue that limiting
armaments, and the more so reducing them, "means taking a risk."
In rebuttal, Brezhnev claimed that "there is an immeasurably
greater risk in continuing to accumulate weapons without restraint."
He returned t o the issue during an official visit to Poland just
over a month later. During a speech to the Sejm (parliament) in
Warsaw on 21 July, Brezhnev drew on the arguments presented by
Arbatov and Bovin the year before and made clear, through his
choice of phraseology, that the need for a new approach to
security had arisen:
For centuries mankind, in striving to insure its
security, has been guided by the formula: If you
want peace, be ready for war. In our nuclear age
this formula conceals particular danger. Man dies
only once. However, in recent years a quantity of
weapons has already been amassed sufficient to destroy
everyt ing iving on earth several times: `Clearly
un3erstanding this, we have put it and continue to
put it another way: If you want peace, conduct a
policy of peace and fight for that policy. This has
been, is, and will be the maxim of our socialist
foreign policy.
In several subsequent public appearances, Brezhnev reaffirmed
his new emphasis on the unacceptable consequences of nuclear war
and the notion that "mankind" might be wholly destroyed.
The innovative nature of Brezhnev's intervention on the matter of
the potential consequences of nuclear war is best appreciated in
light of his own historical record. The last time he had addressed
the issue was in September 1964. Only a month before replacing
Khrushchev as party first secretary Brezhnev faithfully echoed
what was in effect the Khrushchev-era compromise: stressing the
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liVlY rIlJC1~ h~ rD.Lo C]LN(.L.101.7 .u.i Vc%l
25 MAY 1979
devastating consequences of a nuclear war without objecting to
the dimensions of nuclear arsenals--warning that such a war, if
the West were to start it, would end "in the complete _defeat of
capitalism." Brezhnev's remarks in Warsaw broke 10 years of
silence he had maintained on the issue-a period that coincided
with the USSR's strategic buildup toward parity with the United
States.*
Four months after Brezhnev's remarks in Warsaw, the USSR agreed--
in the November 1974 Vladivostok understanding with President
Ford--to equal. overall ceilings on the two sides' strategic
arsenals (.technically, the number of strategic delivery vehicles)
and to the principle of _equality as well as equal security as
the basis o t`he negotiations. While t e equality and equal
security formu a mare a urther step in the USSR's public
definition of its strategic goals, it was not broadly publicized
outside the SALT negotiating context.- Soviet leaders remained
reluctant to address directly the desirability of global
strategic balance.
* More recently, in a May 1978 interview, Brezhnev appeared to
take direct issue with remarks on this subject made the previous
fall by President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski. Stressing the disastrous consequences of a nuclear
conflict, Brezhnev said the USSR is "not heartened at all by
predictions in the West that 'only 10 percent' of the world
population will perish in a world nuclear war and that this,
don't you see, is not so horrible, is not the end of the world."
The reference apparently was to a Brzezinski interview with the
Washington POST published on 9 October 1977, in which he was
quoted as saying that "if we used all our nuclear weapons and
the Russians used all of their nuclear weapons, about 10 percent
of humanity would be killed. Now this is a disaster beyond the
range of human comprehension. It's a disaster which is not
morally justifiable in whatever fashion. But descriptively and
analytically, it's not the end of humanity. It's not the
destruction of humanity." A historical look at Soviet views on
the potential consequences and outcome of a global nuclear war
are discussed in an article in the TRENDS of 17 August 1977,
pages Sl-S5.
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GUNI IUtNIIAL YB15 APIALTJIJ itLrVK1
25 MAY 1979
BREZHNEV AND THE STRATEGIC BALANCE
The next significant step in the public definition of Soviet
security policy came in 1977 and 1978 through a series of state-
ments by President Brezhnev on the strategic balance and some
significant accompanying press commentary on strategic affairs.
The benchmark in this case was Brezhnev's 18 January 1977 speech
in Tula (south of Moscow). At Tula, Brezh_nev addressed directly
Soviet intentions regarding t e trategic_ibalance,,,__denying
explicitly ?or the first time that the USSR sought military
superiority. In subsequent statements over the next year and a
-half,`Brezhnev went on to embrace military balance as a goal
of Soviet security policy, accepting parity as the basis of the
U.S.-Soviet relationship and offering a rationale for why parity
was sufficient for Soviet defense.
