LETTER TO ROBERT M. GATES FROM EDWARD D. NAPIER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP95M00249R000801130022-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 35
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 6, 2011
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: December 5, 1983
• Content Type: LETTER

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DDI..
MILITARY OPERATIONS RESEARCH SOCIETY
December 5, 1983
Dr. Robert
M. Gates
CIA
Washington,
D.C. 20505
Enclosed, for your use, are 10 copies of your presentation from the
50th MORS as it appeared in the Proceedings.
Thank you for your contribution to the symposium.
Sincerely,
j Edward D. Napier /
Executive Secretary
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
(THIS PAPER IS UNCLASSIFIED)
Robert M. Gates
CIA
Standing before this group to talk about the Soviet
strategic threat is a little like being invited to a convention of
Evangelicals to talk about why they should believe in Jesus. It
is a subject on which all of you have heard countless briefings
and are as a group well informed in terms of Soviet weapon
systems, their capabilities and effectiveness. There is a danger,
however, especially among the well informed, of becoming lost
in the trees, of losing perspective on the nature of the strategic
competition.
Discussion in the United States of the Soviet threat for
too many years has focused on a very narrow aspect of the
competition. That discussion has tended to revolve around the
presentation of the defense budget and often has concentrated
on what they spend and what they get for their money and what
we should spend and hope to get for our money. But I would
submit that this limits our national attention too much to a
debate about numbers and too little to why we are engaged in
this competition in the first place, the nature of that
competition, and its historical context. We have trivialized the
most profound contest in history into metaphysical debates
about kill probabilities, throwweight, fractionation, fratricide
and survivable C3. Now, I know that the numbers are important
-- especially at budget time and especially for those who must
propose and those who must vote on real programs. Indeed, I
will talk to you today about numbers. But the numbers have
crowded out history and meaning, and our citizens have little
basis to judge whether the cost and risk of the competition are
justified because they too often do not understand the nature of
the contest itself. So, today, I turn to the past as a guide to
the future. I want to place the Soviet threat in an historical
context and to discuss the nature of our adversary, his resolve
and commitment to the competition, his weapons, and the long-
range prospects.
First, to the nature of the conflict. Some would have you
believe that this competition is yet another episode of great
power rivalry growing out of nationalisms rooted in the last
century: that it derives from a search for security or to
overcome a national sense of inferiority: or a quest for markets
or spheres of influence, or a host of other traditional modern
European State objectives. More recently, you will have heard
that it is based in misunderstandings or failure at Yalta or the
hobgoblin fantasies of military industrial complexes on both
sides; that the rivalry is based on old fashioned thinking, an out-
dated cold war mentality, or an exaggerated suspicion of the
other side's intentions.
M v personal view is that these explanations do not go to
the heart of the conflict: that it is, in fact, a conflict deeply
rooted in ideas and that the ideas and the conflict are as old
as recorded history. The threat posed by the Soviet Union --
by Russia - is the lineal descendant of the same threat Western
civilizations have faced for three and a half thousand years: it
is the threat posed by despotisms against the more or less
steadily developing concept that the highest goal of the State
is to protect and foster the creative capabilities and the
liberties of the individual. The contest between the United
States and the Soviet Union is, in my view, the latest chapter
in the conflict that pitted the Athenians against Xerxes and the
Persians; the Romans against Attila and the Huns; Medieval
Europe against Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde; and the
Holy Roman Empire against Suleiman and the Ottomans. It is
the contest between two elemental and historically opposed
ideas of the relationship between the individual and the State.
The ideas are irreconcilable.
Our Alien Adversary
The first point I want to make today is that the threat
from Russia is grounded in ideas older than Marx and Lenin and
Bolshevism, and derives from a culture and civilization funda-
mentally different from our own -- despite the best efforts of
some observers to persuade us that the Russian leaders must
think as we do and inwardly share the same spiritual values
because they wear Saville Row suits, like jazz, American
cigarettes and fast cars, and are personable and intelligent.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have asked his Cabinet how many
legs a dog would have if you called the tail a leg. They all
answered five. Lincoln replied, "No, four. Calling a tail a leg
don't make it so." Calling Russia Westernized or European
don't make it so. It is vital to understand just how different
Russia -- the Soviet Union -- is from us, to understand how
different is their history, culture, and outlook. This is an
approach unwelcome to some who see it in American ethno-
centrism or narrow-minded prejudice of some sort. But listen
to the observations of several noted Russian-born historians,
especially Tibor Szamuely.*
For centuries, "Most incomprehensible and alien of all,
pervading and coloring every Western description of Russia, was
the awesome sway of an omnipotent State exercising unlimited
control over the persons, the property, and the very thoughts of
its subjects" - and the faithful servants of the monarchs of
absolutist Europe were among those who felt this to be a
phenomenon beyond the compass of their experience. There is
a basic fact that today has been largely forgotten or passed in
*Nearly all of the following points are quoted or paraphrased
from Tibor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition (McGraw-Hill
Book Company, New York, 1974), who in turn cites other
historians such as Paul Miliukov and V. Kliuchevsky.
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
Robert M. Gates
silence: "Every country of modern Europe either was at one
time a province of the Roman Empire or received its religion
from Rome. Russia is the sole exception. It is the only country
of geographical Europe that owed virtually nothing to the
common cultural and spiritual heritage of the West."
The absence of natural frontiers for Russia led to a
history of armed struggle against invaders that for length,
intensity, and ferocity has no parallel in the annals of any other
nation. For centuries Russia was the frontier, "the great open
defenseless dividing-line between the settled civilized commu-
nities of Europe and the nomadic barbarian invaders of the
Asian steppes." This was Russia for a thousand years. The
cruel relentless struggle never abated. It was a permanent part
of her life for most of her history. The death of the great
Khan Batu saved Europe from the Mongols: Russia lived under
Mongol rule for 250 years.
This was a national experience and a national existence
radically different from that of the West. It created a social
and political system, a national character, a mentality, a way
of life utterly dissimilar to the patterns evolved in Western and
Central Europe. The Mongols gave to Russia a political and
administrative system, a concept of society quite unlike
anything learned in the West. The Mongol Empire was in fact
"a State grounded on an ideology," not just a State among other
States but a "World Empire in the Making," the object of which
was the establishment, by means of war, of a system of
universal peace and of a worldwide social order.
