CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOVIET MILITARY DOCTRINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP93B01478R000100120002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 1, 1985
• Content Type: MISC

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CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SOVIET MILITARY DOCTRINE
August 1985
(Draft IISS Presentation)
1. Introduction
My task is to survey current developments in Soviet military doctrine.
At the outset I wish to review certain enduring features of Soviet military
doctrine which I believe must be kept in mind in order to understand
contemporary developments.
.I shall conclude by attempting to identify some of the major problems with
which Soviet military doctrine appears to be grappling, the solutions to
which will shape Soviet military doctrine in the future.
II. Some Basics
It is well to remind ourselves what the Soviets mean by the term doctrine.
In Soviet usage the term is very close to or equivalent to policy. This is
the highest level state direction to all implementing organizations on the
character of future wars and the manner in which the armed forces of the
USSR are to be organized, equipped, trained, and employed to conduct those
wars. Doctrine is not Soviet military literature, thought, debate, or
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science, although these sources contribute to and reflect Soviet military
doctrine. In the end-Soviet military doctrine is revealed more by
purposeful military behavior than by Soviet statements about it..
As revealed by Soviet military behavior, doctrine embraces four fundamental
strategic missions or mission areas. Soviet capabilities and operational
practices have evolved considerably in each area, and each continues to
present new challenges to the Soviet planner. But the basic architecture of
Soviet military doctrine has remained fairly stable since the mid-1960s,
even the late 1950s.
.The first basic mission area is strategic defense of the homeland, including
the political system and its leadership.
The second is military dominance of the continental Eurasian periphery
surrounding the USSR, especially Europe.
The third mission area concerns the provision of long-range strategic
nuclear strike capabilities. These capabilities are considered dominant in
certain general war scenarios, and they loom very large in peacetime power
politics and arms control. But they appear to be viewed by the Soviets as
very much supportive of the first and second primary mission areas, namely
homeland defense and peripheral, dominance.
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The fourth mission area, more emergent than enduring, is distant power
projection., by means other than strategic offensive nuclear forces and
beyond the immediate continental periphery. Although distinctly subordinate
to the previous three-mission areas, it is in part supportive of them and
increasingly important to the USSR in underwriting its political role as a
global superpower. In this area one should include, I believe, such
activities as foreign military sales, advice, and assistance, as well as the
general purpose navy, air lift, etc.
This four-pillared architecture is not explicitly discussed as such in
Soviet military writings. But it is so helpful in organizing what the
.Soviets do to and with their military capabilities that it must be
considered the fundamental structure of Soviet military policy, doctrine
revealed by practice, so to speak.
The Soviet leadership has a keen sense of the political meaning of military
power, although it lacks a voluminous literature on this subject. They are
indeed preoccupied with deterrence as the first objective of military power,
that is, deterrence in the sense of protecting the USSR and its interests,
while advancing those interests and the USSR's influence over others,
without the use of direct force if possible. Nevertheless, Soviet military
planning and behavior rest heavily on the conviction that the real, the
best, indeed the only reliable measure of military power is its expected
performance in the wars which doctrine. stipulates must be anticipated.
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This is both doctrinally and methodologically a very important point, even
though it sounds platitudinous.
It has a number of implications:
First, it is a reflection of the enduring Soviet conviction that deterrence
-- by which the Soviets mean not just war prevention but the power which
determines the conditions of peace -- grows out of warfighting strength.
Second, it is also a reflection of the equally enduring conviction that war
can occur and must be rationally prepared for.
Further, it leads Soviet military science and doctrine to search diligently
and continuously into the probable nature of future war or wars, to
anticipate their scope and internal military chemistry for purposes of
planning in the face of technological and strategic realities which are
always changing to some degree. This preoccupation with the possible tests
of real war produces that quality of permanent dissatisfaction, never having
enough, so endemic to the Soviet planning style . . . what we call "worst
case planning," what the Soviets regard as realism.
Typically, Soviet doctrine measures the elements of military power -- such
as a branch of the armed forces, or a military unit, or a weapons system, or
an operational concept -- not against the comparable or opposing enemy
element primarily, but rather in terms of their contribution to the complex
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chemistry of military success at the tactical, operational, or strategic
levels. This is combined arms thinking in the broadest sense. The Soviets
try to apply it throughout their planning and command structure -- although
not always as successfully as they would wish.
The fundamental planning problem for the makers and implementers of Soviet
military doctrine is General War with the United States and its allies. The
broadest dynamic phenomenon in Soviet military doctrine over the past twenty
years appears to have been the manner in which Soviet planners view this
supreme challenge. They have become systematically more open minded in
their. thinking and open ended in their planning, with respect to such
.features as warning and initial conditions; and geopolitical scope of
participation and operations; the role, scale, and timing of nuclear
operations; the role of non-nuclear forces and operations; the duration and
tempo of the war as a whole and their implications for command structure and
the viability of the social and economic rear.