Brezhnev's address at Tula came two days before President Carter
was inaugurated and conveyed his interest in working with the
President for an "important advance" in relations and a prompt
conclusion of the SALT II negotiations. Acknowledging renewed
questioning in the West about Soviet intentions, Brezhnev conceded
that the USSR was "improving" its defenses but rejected as "absurd
and totally unfounded" allegations that it was going beyond what
was necessary for defense and "striving for superiority with the
aim of delivering a 'first strike."' Brezhnev offered,a definition
of Soviet defense policy:
The Soviet Union's defense potential must be sufficient
to deter anyone from taking a risk to violate our
peaceful life. Not a course of superiority in armaments,
but a course of reducing them, at lessening military
confrontation--such is our policy.
Brezhnev's disavowal of superiority was shortly echoed by other
Soviet leaders, including Defense Minister Ustinov and Warsaw
Pact commander Viktor Kulikov.*
Brezhnev's remarks at Tula coincided with Soviet press commentary
which for the first time embraced the concept of U.S.-Soviet
parity as a desideratum of Soviet policy and described the main-
tenance of that balance as a key ingredient in U.S.-Soviet
* In an article in the authoritative party journal KOMMUNIST in
early 1977 as well as an address marking the 60th anniversary of
the USSR Armed Forces the next year, Ustinov conveyed support for
this position while adding that the USSR had no desire to compete
with the West in the development of new weapons technology.
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
relations. Perhaps not without significance, articles in the
military press were especially prominent in this development.
The military daily RED STAR published an article on 12 January,
six days before Brezhnev's remarks in Tula, which called parity
a "reality" and said it had in fact been the basis of U.S.-
Soviet relations "in recent years."* The importance of parity
was also acknowledged by Col. Ye. Rybkin--the conservative
standard bearer in the debates of the 1960's and the accuser of
Bovin in 1973--in the lead article of the January 1977 issue of
MILITARY-HISTORICAL JOURNAL.
The greater significance of Rybkin's article--as well as of a
second article by a prominent military commentator in PRAVDA the
following June--was that it accepted revisionist arguments on the
futility of adding to overkill capacity of current nuclear arsenals.
The objective necessity of ending the arms race is
apparent. In the first place because the quantity
of nuclear weapons has reached a level whereby a
further increase will in practice make no change.
'In recent years,' noted L.I. Brezhnev in July 1974,
'a quantity of arms has already been amassed
sufficient to destroy everything living on earth
several times.' In the second place, because
'nuclear parity,' as it is called, has been established
between the USSR and the United States; that is, a
definite balance of power, which was officially
h recognized at the Soviet-American talks in 1972-74
with a mutual agreement not to disturb this balance.
The PRAVDA article on 14 June, signed by Maj. Gen. Rair Simonyan,
drew the same conclusion from the development of the military
balance but even more forcefully. Expressing support for the
notion that "in the modern world it is no longer possible to insure
security by means of an arms buildup," Simonyan added:
Given the equality of strategic forces, when both sides
possess weapons capable of destroying many times over
all life on earth, neither the addition of new armaments
nor the enhancement of their destructive power can bring
any substantial military--and even less, political--
advantage.
* Foreign policy specialists at the USSR's academic institutes
had for several years previous employed the notion of parity to
describe the existing U.S.-Soviet relationship, but as published
those statements had stopped short of presenting the concept
directly as a Soviet policy goal.
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
Both Brezhnev's remarks at Tula and the accompanying commentary
endorsing parity came in the wake of controversy in the United
States over a new intelligence estimate of Soviet strategic
intentions. The Soviet statements could be seen as responsive
to that controversy. It is clear in perspective, however, that
they were of broader import. They signaled a new willingness
by the USSR openly to discuss the East-West strategic balance and
define Soviet intentions with regard to it.
Brezhnev himself in statements following his remarks in Tula
proceeded to elaborate significantly on his disavowal of superiority
address some of the remaining ambiguities, endorse strategic parity,
and accept the revisionist argument on the futility of adding to
existing armaments. In a major speech in November 1977 marking
the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, Brezhnev offered
a comprehensive definition of Soviet strategic goals: The USSR,
he said, does not want "to upset the approximate equilibrium of
military strength existing at present" between East and West in
central Europe and "between the USSR and the United States."