The three centuries that followed Russia's proclamation of
full sovereignty after expelling the Mongols were for her people
a period of unremitting and relentless armed struggle such as no
other still existing nation has endured. It was "the fierce
struggle of a nation placed on the frontier between Europe and
Asia, on the great dividing line between settled and nomadic
society, between Christian, Moslem, and Pagan, of a poor but
hardy resourceful nation pushed out of its homeland into the
inhospitable environment of northern forests and Arctic waste."
, "the struggle of a nation that felt it had been assigned
by Providence and by nature to the stupendous task of
colonizing and settling a wilderness far greater in size than the
whole continent of North America . This combination of
national purpose, moral fervor, self-defense, and everyday
struggle for a bare existence was the driving force behind the
Russian people's travail. The state of never ending war gave
their society its distinctive form.
In Russia. military service was obligatory and permanent.
In wartime, each and all were compelled to go to battle. "And
wartime was all the time." To gain an idea of the colossal
effort, compare it with medieval military practice in Europe.
From the 1300s. Russia raised and maintained a permanent
armed force of 65.000 men. At the battle of Crecy in 1346, the
fling of France commanded the largest army yet seen in feudal
Europe -- 12,000. and the force of the First and greatest
Crusade numbered 25 - 30.000. And these campaigns were
"short-lived spurts of energy that left their begetters utterly
exhausted." Yet Russia. with a much smaller population than
France. maintained its huge army not just for an isolated
campaign but for 300 unbroken years. while at the same time
conducting an endless series of wars against more highly
developed Western neighbors and also colonizing a continent.
The result was the rise of a political system "based on the
unquestioning obedience and unlimited submission of the sub-
jects; on the principle of the obligations owed by each and
every subject to the State. on the impressment into the State's
service of all the creative forces of the nation, and on the
sacrifice of private interest to the State's demands." The Tsar
combined symbols of terrifying power with very real and
extremely effective authority over the lives and welfare of
every one of his subjects, regardless of degree or rank. The
position of the Tsar (of the State) was one of unique strength.
He was the sole and exclusive wielder and the source of power.
All authority in the country emanated from him. He shared
power with no one.
The Russians' attitude toward their state was determined
by their acute consciousness of the fact that only a powerful
and rigidly centralized State in full control of the nation's
every resource could ensure national survival. Another deter-
minant was the centuries-old isolation from Europe and the
resulting ignorance and fear of the outside world. But even
these cannot account for the ecstatic rapture, the exultation
bordering on idolatry with which Russians learned to regard
their country and their State. "Russia was a state of mind, a
secular ideal, a sacred idea and object of almost religious belief
- unfathomable by the mind, unmeasurable by the yardstick of
rationality."
Messianic Communism in Russia grows out of a centuries-
old identification of Russia with Orthodox Christianity, its
cause with the cause of God, its State power with the power of
God. The State and the faith became one. In 1510, this found
expression in a monk's address to the Tsar: "All Christian
Empires have converged into thy single one; two Romes have
fallen, but the third stands and no fourth can ever be. Thv
Empire shall fall to no one." This became the "Russian idea"
- dismissed over succeeding centuries by Western Statesmen
and journalists as hypocritical mumbo jumbo. Yet, the
conviction that Russia occupied a special place in the world
permeated every segment of the Russian people - the ultimate
vindication of an otherwise unbearable social and political
system. The idea lives on today.
Over the centuries, the Russian idea developed into an
exotic amalgam of emotions that struck vibrantly upon the
high-strung chords of the Russian soul: "deep national feeling, a
sense of belonging to a nation set apart from others by its own
history; . . . the conviction that the individuals' duty toward the
State . transcended all other obligations. . .; the idea that
collectivism . . . was nobler than individualism; the assumption
that idealism and other worldliness were inherent in the Russian
national (spirit) in contrast to the gross materialism of the
Western scheme of values; . . . consciousness, to the point of
exaggeration, of the profound difference between Russia and
the West; the \lessianic fervor that imbued the 'Russian idea',
the conviction that the Russian nation was a 'God-fearing
people' entrusted with the mission of sharing with others the
revelation of unity and of true freedom which had beer
vouchsafed to them alone, and of redeeming the world from the
bonds of individualism and materialism."
Russia, as it emerged onto the European stage, had three
main peculiarities: 1) the military structure of the State -
"great Russia-in-arms" fighting West and East for her very
existence; (2) the compulsory, extra-legal nature of the
internal administration and social structure; (3) and a supreme
authority with unlimited sphere of action. It does sound
familiar.
Even at the end of the 18th Century, "Western govern-
ments and public opinion began to assume that Russia was a
State much the same as any other absolute monarchy, only
considerably larger, rather more backward, and consequently
mysterious. To a certain extent, this was due to ignorance of
Russian conditions and to the remarkably thorough going way in
which Russian educated society had adapted itself to the forms
of European life. Much more telling, however, was the
unremitting conscious effort of the government itself to
implant, both abroad and at home. the image of a well-ordered
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
Robert M. Gates
society that had chosen its political system partly out of
necessity and partly for its manifested advantages."
A final note on the nature of our adversary. Much has
been made in recent months about technology transfer to the
USSR. I would point out to you that industry and technology
were transplanted from the West to Russia, beginning with
Italian architecture in the 14th Century and carried forward by
Peter the Great. Imagine, if you will, the sight of the great
seven-foot tall Tsar touring and working as a laborer in Western
Europe in the late 17th century to learn the ways of the West,
to hire Western technicians and craftsmen and to acquire whole
industries and technologies and factories - which he would
bring back to Russia to begin to modernize that backward
State. And, as Szamuely observes, this artificial creation was
forced upon an unwilling nation by Peter to overcome its
military weakness. The very act of modernizing Russia -- of
establishing and exploiting contacts with the West - from the
beginning was to make Russia a great military power. Did
Peter intend that Westernization accompany modernization?
He once told a companion, "We shall need Europe for a few
decades, and then we can turn our backside to her." Can the
Soviets' still aggressive quest for Western technology surprise
us, realizing that the development of industry in that land
originated with a transplant, a foreign graft, artificially
protected and fostered by the State from then until now?
It is this unique State which we now confront - a State
and a culture shaped by a thousand years of constant war,
sacrifice, and the conviction that Russia's destiny is to establish
a new world order. And still we ask if they can sustain their
defense effort.
The Threat
With this historical insight into the nature of our rival, let
me turn to its military machine - the threat itself. The Soviet
Union embarked on a long-term buildup of strategic forces
which will continue throughout the decade; a comprehensive
program intended to achieve military objectives against the
United States and Eurasia and involving improvements to
offensive and defensive forces and the means to control them.
