SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE REVISED EDITION OF 'MILITARY STRATEGY'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001400030004-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2001
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 8, 1963
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
DD/I RESEARCH STAFF
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
CIA/RS IM 63-15
OCI No. 3290/63
8 November 1963
Copy No : I ,
A
SUBJECT: Some Observations on the Revised Edition
of "Military Strategy"
1. On 30 August 1963, fifteen months after the
first edition of the Soviet Defense Ministry book "Military
Strategy" was issued, a second edition, revised and en-
larged, was signed to press.* The previous intervkl be-
tween comprehensive Soviet works on strategy had been 36
years. The second edition of "Military Strategy" was
produced by the same group of authors as the first, under
the stewardship of Marshal Sokolovskiy, onetime Chief of
the General Staff. The formats of both editions are vir-
tually identical; textual revisions, additions and deletions
*The revise version of the book, made available here
only a week ago, was first released in the USSR in October,
according to a footnote in an article on the U.S. transla-
tions (of the first edition) by four of its incensed authors
in RED STAR on 2 November 1963. The article vigorously at-
tacked the U.S. editors for "slander" and "falsifications"
in their annotated versions of the book. The article showed
particular sensitivity over pre-emption as a Soviet strategy
(they categorically denied any such thing); escalation from
local war ("inevitable" only if the major nuclear powers
are drawn in, they insisted); and differences between Soviet
political and military leaders and among the military (this
notion is preposterous, they said--everybody knows that the
CPSU Central Committee decides all important questions of
national defense).
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have been made without altering the basic structure of the
work. This has made possible a line by line comparison of
the two versions. Only the most striking differences in
the texts are set forth in this memorandum which is intended
simply to acquaint the reader with the appearance of the
new work and to offer a preliminary commentary on it.
2. The reasons for publishing a second edition at
this time are not entirely clear. While the revised edition
has.;many changes and is thicker than its predecessor by 46
pages, the thrust and substance of the original version re-
main essentially unchanged. Hence, the revisions in them-
selves do not seem to warrant republication at this time.
For example, while the new edition brings up to date public
information on American strategy and capabilities, the re-
visions do not alter the previous work's emphasis on the
magnitude of U.S. military power. Most of the substantive
changes, in fact, tend to bear on the periphery of Soviet
military doctrine, on questions of a largely political
order, rather than on questions of force requirements and
the nature of future war. The changes make the work reflect
recent developments in the political line, notably in
Soviet foreign affairs and intrabloc relations. And while
they may sharpen the focus on some matters, they leave other,
perhaps still controversial subjects, ambiguous. In any
case, this reviewer doubts that the revisions add up to a
new landmark in the evolution of Soviet military thought.
Indeed, it seems to be more likely the case that the authors
used the updated version to reassert their former views on
military doctrine at a time when basic Soviet defense
policies and programs may be in flux. The authors graciously
note that they had received a good deal of useful advice
and criticism from colleagues in the USSR, nevertheless they
devote half their preface to refuting their critics' recom-
mendations. Finally, perhaps an obvious explanation is also
a correct one: the initial supply of 20,000 copies--a small
distribution compared to that of other military publications
on doctrinal matters--was quickly exhausted. The distribu-
tion of the new edition is twice the original.
3. One of the striking accomplishments of the fresh
edition was to make the book politically more acceptable
on matters peripheral to the book's main theses. Thus, hav-
ing been sent to press after the signing of the partial test
ban treaty, the book acknowledges that event:.and'drops some
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of the rather hostile statements about the West carried in
the earlier version. The following statement, for example,
was excised from the Introduction:
Contemporary state monopoly capitalism
is advancing a clearly stated militaristic
program and is intensifying all the basic
aggressive tendencies of world capitalism.
(p. 3, 1st edition)
And in place of the following paragraph emphasizing the
threat of a deliberate NATO attack--
Now, major imperialist forces and weapons which
could be used for a surprise nuclear blow,
are already deployed and dispe:: ed over
vast areas and maintained at a high level
of combat-readiness.