The following May, in connection with his visit to West Germany,
Brezhnev made official the acceptance of East-West military parity
e
as a policy objective that had been implied in unoff ickal_nress.
commentary surrounding his remarks at Tula.
In an interview granted to the FRG Social Democratic Party's
weekly VORWAERTS on the eve of the visit--carried in full text by
TASS on 2 May and published in all Soviet papers on the 3d--Brezhnev
maintained that parity, "as is officially: recognized by both sides,"
es as e asi-s of-the SALT negotiations. Brezhnev proceeded to
accept parity as sufficient for t s defensive needs and
endorse in slightly 'different language the central argument of the
revisionists against further adding to current strategic arsenals:
As for the Soviet Union, it believes that an
approximate equality and parity is sufficient for
defensive needs. We do not set ourselves the goal
of achieving military superiority. We know also
that this very concept becomes pointless in the
presence of today's huge arsenals of already stock-
piled nuclear weapons and means for their delivery.
STAT
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
?"
The USSR's acceptance of parity was formalized in the Joint yl '51
Declaration signed by Brezhnev and FRG Chancellor Schmidt one
the 6th. In Article 3 of that document, published in the Soviet
press on the 7th, the two sides agreed that "no one should seek
military superiority" and that "approximate equality and p~ aity
are sufficient to insure defense."- --- ---
.THE SOVIET VIEW OF MUTUAL DETERRENCE
The USSR's formal acceptance of parity as a policy objective
and recognition that security is not subject to a purely military
solution represent in effect an acceptance of the necessity as
well as the reality of East-West military balance in the nuclear
era. President Brezhnev has indicated his realization of the
benefits of such a relationship in more direct fashion on several
occasions. In a speech to his Russian Republic Supreme Soviet
electoral constituency in June 1975, Brezhnev assured his audience
that Western leaders are effectively restrained by the balance
that has devel
d
ope
:
Nowadays leaders of the bourgeois world cannot seriously
plan on solving the historic dispute between capitalism
and socialism by force of arms. The senselessness
and extreme danger of further heating the atmosphere
in conditions-when both sides possess weapons of -
colossal destructive force is becoming more and more
obvious.
Brezhnev's assurances were the more significant in that they
appeared to represent a calculated break with traditional tenets
on the undamental nature of the Western--threat. The CPSU Program
approved by the 22d party congress had maintained that Western
states "refuse to reconcile themselves to the existence of a
world socialist system and openly declare their mad plans for
the liquidation of the Soviet Union and other socialist states
through war."
As a group, the rest of the Soviet Politburo does not appear to
have contested this relationship of balance and the calmer view
of the Western threat upon which it seems to rest. Defense
Minister Grechko was the only member of the Politburo who, in
public remarks from 1974 until his death in April 1976, seemed
to have doubts. Two weeks before Brezhnev's 1975 election
address, for instance, Grechko contradicted the statement
Brezhnev was to make by reaffirming the assessment of Western
intentions stated in the Program. Speaking, to an armed forces
conference, Grechko warned that the forces of reaction and
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FBIS ANALYSIS REPORT
25 MAY 1979
aggression "have not abandoned their plans to resolve the dispute
between capitalism and socialism by armed means." The current
USSR defense minister, civilian defense industry specialist D. F.
Ustinov, has shown himself a supporter of the leadership consensus.
While the USSR has publicly embraced a strategic relationship
which seemingly is comparable to the U.S. concept of mutual
deterrence, it is unlikely that Soviet officials will appropriate
that concept itself. They would be r 1 cue tart to take as-thei~r
own a formula so closely connected historically to the development
of strategic thought in the West and so foreign to the Soviet
vocabulary. Moreover, Soviet leaders acknowledge their uneasiness
with what they often call a "balance of fear." They assert,
however, that their problems with the situation do not signify
an appetite for adding further to current arsenals but a belief
that such a situation produces an unstable strategic environment.
President Brezhnev has returned to this point a number of times.
In his November 1977 address on the 60th anniversary of the
October Revolution, Brezhnev added the point to his claim that
the USSR did not want to upset the existing equilibrium of
military strength. Needless to say, he said, "maintaining the
existing equilibrium is not an end in itself. We are in favor
of starting a downward turn in the direction of the arms race
and gradually scaling down the level of military confrontation."
Comments on quution, on -thi6 tepoAt may be dilcected to
? CONFIDENTIAL
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