The estimated dollar costs, excluding RDT&E of Soviet stra-
tegic forces during the last decade were more than three times
US outlays. In 1981 alone, estimated dollar costs of Soviet
intercontinental attack forces exceeded US outlays by about 50
percent -- even at a time when the US was investing in Trident,
air launched cruise missiles, and B-52 enhancement programs.
ICBMs
The Soviet ICBM force currently consists of nearly 1,400
launchers. More than half are SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19 missiles,
most of which are equipped with multiple, independently
targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The Soviets have nearly
completed a modernization program to deploy large numbers of
the most accurate versions of these ICBM systems. As a result,
the Soviets now possess the necessary combination of ICBM
numbers, reliability, accuracy, and warhead yield to put most of
the US Minuteman and Titan silos at risk from an attack with
a relatively small proportion of their ICBM force. Each
warhead on the MIRVed SS-18, for example, has a better than
50 percent chance of destroying a Minuteman silo. The single
RV versions of the SS-18, with their large destructive power and
accuracy, are capable of destroying, with high probability,
current fixed targets. ICBMs not suitable for hardened
installations can be targeted against strategic bomber airfields,
conventional military bases, including ports for repair and
basing of US SSBNs, and administrative and economic centers.
In 1981, estimated Soviet dollar costs for ICBMs were 10 times
as large as US outlays.
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Soviet ICBM modernization will continue over the next 10
years. We already have identified four new ICBM programs.
These programs feature further improvements in accuracy and
increased survivability. One is a solid-fueled missile, believed
to be medium-sized, which carries a MIRV payload and is
probably intended as a replacement for the SS-11 and perhaps
the SS-17. Another may serve as a mobile ICBM. While
retaining existing types of liquid missiles, such as the SS-18,
future solid-propellant ICBM development and deployment will
give the Soviets additional flexibility in handling and in basing
their missile forces.
The Soviets currently have deployed over 5,000 warheads
on their ICBMs. They are in a position to add several thousand
warheads to their ICBM force by the end of the decade.
SLBMs
The Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile submarine
force currently consists of 62 modern SSBNs. These SSBNs --
YANKEE, DELTA, and TYPHOON-class units - are armed
with 950 missiles (SLBMS) with a total of almost 2,000 nuclear
warheads. The estimated cumulative dollar costs between
1972-81 of Soviet SLBM programs was about 65 percent greater
than corresponding outlays by the US.
The range capabilities of the Soviet SLBMS capable of
strikes against the US vary from 3,000 kilometers for the SS-
N-6, carried by YANKEE-class submarines, to 9,100 kilometers
for the SS-N-8, carried by DELTA I and II-class units. The
accuracies and yields of these missiles also vary, but none
currently have the combination of accuracy and yield necessary
to threaten hard targets such as US ICBM silos. Soviet SLBMS
would, however, be effective against a range of targets,
including US SSBNs in port and bomber bases. The portion of
the bomber force held on alert for rapid take-off would escape
the strike, assuming DOD planning factors are correct.
Over the next 10 years, the Soviets will deploy more
SSBNs armed with long-range, more accurate missiles. Their
force of submarines with long-range missiles is capable of
striking targets in the United States while remaining in waters
close to the Soviet Union where they can be protected by other
naval and air forces.
The overall size of the force is likely to remain
unchanged. But, as newer MIRV-capable SLBMS are deployed in
greater numbers, the Soviet SSBN force will be able to cover
additional targets. If the SS-NX-20 carried by the TYPHOON-
class submarines were fitted with seven warheads - the number
carried by the SS-N-18 - six TYPHOONs could cover more
targets than all of the current operational Y A N K EEs together.
The accuracy of Soviet SLBMs will improve over the next 10
years and they might achieve a limited hard target capability
by the early 1990s.
IRBMs
The Soviets currently have some 580 intermediate and
medium range ballistic missiles carrying about 1,250 warheads
deployed in bases throughout the USSR. They still have about
240 older SS-4 MRBMS and SS5 IRBMs. They also have deployed
about 340 highly accurate SS-20 mobile IRBMs, each with three
independently targetable warheads. All but about 100 of these
are opposite NATO. The Soviets have instituted a moratorium
against additional SS-20 deployments in the western USSR, but
we expect the force to expand in the east.
Bombers
Even in this area the US has considered its preserve for
many years, the Soviets are showing new interest. The Soviets
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
Robert M. Gates
are developing a new intercontinental bomber that is similar in
appearance to, but larger than, the US B-1. The new bomber
will probably begin to enter service with the Soviet Air Forces
during the mid-to-late 1980s. It is expected to have a
supersonic capability and the ability to penetrate Western air
defenses at low altitudes. The Soviets probably will configure
the new bomber to carry free-fall bombs and long-range cruise
missiles. This weapon flexibility would allow them to use some
of the new bombers to penetrate air defenses and deliver
bombs, while using others as standoff platforms for launching
cruise missiles.
The Soviets currently have some 150 heavy bombers
assigned to their strategic aviation forces. Almost half of
these aircraft - some 70 TU-95 Bear - are equipped with air-
to-surface missiles that can be used to attack both land and
naval targets. These aircraft could be reequipped within the
next several years to carry long-range cruise missiles. The
additional cruise missile carriers could be used to complement
the new bombers.
The Soviets continue to produce about 30 Backfire
bombers per year and about half are assigned to the Soviet Air
Force. The Backfire probably is intended for strikes against
land and naval targets on the periphery of the Soviet Union and
Warsaw Pact countries, but has the capability to perform
missions against the US under certain circumstances. More-
over, the Soviets also may choose to equip it with long-range
cruise missiles, which would increase significantly the area
threatened by the Backfire.
Ballistic Missile Defense
The USSR is currently upgrading and expanding ballistic
missile defenses at Moscow within the limits of the ABM
Treaty. The Soviets will increase the number of ABM launchers
at Moscow to the Treaty limit of 100 by the mid-1980s. Such
a force could be easily overcome by a large US missile attack,
but it would provide some protection against small attacks.
Research, development, and test programs are improving their
ability to expand ABM defenses, although there is no evidence
at this time that they are planning to do so.
In the strategic defense area generally - ABM, SAMs,
interceptors, and control and warning systems - the estimated
cumulative dollar costs of Soviet spending were more than ten
times as great-as US outlays between 1972 and 1981 and for
1981 alone more than 20 times as great, reflecting differences
in the two countries' strategic doctrine and differences in the
bomber threat.