(p. 327, 1st edition)--
a paragraph warning of the'danger of accidental war has been
substituted (p. 364, 2nd edition).
4. The revised edition also reflects recent develop-
ments in the intrabloc dispute. Thus, the two derogatory
references to the Yugoslavs in the first edition (pp.:199
and 202) have been dropped, as has the single reference to
the contribution of the Chinese to military thought--that
of Confucius, Sun Tsu and Wu Tsu between the First and
Fourth Centuries. At the same time, however, the new ver-
sion has not added favorable references to Yugoslavia or
made any disparaging remarks about the Chinese, such as can
be found in Soviet military newspapers and journals. The
authors thus tend to assume a neutral stance on these ques-
tions, perhaps to avoid having to put out still another
edition when the political wind changes.
5. The chapter dealing with U.S..-NATO military strat-
egy, and capabilities was subjected to major revisions but
these were generally of the order of updating the realistic
account given in the original version. Numbers and types
of U.S. strategic weapons, existing and programmed through
1966 are thus brought up to date on basis of data openly
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published in the United States. Added for the first time
(p. 103) is a note on the warhead yields of the Atlas (up
to 3 mgts) Titan(1-4 mgts) and Minuteman (up to 600 kts),
(It is noteworthy in this regard that the Soviet civil
defense program has been subjecting the Soviet public to
a realistic presentation of the effects of high yield nu-
clear explosions.) Also added are some five solid pages
of a not entirely objective discussion of U.S. strategic
thought as it has unfolded since June 1962. Here the authors
explain the U.S. "counterforce" doctrine, and the weapons
and factors required to make it realistic. They draw the
now standard conclusion that the doctrine is predicated on
a preventive war strategy, and requires a surprise attack
to be successful.
6. In the course of discussing U.S. strategic
thought, the new version dropped a paragraph suggesting
that the presence of great stockpiles of nuclear weapons
in the opposing countries tends to promote strategic
stability, and that nuclear war would mean "complete mutual
annihilation"--thereby, outdoing the "Malenkov heresy."
The deleted paragraph read:
They began to understand that when both
sides possess very large stockpiles of
nuclear weapons and various means of de-
livering them to targets, primarily strat-
egic means, a general nuclear war holds
great risks of complete mutual annihila-
tion. Consequently, the greater becomes
the conviction that it is impossible to
use them. Thus the growth of nuclear-
missile power is inversely proportional to
the possibility of its use.
(p. 74, 1st edition)
7. The treatment of the origin of Soviet military
doctrine in the revised edition is in keeping with the trend
in the past six months or so of stressing the prerogatives
of the political leadership in military planning. It will
be recalled that during the past year or two there has been
reflected in the Soviet military press a thinly-veiled con-
troversy over whether the military or the political leaders
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are better qualified to plan Soviet defenses. That the book
has been adjusted to conform to the recent pronounced practice
of stressing the prerogatives of the political leaders in
the military sphere is seen in the following revisions:
(1) In wartime, therefore,
strategic considera-
tions often determine
policy.
(p. 26, 1st edition)
In wartime, strat-
egic_
often reflect and
in turn influence
policy.
(p. 30, 2nd edition)
(2) Military doctrine is
not thought out or
compiled by a single
person or group of
persons.
(p. 49, 1st edition)
The basic positions
of military doctrine
are determined by
the political lead-
ership of the state.
(p. 54, 2nd edition)
While the old formula (in the second set) detracted from
Khrushchev's claims to pre-eminence in the military field,
the new formula (also used by Malinovskiy in his pamphlet
last November) supports them. An even stronger phrasing
of the latter type may be found in the May 1963 pamphlet,
"Soviet Military Doctrine," by Col. Gen. N. A. Lomov:
.....The fundamentals of military doctrine
are determined by the political leadership
of the country, since only it has the juris-
diction and competence to solve problems of
military construction....