Most specialists here will appreciate that I am speaking about the role of
the so-called conventional option or conventional phase, about possible
limited nuclear operations, about protracted versus very short war, etc.
But there is something more interesting. going on here than the replacement
of old dogmas with new ones.
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In the mid-1960s, as in Sokolovsky's books on strategy, for example, the
overwhelmingly dominant Soviet image of a General War with the West involved
sudden or very rapid escalation to allout use of nuclear weapons of all
ranges against all militarily relevant targets, including all forces,
support structures, and C3. Such operations would be followed by a frantic
effort with land combat forces to exploit in the theaters; and the homeland
would seek to survive as best its active and passive defenses allowed. The
problem of the planner was to provide forces and operational plans which had
the best chance of seizing the initiative and prevailing -- or at least
surviving - in such a war. Strategic warning, nuclear preemption,
comprehensive integrated countermilitary targeting, especially against C3,
were vital in the extreme.
Today the picture is somewhat different and more complicated. The preceding
apocalyptic image of war and its requirements have not been discarded by any
means. They continue to exist along side new possibilities, in part more
congenial to Soviet war aims but in some ways more demanding. Today Soviet
military doctrine contemplates and prepares for non-nuclear conflict
extended in time and space, punctuated, or dominated, or possibly
overwhelmed by nuclear operations the scope, duration, and timing of which
cannot be fully specified before hand. In other words, the Soviet planner
has come to believe he must prepare for a richer variety of non-nuclear and
nuclear possibilities in large scale war with the West. The modernization
of his forces and command structure allows him to do so. His task is to
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provide the supreme command with forces and strategies which drive the
chemistry of war in the more desirable directions and away from the less
desirable directions.
It is clear from Soviet military statements and the logic of their strategic
situation that there are some very. undesirable scenarios which must be
deterred or precluded if at all possible, although still prepared for.
One is the sudden onset of allout nuclear war in which the enemy has the
initiative. The main Soviet hedges against this have been, on one hand,
strategic warning and preemption capabilities throughout the nuclear strike
forces which allow the Soviets to seize the initiative if necessary; and on
the other hand, deeply echeloned, redundant, and survivable strategic strike
forces and C3 which deter US seizure of the nuclear initiative by making it
unproductive at best, and suicidal at worst.
A second scenario which must be precluded, if at all possible, is a bogged
down conventional war in which the mobilizational potential of Western
societies and economies could become critical and the potential weaknesses
of the USSR's society and alliance structure come into play. The hedges
against this scenario variant are: a) maintaining the offensive momentum of
combined arms non-nuclear operations, and b) assuring the availability of
Soviet nuclear initiatives that could break open the battlefield without
leading necessarily to allout escalation and still leaving the Soviets the
option to preempt allout escalation if necessary. A third hedge
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increasingly noted in Soviet writings is the requirement for a robust and
rapidly mobilizable war economy. This rather implies that the "bog down"
scenario might not be avoidable.
In working these problems, Soviet planning seems to see new possibilities
for success, or victory, in general war against NATO that did not previously
exist. I say possibilities, by no means certainties. They could rest on
rapid success in offensive conventional combat, deterring or suppressing a
militarily relevant nuclear response by NATO until an irreversible fait
accompli has been achieved. Conceivably they could also involve the
achievement of this goal with varying levels of supportive nuclear
-operations in the theater, and outside the theater.
We see here some evolution, but also a great deal of continuity with earlier
As before nuclear and non-nuclear forces combine to provide capabilities for
general war, with a tendency for the cutting edge of usable military power
to shift to the latter in the more desired scenarios, although not the only
and not necessarily the most likely scenarios.
When it comes to nuclear operations of any real size and military
consequence, the Soviets appear to believe in the virtues of the initiative,
that is, in preemption, as much today as they have in the past. There is
nothing in their No-First-Use position that fundamentally alters this. The
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Soviet declared doctrine of No-First-Use has clear political and propaganda
purposes. As elaborated by Soviet military authorities such as Ustinov in
July 1982, however,-it-also has some strategic content. It appears to say
something about Soviet views of the desired scenario if there is a theater
war. It seems also to express some degree of Soviet confidence that the
enemy's first use of nuclear weapons is unlikely to be disasterous for
Soviet operations, or that later nuclear threats could be preempted if they
looked really dangerous.
Defense of the homeland continues very much to coexist with peripheral
dominance as a primary strategic war aim. But intrawar deterrence has taken
.on a new significance at least as a possibility. And less-than-perfect
strategic defenses acquire new potential in some of the more interesting
scenarios.