The great disparity between Soviet and US outlays year
after year for a decade -- and before that, Soviet expenditures
in strategic weaponry in the late 1960s and early 1970s when US
defense resources were focused on Vietnam - has led to
substantial cumulative advantages for the USSR.
And do we see a slowing? In the first three years of this
decade, we have already identified as many systems under
development as in each of the previous two decades. Among
thesc -are fighter and airborne warning and control aircraft.
ballistic and cruise missiles. space systems and submarines. We
project that more systems will reach initial operational capa-
bility in the 1980s than in either the 1960s or 1970s. The new
systems cover the full range of technologically advanced
weaponry the Soviets will need to modernize all major elements
of their forces.
Steady expansion of production floorspace -- averaging 2-
3 percent a year - has also occurred since the mid-seventies.
This has provided the Soviets with the potential to translate the
new systems into deployments in the field.
The Challenge in the Third World
In many respects, a description of Soviet intercontinental
attack forces, and even the forces opposite NATO and China,
tends to obscure what I regard as the more immediate threat
posed by the Soviet Union now and for years to come: the
challenge in the Third World. Even here the Soviets bring
important advantages.
The first is the ability to provide substantial
quantities of weapons of varying degrees of sophis-
tication with great speed and often attractive terms
to countries in need of arms, either for internal
control, national defense, or aggression. The steady
flow of arms from the great depot at Nikolayev to
Syria, Cuba, Iraq, and a host of other nations is
testimony to attractiveness of Soviet weapons.
What is so dismaying is the ready availability of
huge stocks of weapons, which permit the Soviets to
answer calls for military equipment almost imme-
diately. And with the weapons come Soviet advi-
sors, maintenance, and resupply.
A second advantage is the Soviet program of active
measures or covert action. All that need be said
and can be said is that the program is vast,
sophisticated, well-funded, and highly professional.
It incorporates the full range of such activities,
including agents of influence, political manipulation,
propaganda, forgeries, and disinformation, exploita-
tion of instability, and support of insurgencies.
A third advantage is an aggressive program of
training for both military and security forces in host
countries and in the Soviet Union itself.
A fourth advantage is the Soviets' opportunity to
make use of surrogate or proxy governments which
provide military forces. In Ethiopia and Angola, the
Cubans help maintain the current governments in
power and at the same time are able to ensure that
forces hostile to the Soviet Union and Cuba do not
threaten sympathetic governments. In Central
America, Cuba has armed Nicaragua with older
Soviet weapons and Nicaragua in turn has become an
exporter of revolution and insurgency. Surrogates
minimize the cost and risks for the Soviet Union of
involvement in the Third World and at the same time
lessen the chances of the kind of dramatic expulsion
that the Soviets endured in 1972 in Egypt or the loss
of a sympathetic figure as in Chile in the early
1970s.
In sum, I believe the most likely immediate threat from
the Soviet Union during the next decade will be the Soviets'
exploitation of economic, social, and political problems in the
Third World to foster instability, and that the arsenal of tools
they have at their disposal makes them a formidable adversary
in this arena as well as in the strategic military competition. It
is not accidental that their new more active role in the Third
World began in the mid-1970s and coincided with our expulsion
from Vietnam. That and subsequent events led the Soviets to
conclude that the United States would not compete militarily in
the Third World. As long as they perceive the risks of
confrontation with this country to be small, they will not
hesitate to exploit any opportunities that present themselves.
The Soviets also see an opportunity to exploit differences
between this country and our allies and will use every means at
their disposal to magnify those differences and to use them to
divide the West. In the forefront of this has been their broad
effort to derail the deplovment of INF. While it is hard to
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Robert M. Gates
quantify the magnitude of that effort, I can tell you that there
have been some estimates that their campaign to prevent
deployment of the enhanced radiation weapon (neutron bomb) in
the late 1970s involved a covert program costing perhaps as
much as $100 million.
A final word about the threat. I believe we will not see
open Soviet aggression against an ally or China or Iran, for
these are dramatic actions the Russians know would galvanize
the West, and give new life to NATO and preparedness even in
the most cost-conscious countries. No, the Soviet way has been
far more clever than Hitler's open aggression. They strive to
avoid armed conflict with important and militarily strong
adversaries, as in 1939 and in 1962. They use military power
cautiously and most often when they have overwhelming force.
But they advance where there is a vacuum, where hostile forces
are weak, or they insinuate themselves through clandestine
means. They believe time is on their side; there is no need to
hurry. The fruit will drop when it is ripe. And the
circumstances will usually be sufficiently ambiguous that their
role cannot be proven to a skeptical, disbelieving West.
Vulnerabilities
I have sketched out a mindset and an arsenal of weapons
and other instruments of foreign policy that suggest that we
face a formidable adversary indeed. But it is an adversary with
weaknesses and vulnerabilities:
The United States does not stand alone. The Soviet
Union faces also a powerful NATO Alliance in the
West, and China in the East. The military might of
the United States and its allies is great and growing
stronger. The economic might and technological
prowess of the United States and its allies is
overwhelming.
The Soviet economy is in trouble. There are signs
that the factories may have trouble producing all of
the weapons and equipment that the Soviet military
would like to obtain.
The Soviet Union depends importantly on imports of
grain, technology, and production techniques from
the West.
The Soviet Union cannot rely upon its allies: indeed,
revolts over a generation in Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia raise questions of the reliability of
their forces for the Warsaw Pact. The inability of
the Soviet Union to absorb these states is, in itself,
evidence of the fundamental cultural and historical
contrast between Europe, of which they are a part,
and Russia.
The Soviet Union has little to offer developing
nations either in terms of economic assistance or as
a model of an effective economy.
Russian advisors, military and civilian, tend to be
detested in virtually every country in which they are
hosted.
In sum, the Soviets are not ten feet tall and they do not
march in seven league boots. They have problems and they
have vulnerabilities, both of which can be exploited. But they
are also flexible, patient and determined. Lenin once said "Two
steps forward, one step back." Despite its great vulnerabilities,
Russia grew over the centuries in just this way - probing
outward, exploiting opportunities and the vulnerabilities of its
enemies, enduring setbacks (some of them dramatic), but always
reasserting the relentless pressure. This was the pattern of
Russian expansionism for centuries, and so it still remains.
Conclusions
Will Durant once calculated that in the last 3,400 years of
recorded history, only 268 have seen no war. The monumental
conflicts in my story, as described at the beginning, were those
between the emerging civilizations of the West with one
concept of the relationship between an individual and the State,
and the despotisms and barbarisms of the East with a
fundamentally different view of that relationship. And when
those Western civilizations grew tired or lost their will, or for
whatever reason let down their guard, destruction followed.