The revised edition of the book, moreover, does not go as
far as the Lomov pamphlet in crediting Khrushchev personally
with authorship of the "principal positions" of military
doctrine.
8. Some interesting changes have been made in the
sections dealing with local war. But these, characteristic-
ally, have been more in the realm of politics than military
matters; the new edition does not appear to have seriously
altered the somewhat ambiguous doctrinal positions set forth
in the first version. Like its predecessor, the revised
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edition appears to be at cross-purposes with itself on the
question of escalation under various conditions. For example,
both versions in some places stress the improbability of
a localized conflict in Europe or of a large-scale war there
limited to conventional weapons, and assert that a local
war will inevitably escalate if the major nuclear powers
are drawn into it. But elsewhere they discuss local war
situations and operations including a hypothetical large-
scale non-nuclear "local war" in central Europe, and urge
that a place be carved out for local war in Soviet military
strategy. The inconsistencies in the book undoubredly re-
flect continuing controversy among Soviet military and poli-
tical leaders on this matter. At the same time, it is clear
from the book in both its editions as well as from other
open Soviet military publications, that there has been an
awakened Soviet interest in the question of applying their
own forces in local military crises.
9. As to the political aspects of the local war
question, the revised edition has added Africa and Cuba to
the list of areas where the imperialists will "most likely
initiate aggressive wars." The other areas on the list are
the Near and Middle East, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. In
this regard the singular change in the description of Taiwan
as a danger area is noteworthy:
...the island of Taiwan, ... the island of
occupied by the USA, Taiwan, historic-
where the latter incites ally Chinese land,
Chiang Kai-shek to pro- on which the Chiang
vocative actions against Kai- shek clique and
people's China... American occupiers
(p. 206, 1st edition) are settled...
(p. 225, 2nd edition)
The revision 'thus appears to be.a shade less critical of
the United States and tends to transform the Taiwan situa-
tion from an active military threat to Communist China
into a lesser problem of Irredentism. In conjunction. with
this, another revision tends to play down the active threat
of local war against Bloc countries, and particularly
against China:
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....some imperialist cricles, fearing that
a world war might mean complete disaster
for capitalism,
insist on the conduct are laying plans
of local wars and point for the conduct of
out their political ad- local wars in dif-
vantages. Such a war ferent areas of the
might also be foisted world.
upon the socialist coun- (p. 319, 2nd edition)
tries.
(p. 281, 1st edition)
10. That Soviet doctrine has not yet been worked out
on a whole range of questions pertaining to the conduct of
possible, future war is made clear in the following para-
graph found only in the revised edition:
These questions are subject to polemics.
Essentially, the argument is over the
basic ways in which future war will be
conducted, whether this is to be a ground
war with the employment of nuclear weapons
as a means of supporting the operations of
the ground forces, or a fundamentally new
war in which the main means of deciding
strategic tasks will be nuclear-rocket
weapons.
(p. 367, 2nd edition)
The authors make it clear where they stand in respect to
this basic argument. As in their first version, they again
score the tendency of certain Soviet military theorists to
overestimate: the experience of the last war and to apply it
mechanically to modern conditions. In the revised version,
they add the following statement:
The error in this point of view is that
it depreciates the role of rocket-nuclear
weapons of strategic designation and under-
estimates its enormous military possibilities,
thereby orienting it to the Ground Forces
and to the traditional ways of conducting
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war. The imperialists do not intend to
wage war against socialist countries with
ground forces. They place their stakes on
nuclear weapons, basically the strategic
ones...
(p. 368, 2nd edition)
The role of strategic nuclear weapons also appears to be
given somewhat greater emphasis vis-a-vis theater warfare,
as seen in the following revision:
Strategy uses tactics ...Strategy, having
and operations to verify in the past been at-
its assumptions and con- tained by tactics
clusions. and operational art,
(p. 11, lst edition) now has the possi-
bility by its autono-
mous means to attain
the goals of the war
independent of the
outcome of battles
and operations.