The offensive, nevertheless, remains dominant at the strategic and the
operational levels, in conventional and nuclear terms. In fact, the Soviets
have evolved a strategic architecture in which offensive power is essential
for their superpower status. It is vital not only to their war aims and
strategies, but to their ability to cast a political shadow in world affairs
with their military power, having little else with which to cast such a
shadow. Soviet pleas that their military doctrine is obviously defensive
amount to little more than a claim that their good intentions in world
affairs are obvious.
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Further, I believe there has been a good deal of continuity in the
synergism, indeed the-almost complete coincidence, of the war aims of Soviet
strategy and the peacetime aims of Soviet power politics. These are,
simply, to drive US power out of the Eurasian periphery while preventing the
emergence of a hostile coalition to replace U.S. power and while also
providing for the survival of the Soviet empire.
How have the Soviets judged that they were doing in meeting the requirements
of their doctrine in this evolving and in some ways ever more demanding
framework?
Certainly, all or most of Soviet force modernization and command structure
changes over the past decade or so seem to fit into the framework. They've
had to add on big and costly pieces, such as their entire force posture
against the PRC. They've gotten drawn into a big and costly war on their
periphery, in Afghanistan. This war may teach them some useful operational
and technical lessons; and it could eventually gain them some very valuable
strategic real estate. It is a net debit of some degree to the entire
strategic enterprise so long as the war goes on. But both East Asian and
South Asian military activities fit generally into the Eurasian peripheral
dominance framework.
Most Western analysis, especially that sensitive to the Soviet, as opposed
to some other, strategic doctrinal framework, tends to agree that the
Soviets made great strides from the mid-1960s to date in meeting the main
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requirements of their doctrine, such analysis recognizes, as the Soviets do
that, because the unforgiving but uncertain test of military power is war
itself, the Soviet planner always faces frightening inadequacies in his
human and material posture which must be worked on continuously, and which
constantly challenge confidence in sufficiency. The Soviets, in short, work
against very demanding doctrines.
Unfortunately, I cannot cite for you here a definitive Soviet net assessment
of the overall strategic military balance seen in the framework of Soviet
doctrine. Nevertheless, it is very significant, I believe, that from the
late 1970s until the present, Soviet military and political leaders have
asserted that there existed an "approximate military balance" in
intercontinental and theater forces which it is incumbent on all parties to
preserve and respect. This claim bespeaks a high, even unprecedented,
degree of Soviet satisfaction with what they had achieved -- again one must
note, in the very demanding framework of Soviet doctrinal aims. This claim
tells me that the Soviets saw in that military correlation, as well as the
dynamic trends on both sides likely then to define its future, a situation
in which they could more than previously expect to achieve their strategic
aims in war and, backed by military power, their political aims in
peacetime: namely, the removal of US power from the Eurasian rimland and
the preservation of the Soviet empire.
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III. Current Military Developments
There is no standing still for Soviet doctrine and planning since the
dialectic operates permanently in miliary affairs. Even if the prevailing
situation and prospective trends are favorable, the tasks of military.
construction must proceed on doctrinal first principles lest opportunities
be lost, uncertainties left unmanaged, and the adversary given undue
breathing space.
Little purpose would be served by my attempting to list the many force
modernization programs underway or impending in the USSR today. Most of
them are well known to this audience from official and private
publications. The not-very-remarkable point I want to leave you with is
that all these programs clearly fit into and service the doctrinal framework
I attempted to describe earlier. We see, in short, no fundamental shift of
the Soviet doctrinal architecture . . . in observed military activities at
least, although there is continued evolution.
In the area of strategic homeland defense, the Soviets continue to modernize
their air defenses especially against low altitude targets. They continue
to develop the passive defense capabilities centered heavily on leadership
and command protection. They continue to work on the technologies and
forces for defense against the ballistic missile submarine. Modernization
of the Moscow ABM system, construction of the Krasnoyarsk radar, and
development of other ABM hardware has given the USSR an option for rapid
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deployment of an area ABM defense for major strategic regions of the USSR,
which would be particularly consequential in dealing with and controlling
some of the general war scenarios Soviet doctrine seems to allow for.
Whether or not the Soviets ever made any decision to eventually break or
creep out of the ABM treaty is an open question. They certainly have worked
on the option to do so. But now the US Strategic Defense Initiative has
changed the nature of this calculation. From a doctrinal perspective, the
US SDI decision removed the Soviet monopoly on preoccupation with strategic
homeland defense. In any case, Soviet outrage over SDI is such as to
suggest that it seriously upsets their expectations and plans in this area.
Soviet general purpose forces for dominance of the continental periphery,
especially opposite NATO, are undergoing complex modernization of equipment,
structure, command, and operational doctrine which is hard to summarize.
The overall intent of these programs is quite clear, however: To assure as
much as possible the forward momentum of offensive operations in the face of
NATO's force modernization, and to give Soviet forces more logistic
sustainability in conventional operations.