Edward Gibbon's words in The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire still seem relevant today: "The Romans were ignorant
oofthe extent of their danger and the number of their enemies.
Beyond the Rhine and the Danube, the Northern countries of
Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters
and shepherds, poor, voracious and turbulent; bold in arms and
impatient to ravage the fruits of industry . . . The endless
column of barbarians pressed on the Roman Empire with
accumulated weight." A thousand years of Russian history -
and Marxism-Leninism as well - whisper to the Soviet
leadership that conflict is inevitable, that the contest for
supremacy is unending, that one side will win and the other will
lose, and that destiny or God or the forces of history will
ensure Russia's victory.
President Kennedy some 20 years ago observed that we
were involved in a long twilight struggle. We have now been in
that struggle for just 35 years. Compare that, if you will, with
the centuries of struggle between Rome and the barbarians, the
two and a half century struggle between Europe and the Mongol
horde, and the 200 year struggle against the Turks. It is a long
struggle that stretches before us and the Russians are banking
on the fact that we lack the will to sustain the competition.
As a final thought, therefore, I would suggest to you that
the chief threat posed by the Soviet Union is not necessarily in
the vastness of its military forces - though vast they are, but,
like the barbarians facing Rome, in the relentlessness of their
assault. The "endless column of barbarians" is pressing on. The
question of inestimable historical importance as we strive both
to counter the Soviet threat and to diminish the dangers of
nuclear conflict, is whether we will remember the origin and
nature of the contest, and the lessons of history: that the whole
historical experience of our adversary teaches him that conflict
is constant and inevitable; and that eventual victory in the
competition is Russia's destiny and the justification for its
centuries of hardship and sacrifice. And so, despite our fondest
hopes to fulfill Isaiah's prophesy, all of human history - and
especially all of Russian history -- points to our need and the
need of our children and their children for swords as well as
plowshares. It is not a forecast of an altogether felicitous
future - but it is a forecast of a free one.
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(THIS PAPER IS UNCLASSIFIED)
Robert M. Gates
CIA
Standing before this group to talk about the Soviet
strategic threat is a little like being invited to a convention of
Evangelicals to talk about why they should believe in Jesus. It
is a subject on which all of you have heard countless briefings
and are as a group well informed in terms of Soviet weapon
systems, their capabilities and effectiveness. There is a danger,
however, especially among the well informed, of becoming lost
in the trees, of losing perspective on the nature of the strategic
competition.
Discussion in the United States of the Soviet threat for
too many years has focused on a very narrow aspect of the
competition. That discussion has tended to revolve around the
presentation of the defense budget and often has concentrated
on what they spend and what they get for their money and what
we should spend and hope to get for our money. But I would
submit that this limits our national attention too much to a
debate about numbers and too little to why we are engaged in
this competition in the first place, the nature of that
competition, and its historical context. We have trivialized the
most profound contest in history into metaphysical debates
about kill probabilities, throwweight, fractionation, fratricide
and survivable C3. Now, I know that the numbers are important
-- especially at budget time and especially for those who must
propose and those who must vote on real programs. Indeed, I
will talk to you today about numbers. But the numbers have
crowded out history and meaning, and our citizens have little
basis to judge whether the cost and risk of the competition are
justified because they too often do not understand the nature of
the contest itself. So, today, I turn to the past as a guide to
the future. I want to place the Soviet threat in an historical
context and to discuss the nature of our adversary, his resolve
and commitment to the competition, his weapons, and the long-
range prospects.
First, to the nature of the conflict. Some would have you
believe that this competition is yet another episode of great
power rivalry growing out of nationalisms rooted in the last
century: that it derives from a search for security or to
overcome a national sense of inferiority; or a quest for markets
or spheres of influence, or a host of other traditional modern
European State objectives. More recently, you will have heard
that it is based in misunderstandings or failure at Yalta or the
hobgoblin fantasies of military industrial complexes on both
sides; that the rivalry is based on old fashioned thinking, an out-
dated cold war mentality, or an exaggerated suspicion of the
other side's intentions.
My personal view is that these explanations do not go to
the heart of the conflict: that it is. in fact, a conflict deeply
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rooted in ideas and that the ideas and the conflict are as old
as recorded history. The threat posed by the Soviet Union --
by Russia - is the lineal descendant of the same threat Western
civilizations have faced for three and a half thousand years: it
is the threat posed by despotisms against the more or less
steadily developing concept that the highest goal of the State
is to protect and foster the creative capabilities and the
liberties of the individual. The contest between the United
States and the Soviet Union is, in my view, the latest chapter
in the conflict that pitted the Athenians against Xerxes and the
Persians; the Romans against Attila and the Huns; Medieval
Europe against Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde; and the
Holy Roman Empire against Suleiman and the Ottomans. It is
the contest between two elemental and historically opposed
ideas of the relationship between the individual and the State.
The ideas are irreconcilable.
Our Alien Adversary
The first point I want to make today is that the threat
from Russia is grounded in ideas older than Marx and Lenin and
Bolshevism, and derives from a culture and civilization funda-
mentally different from our own -- despite the best efforts of
some observers to persuade us that the Russian leaders must
think as we do and inwardly share the same spiritual values
because they wear Saville Row suits, like jazz, American
cigarettes and fast cars, and are personable and intelligent.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have asked his Cabinet how many
legs a dog would have if you called the tail a leg. They all
answered five. Lincoln replied, "No, four. Calling a tail a leg
don't make it so." Calling Russia Westernized or European
don't make it so. It is vital to understand just how different
Russia -- the Soviet Union -- is from us, to understand how
different is their history, culture, and outlook. This is an
approach unwelcome to some who see it in American ethno-
centrism or narrow-minded prejudice of some sort. But listen
to the observations of several noted Russian-born historians,
especially Tibor Szamuelv.*
For centuries, "'lost incomprehensible and alien of all,
pervading and coloring every Western description of Russia, was
the awesome sway of an omnipotent State exercising unlimited
control over the persons, the property, and the very thoughts of.
its subjects" -- and the faithful servants of the monarchs of
absolutist Europe were among those who felt this to be a
phenomenon beyond the compass of their experience. There is
a basic fact that today has been largely forgotten or passed in
*Nearly all of the following points are quoted or paraphrased
from Tibor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition (McGraw-Hill
Book Company, New York, 1974), who in turn cites other
historians such as Paul Miliukov and V. Kliuchevsky.