(p. 21, 2nd edition)
11. As regards the question of numbers of troops,
the new version gives added emphasis to the old that more,
not fewer, troops are required by modern weapons. Both
versions repudiate the "notorious" theory advanced by some
of their colleagues of the possibility of waging war with
small but technically well-equipped armies. Then each ver-
sion proceeds as follows:
The advocates of such
armies fail to consider
that the new equipment,
far from reducing the
requirements of the
armed forces for person-
nel, increases them.
For this reason, massive
armies of millions
of men will be needed to
wage a future war.
(p. 264, 1st edition)
The advocates of
such theories fail
to consider that the
new weapons and new
military equipment,
far from reducing the
requirements of the
armed forces for per-
sonnel, increases them,
both immediately for
combat as well as for
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supporting units.
The need for a mas-
sive army derives
from the fact that
enormous simultaneous
losses from nuclear
strikes require great
numbers of troops,
significant reserves
for replenishing the
troops and increasing
their fighting cap-
abilities. Moreover,
the increased scope
of the war and the
creation, by nuclear
strikes, of enormous
zones of destruction
and radioactivive
debris require a large
number of troops for
guarding and defending
state borders, rear
objectives and com-
munications, and for
the elimination of
the after-effects of
the nuclear strikes.
Hence, there cannot
be any doubt that
future war will involve
massive armies of mil-
lions of men.
(p. 300, 2nd edition)
Elsewhere in the revised edition, a new paragraph on person-
nel requirements notes that "not a single state, however
strong economically" can support in peacetime an army of
the size required in wartime, and will therefore have to
count on mobilization in case of war. The Soviet "multi-
million man cadre army," a "part of which is kept at constant
combat readiness," will nevertheless be "insufficient for
conducting war." (p. 291, 2nd edition) Both versions dis-
cuss mobilization requirements in the event of war in a
subsequent chapter.
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12. As in the first edition, the second reveals an
abiding interest among the Soviet military in advanced wea-
pons and the question of military use of outer space. The
revised edition for the first time calls attention to U.S.
research in the military use of antigravitation, antimatter,
plasma and lasers (pp. 394, 405), in addition to reiterating
the concern voiced in the original version over preventing
the U.S. from gaining superiority in space weapons. New
in the second version is the statement that "it is necessary
to have suitable means of providing for the timely detection
of cosmic apparatuses of the enemy and for their rapid
destruction or neutralization." (p. 395) A change in re-
gard to the Soviet ABM capability is noteworthy.
There is a realistic
possibility of creat-
ing an insurmountable
anti-missile defense.
(p. 351, 1st edition)
There is a realistic
possibility of parry-
ing the blows of
enemy rockets.
(p. 393, 2nd edition)
13. The section on naval warfare has been filled out
somewhat, though probably not to the extent called for by
a Soviet naval reviewer of the first edition of the book.
Perhaps most noteworthy here is the addition of a claim
to an ASW capability sufficient to deal with the Polaris
submarine threat:
Atomic submarines with Polaris rockets can
be destroyed at their bases by strikes from
strategic rockets and long range aviation;
at sea, both in crossing the sea and on
station, by operations of anti-sub submarines,
long-range aviation, and other anti-sub
forces and means. The capability to combat
missile submarines is now being extended
to the full range of seas and oceans.
Former coastal ASW systems will now be in-
effective against missile-bearing submarines.
(p. 399, 2nd edition)
The addition of a reference to amphibious landings by Soviet
forces is also noteworthy in view of fresh interest in this
subject reflected in recent issues of the Soviet military
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press and journals. According to "Military Strategy:"
In building the naval fleet, consideration
is being given the task of providing for
combined operations with the Ground Forces,
and first of all of providing for amphibious
landings.
(p. 313, 2nd edition)
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