Soviet strategic offensive strike forces are developing primarily in the
direction of survivability and flexibility. Survivability is being enhanced
mainly with mobility for land and sea-based strike forces. Flexibility
comes from the survivability of large weapons numbers, increased accuracy,
and systems and C3 capabilities that facilitate a broader range of military
options and discrimination. Whatever the Soviets may say in public about
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the inevitability of this or that form of escalation in a central conflict,
they are buying capabilities which indicate an unwillingness to.get boxed
into any particular scenario by enemy initiative.
For reason of time I must neglect the fourth pillar of the Soviet doctrinal
achitecture, distant power projection, except to note that this is a dynamic
area of continuing and probably growing importance to Soviet planning.
IV. Future Problems
The Soviet military establishment has well developed doctrines, and programs
to service those doctrines. But its leaders are not comfortable, evidently,
with the outlook for the future. Two in particular have expressed anxiety
about basic trends in military affairs unleashed by adversary initiatives
which impinge with potentially grave consequences on the Soviet doctrinal
architecture.
A year ago, Chief of the General Staff, Marshall Ogarkov signalled the need
for some doctrinal rethinking in his celebrated Krasnaya Zvezda interview.
Probably with Western as well as Soviet military audiences in mind, he
carefully characterized the military role of nuclear weapons as having
somehow reached the end of the doctrinal road. Since he probably was not
completely repudiating two decades of Soviet nuclear doctrine on
warfighting, he seemed to be saying that the desirable role of nuclear
weapons in warfighting strategy. was intrawar deterrence. He -clearly was
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saying that the cutting edge of the development of usable military power was
shifting to advanced conventional arms and, more vaguely, to weapons based
on new physical principles.
It does not take much imagination to appreciate that what Ogarkov had in
mind was the whole family of non-nuclear technologies being developed by
NATO to defend against armor and air in depth, sometimes called the
Conventional Defense Initiative, and the US Strategic Defense Initiative,
among perhaps other things.
Since his demotion as Chief of Staff, Ogarkov has authored a pamphlet that
.again touches on these themes. Noting that Soviet planners came only in the
1970s and 1980s to really appreciate the impact of nuclear weapons on
warfare as they proliferated throughout the forces, he alluded to a
"fundamental rethinking of their role in war, a break in views" as to
whether coherent military operations or war in general were compatible with
these weapons.
In the same pamphlet, Ogarkov observed that dialectical laws were being
revealed in the perfection of defensive weapons against tanks, aircraft, and
ships. This required careful study of implications. "It is dangerous to
ignore this tendency," he wrote.
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None of this is really new from Ogarkov or other Soviet military leaders.
What does strike me as-somewhat new is the tone of anxiety and the summons
to fundamental doctrinal rethinking that accompany these doctrinal themes.
The most striking in that vein recently is from General M. A. Gareyev, a
first deputy chief of the General Staff and the author of a revisionist
strategic tract in the guise of a study on Frunze. At a symposium on the
40th Anniversary of Victory recorded in Voyenno-Istoricheskiy Zhurnal,
Gareyev states:
"We may now speak of a critical stage in the development of military
science and military art in the most developed countries. Overall, a
new qualitative jump is taking shape in military affairs, connected
both with the further perfection of nuclear weapons, and especially
with the appearance in the NATO countries of new forms of highly
accurate conventional weapons. In connection with this it becomes
necessary to rethink the fundamental military-political and
operational-strategic problems of the defense of the socialist
fatherland."
In his book on Frunze, Gareyev makes an eloquent plea for revitalizing
Soviet military science with focused arguments and debates. Should the
Soviets allow such debates in their public military literature to displace
the propagandistic and manipulative pronouncements that have tended to
dominate that literature since the mid-1970s, at least on strategic themes,
we may learn more about the particulars of these concerns.
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In the meantime, we can, I believe, gauge the future evolution of Soviet
military doctrine in the light of two broad generalizations.
The technologies which will be pressed ahead under the US Strategic Defense
Initiative and those developing for conventional operations, especially
against offensive armor and their supporting forces, call into question the
long-term viability of Soviet offensive force structures and doctrines at
all levels, and especially their darlings, the tank and the long-range
ballistic missile.
.Depending on how energetically these technologies are pursued and how
intelligently they are imbedded in US and NATO force structure and doctrine,
the Soviets could be faced with a formidable challenge. It will be costly
to counter: Costly in terms of resources and costly in terms of
technological innovation; this at a time when the state of the Soviet
economy, demographic trends, and other factors raise questions about the
ability of the system to satisfy all of its priorities as in the past.
These challenges could be costly in terms of doctrinal adaptation as well.
For if the credibility of offensive military power is muted at both the
nuclear and conventional levels, the USSR may have to come up with another
way to impress the world.
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