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Robert M. Gates
silence: "Every country of modern Europe either was at one
time a province of the Roman Empire or received its religion
from Rome. Russia is the sole exception. It is the only country
of geographical Europe that owed virtually nothing to the
common cultural and spiritual heritage of the West."
The absence of natural frontiers for Russia led to a
history of armed struggle against invaders that for length,
intensity, and ferocity has no parallel in the annals of any other
nation. For centuries Russia was the frontier, "the great open
defenseless dividing-line between the settled civilized commu-
nities of Europe and the nomadic barbarian invaders of the
Asian steppes." This was Russia for a thousand years. The
cruel relentless struggle never abated. It was a permanent part
of her life for most of her history. The death of the great
Khan Batu saved Europe from the Mongols: Russia lived under
Mongol rule for 250 years.
This was a national experience and a national existence
radically different from that of the West. It created a social
and political system, a national character, a mentality, a way
of life utterly dissimilar to the patterns evolved in Western and
Central Europe. The Mongols gave to Russia a political and
administrative system, a concept of society quite unlike
anything learned in the West. The Mongol Empire was in fact
"a State grounded on an ideology," not just a State among other
States but a "World Empire in the Making," the object of which
was the establishment, by means of war, of a system of
universal peace and of a worldwide social order.
The three centuries that followed Russia's proclamation of
full sovereignty after expelling the Mongols were for her people
a period of unremitting and relentless armed struggle such as no
other still existing nation has endured. It was "the fierce
struggle of a nation placed on the frontier between Europe and
Asia, on the great dividing line between settled and nomadic
society, between Christian, Moslem, and Pagan, of a poor but
hardy resourceful nation pushed out of its homeland into the
inhospitable environment of northern forests and Arctic waste."
the struggle of a nation that felt it had been assigned
by Providence and by nature to the stupendous task of
colonizing and settling a wilderness far greater in size than the
whole continent of North America . . This combination of
national purpose, moral fervor, self-defense, and everyday
struggle for a bare existence was the driving force behind the
Russian people's travail. The state of never ending war gave
their society its distinctive form.
In Russia. military service was obligatory and permanent.
In wartime, each and all were compelled to go to battle. "And
wartime was all the time." To gain an idea of the colossal
effort, compare it with medieval military practice in Europe.
From the 1300s. Russia raised and maintained a permanent
armed force of 65.000 men. At the battle of Crecy in 1346, the
King of France commanded the largest army yet seen in feudal
Europe - 12,000. and the force of the First and greatest
Crusade numbered 25 - 30.000. And these campaigns were
"short-lived spurts of energy that left their begetters utterly
exhausted." Yet Russia, with a much smaller population than
France. maintained its huge army not just for an isolated
campaign but for 300 unbroken years. while at the same time
conducting an endless series of wars against more highly
developed Western neighbors and also colonizing a continent.
The result was the rise of a political system "based on the
unquestioning obedience and unlimited submission of the sub-
jects: on the principle of the obligations owed by each and
every subject to the State. on the impressment into the State's
service of all the creative forces of the nation. and on the
sacrifice of private interest to the State's demands." The Tsar
combined symbols of terrifying power with very real and
extremely effective authority over the lives and welfare of
every one of his subjects, regardless of degree or rank. The
position of the Tsar (of the State) was one of unique strength.
He was the sole and exclusive wielder and the source of power.
All authority in the country emanated from him. He shared
power with no one.
The Russians' attitude toward their state was determined
by their acute consciousness of the fact that only a powerful
and rigidly centralized State in full control of the nation's
every resource could ensure national survival. Another deter-
minant was the centuries-old isolation from Europe and the
resulting ignorance and fear of the outside world. But even
these cannot account for the ecstatic rapture, the exultation
bordering on idolatry with which Russians learned to regard
their country and their State. "Russia was a state of mind, a
secular ideal, a sacred idea and object of almost religious belief
- unfathomable by the mind, unmeasurable by the yardstick of
rationality."
Messianic Communism in Russia grows out of a centuries-
old identification of Russia with Orthodox Christianity, its
cause with the cause of God, its State power with the power of
God. The State and the faith became one. In 1510, this found
expression in a monk's address to the Tsar: "All Christian
Empires have converged into thy single one; two Romes have
fallen, but the third stands and no fourth can ever be. Thv
Empire shall fall to no one." This became the "Russian idea"
- dismissed over succeeding centuries by Western Statesmen
and journalists as hypocritical mumbo jumbo. Yet, the
conviction that Russia occupied a special place in the world
permeated every segment of the Russian people - the ultimate
vindication of an otherwise unbearable social and political
system. The idea lives on today.
Over the centuries, the Russian idea developed into an
exotic amalgam of emotions that struck vibrantly upon the
high-strung chords of the Russian soul: "deep national feeling, a
sense of belonging to a nation set apart from others by its own
history; . . . the conviction that the individuals' duty toward the
State . transcended all other obligations. . .; the idea that
collectivism . . . was nobler than individualism; the assumption
that idealism and other worldliness were inherent in the Russian
national (spirit) in contrast to the gross materialism of the
Western scheme of values: . . . consciousness, to the point of
.exaggeration, of the profound difference between Russia and
the West: the Messianic fervor that imbued the 'Russian idea',
the conviction that the Russian nation was a 'God-fearing
people' entrusted with the mission of sharing with others the
revelation of unity and of true freedom which had beet
vouchsafed to them alone, and of redeeming the world from the
bonds of individualism and materialism."
Russia, as it emerged onto the European stage, had three
main peculiarities: 1) the military structure of the State -
"great Russia-in-arms" fighting West and East for her very
existence: (2) the compulsory, extra-legal nature of the
internal administration and social structure: (3) and a supreme
authority with unlimited sphere of action. It does sound
familiar.
Even at the end of the 18th Century, "Western govern-
ments and public opinion began to assume that Russia was a
State much the same as any other absolute monarchv. only
considerably larger, rather more backward, and consequently
mysterious. To a certain extent, this was due to ignorance of
Russian conditions and to the remarkably thorough-going way in
which Russian educated society had adapted itself to the forms
of European life. Much more telling, however, was the
unremitting conscious effort of the government itself to
implant, both abroad and at home, the image of a well-ordered
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society that had chosen its political system partly out of
necessity and partly for its manifested advantages."
A final note on the nature of our adversary. Much has
been made in recent months about technology transfer to the
USSR. I would point out to you that industry and technology
were transplanted from the West to Russia, beginning with
Italian architecture in the 14th Century and carried forward by
Peter the Great. Imagine, if you will, the sight of the great
seven-foot tall Tsar touring and working as a laborer in Western
Europe in the late 17th century to learn the ways of the West,
to hire Western technicians and craftsmen and to acquire whole
industries and technologies and factories - which he would
bring back to Russia to begin to modernize that backward
State. And, as Szamuely observes, this artificial creation was
forced upon an unwilling nation by Peter to overcome its
military weakness. The very act of modernizing Russia -- of
establishing and exploiting contacts with the West - from the
beginning was to make Russia a great military power. Did
Peter intend that Westernization accompany modernization?
He once told a companion, "We shall need Europe for a few
decades, and then we can turn our backside to her." Can the
Soviets' still aggressive quest for Western technology surprise
us, realizing that the development of industry in that land
originated with a transplant, a foreign graft, artificially
protected and fostered by the State from then until now?
It is this unique State which we now confront - a State
and a culture shaped by a thousand years of constant war,
sacrifice, and the conviction that Russia's destiny is to establish
a new world order. And still we ask if they can sustain their
defense effort.
The Threat
With this historical insight into the nature of our rival, let
me turn to its military machine - the threat itself. The Soviet
Union embarked on a long-term buildup of strategic forces
which will continue throughout the decade; a comprehensive
program intended to achieve military objectives against the
United States and Eurasia and involving improvements to
offensive and defensive forces and the means to control them.
The estimated dollar costs, excluding RDT&E of Soviet stra-
tegic forces during the last decade were more than three times
US outlays. In 1981 alone, estimated dollar costs of Soviet
intercontinental attack forces exceeded US outlays by about 50
percent -- even at a time when the US was investing in Trident,
air launched cruise missiles, and B-52 enhancement programs.
ICBMs
The Soviet ICBM force currently consists of nearly 1,400
launchers. More than half are SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19 missiles,
most of which are equipped with multiple, independently
targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The Soviets have nearly
completed a modernization program to deploy large numbers of
the most accurate versions of these ICBM systems. As a result,
the Soviets now possess the necessary combination of ICBM
numbers, reliability, accuracy, and warhead yield to put most of
the US Minuteman and Titan silos at risk from an attack with
a relatively small proportion of their ICBM force. Each
warhead on the MIRVed SS-18, for example, has a better than
50 percent chance of destroying a Minuteman silo. The single
RV versions of the SS-18, with their large destructive power and
accuracy, are capable of destroying, with high probability,
current fixed targets. ICBMs not suitable for hardened
installations can be targeted against strategic bomber airfields,
conventional military bases, including ports for repair and
basing of US SSBNs, and administrative and economic centers.
In 1981, estimated Soviet dollar costs for ICBMs were 10 times
as large as US outlays.
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Soviet ICBM modernization will continue over the next 10
years. We already have identified four new ICBM programs.
These programs feature further improvements in accuracy and
increased survivability. One is a solid-fueled missile, believed
to be medium-sized, which carries a MIRV payload and is
probably intended as a replacement for the SS-11 and perhaps
the SS-17. Another may serve as a mobile ICBM. While
retaining existing types of liquid missiles, such as the SS-18,
future solid-propellant ICBM development and deployment will
give the Soviets additional flexibility in handling and in basing
their missile forces.
The Soviets currently have deployed over 5,000 warheads
on their ICBMs. They are in a position to add several thousand
warheads to their ICBM force by the end of the decade.
SLBMs
The Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile submarine
force currently consists of 62 modern SSBNs. These SSBNs --
YANKEE, DELTA, and TYPHOON-class units - are armed
with 950 missiles (SLBMs) with a total of almost 2,000 nuclear
warheads. The estimated cumulative dollar costs between
1972-81 of Soviet SLBM programs was about 65 percent greater
than corresponding outlays by the US.
The range capabilities of the Soviet SLBMs capable of
strikes against the US vary from 3,000 kilometers for the SS-
N-6, carried by YANKEE-class submarines, to 9,100 kilometers
for the SS-N-8, carried by DELTA I and 11-class units. The
accuracies and yields of these missiles also vary, but none
currently have the combination of accuracy and yield necessary
to threaten hard targets such as US ICBM silos. Soviet SLBMs
would, however, be effective against a range of targets,
including US SSBNs in port and bomber bases. The portion of
the bomber force held on alert for rapid take-off would escape
the strike, assuming DOD planning factors are correct.
Over the next 10 years, the Soviets will deploy more
SSBNs armed with long-range, more accurate missiles. Their
force of submarines with long-range missiles is capable of
striking targets in the United States while remaining in waters
close to the Soviet Union where they can be protected by other
naval and air forces.
The overall size of the force is likely to remain
unchanged. But, as newer MIRV-capable SLBMs are deployed in
greater numbers, the Soviet SSBN force will be able to cover
additional targets. If the SS-NX-20 carried by the TYPHOON-
class submarines were fitted with seven warheads - the number
carried by the SS-N-18 - six TYPHOONs could cover more
targets than all of the current operational YANKEEs together.
The accuracy of Soviet SLBMS will improve over the next 10
years and they might achieve a limited hard target capability
by the early 1990s.
IRBMs
The Soviets currently have some 580 intermediate and
medium range ballistic missiles carrying about 1,250 warheads
deployed in bases throughout the USSR. They still have about
240 older SS-4 MRBMS and SS5 IRBMs. They also have deployed
about 340 highly accurate SS-20 mobile IRBMs, each with three
independently targetable warheads. All but about 100 of these
are opposite NATO. The Soviets have instituted a moratorium
against additional SS-20 deployments in the western USSR, but
we expect the force to expand in the east.
Bombers
Even in this area the US has considered its preserve for
many years, the Soviets are showing new interest. The Soviets
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Robert M. Gates
are developing a new intercontinental bomber that is similar in
appearance to, but larger than, the US B-1. The new bomber
will probably begin to enter service with the Soviet Air Forces
during the mid-to-late 1980s. It is expected to have a
supersonic capability and the ability to penetrate Western air
defenses at low altitudes. The Soviets probably will configure
the new bomber to carry free-fall bombs and long-range cruise
missiles. This weapon flexibility would allow them to use some
of the new bombers to penetrate air defenses and deliver
bombs, while using others as standoff platforms for launching
cruise missiles.
The Soviets currently have some 150 heavy bombers
assigned to their strategic aviation forces. Almost half of
these aircraft - some 70 TU-95 Bear - are equipped with air-
to-surface missiles that can be used to attack both land and
naval targets. These aircraft could be reequipped within the
next several years to carry long-range cruise missiles. The
additional cruise missile carriers could be used to complement
the new bombers.
The Soviets continue to produce about 30 Backfire
bombers per year and about half are assigned to the Soviet Air
Force. The Backfire probably is intended for strikes against
land and naval targets on the periphery of the Soviet Union and
Warsaw Pact countries, but has the capability to perform
missions against the US under certain circumstances. More-
over, the Soviets also may choose to equip it with long-range
cruise missiles, which would increase significantly the area
threatened by the Backfire.
Ballistic Missile Defense
The USSR is currently upgrading and expanding ballistic
missile defenses at Moscow within the limits of the ABM
Treaty. The Soviets will increase the number of ABM launchers
at Moscow to the Treaty limit of 100 by the mid-1980s. Such
a force could be easily overcome by a large US missile attack,
but it would provide some protection against small attacks.
Research, development, and test programs are improving their
ability to expand ABM defenses, although there is no evidence
at this time that they are planning to do so.
In the strategic defense area generally - ABM, SAMs,
interceptors, and control and warning systems - the estimated
cumulative dollar costs of Soviet spending were more than ten
times as great as US outlays between 1972 and 1981 and for
1981 alone more than 20 times as great, reflecting differences
in the two countries' strategic doctrine and differences in the
bomber threat.
The great disparity between Soviet and US outlays year
after year for a decade -- and before that, Soviet expenditures
in strategic weaponry in the late 1960s and early 1970s when US
defense resources were focused on Vietnam - has led to
substantial cumulative advantages for the USSR.
And do we see a slowing? In the first three years of this
decade, we have already identified as many systems under
development as in each of the previous two decades. Among
thesc -are fighter and airborne warning and control aircraft.
ballistic and cruise missiles, space systems and submarines. We
project that more systems will reach initial operational capa-
bility in the 1980s than in either the 1960s or 1970s. The new
systems cover the full range of technologically advanced
weaponry the Soviets will need to modernize all major elements
of their forces.
Steady expansion of production floorspace - averaging 2-
3 percent a year - has also occurred since the mid-seventies.
This has provided the Soviets with the potential to translate the
new systems into deployments in the field.
The Challenge in the Third World
In many respects, a description of Soviet intercontinental
attack forces, and even the forces opposite NATO and China,
tends to obscure what I regard as the more immediate threat
posed by the Soviet Union now and for years to come: the
challenge in the Third World. Even here the Soviets bring
important advantages.
The first is the ability to provide substantial
quantities of weapons of varying degrees of sophis-
tication with great speed and often attractive terms
to countries in need of arms, either for internal
control, national defense, or aggression. The steady
flow of arms from the great depot at Nikolayev to
Syria, Cuba, Iraq, and a host of other nations is
testimony to attractiveness of Soviet weapons.
What is so dismaying is the ready availability of
huge stocks of weapons, which permit the Soviets to
answer calls for military equipment almost imme-
diately. And with the weapons come Soviet advi-
sors, maintenance, and resupply.
A second advantage is the Soviet program of active
measures or covert action. All that need be said
and can be said is that the program is vast,
sophisticated, well-funded, and highly professional.
It incorporates the full range of such activities,
including agents of influence, political manipulation,
propaganda, forgeries, and disinformation, exploita-
tion of instability, and support of insurgencies.
A third advantage is an aggressive program of
training for both military and security forces in host
countries and in the Soviet Union itself.
A fourth advantage is the Soviets' opportunity to
make use of surrogate or proxy governments which
provide military forces. In Ethiopia and Angola, the
Cubans help maintain the current governments in
power and at the same time are able to ensure that
forces hostile to the Soviet Union and Cuba do not
threaten sympathetic governments. In Central
America, Cuba has armed Nicaragua with older
Soviet weapons and Nicaragua in turn has become an
exporter of revolution and insurgency. Surrogates
minimize the cost and risks for the Soviet Union of
involvement in the Third World and at the same time
lessen the chances of the kind of dramatic expulsion
that the Soviets endured in 1972 in Egypt or the loss
of a sympathetic figure as in Chile in the early
1970s.
In sum, I believe the most likely immediate threat from
the Soviet Union during the next decade will be the Soviets'
exploitation of economic. social, and political problems in the
Third World to foster instability, and that the arsenal of tools
they have at their disposal makes them a formidable adversary
in this arena as well as in the strategic military competition. It
is not accidental that their new more active role in the Third
World began in the mid-1970s and coincided with our expulsion
from Vietnam. That and subsequent events led the Soviets to
conclude that the United States would not compete militarily in
the Third World. As long as they perceive the risks of
confrontation with this country to be small, they will not
hesitate to exploit any opportunities that present themselves.
The Soviets also see an opportunity to exploit differences
between this country and our allies and will use every means at
their disposal to magnify those differences and to use them to
divide the West. In the forefront of this has been their broad
effort to derail the deployment of INF. While it is hard to
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Robert M. Gates
quantify the magnitude of that effort, I can tell you that there
have been some estimates that their campaign to prevent
deployment of the enhanced radiation weapon (neutron bomb) in
the late 1970s involved a covert program costing perhaps as
much as $100 million.
A final word about the threat. I believe we will not see
open Soviet aggression against an ally or China or Iran, for
these are dramatic actions the Russians know would galvanize
the West, and give new life to NATO and preparedness even in
the most cost-conscious countries. No, the Soviet way has been
far more clever than Hitler's open aggression. They strive to
avoid armed conflict with important and militarily strong
adversaries, as in 1939 and in 1962. They use military power
cautiously and most often when they have overwhelming force.
But they advance where there is a vacuum, where hostile forces
are weak, or they insinuate themselves through clandestine
means. They believe time is on their side; there is no need to
hurry. The fruit will drop when it is ripe. And the
circumstances will usually be sufficiently ambiguous that their
role cannot be proven to a skeptical, disbelieving West.
Vulnerabilities
I have sketched out a mindset and an arsenal of weapons
and other instruments of foreign policy that suggest that we
face a formidable adversary indeed. But it is an adversary with
weaknesses and vulnerabilities:
The United States does not stand alone. The Soviet
Union faces also a powerful NATO Alliance in the
West, and China in the East. The military might of
the United States and its allies is great and growing
stronger. The economic might and technological
prowess of the United States and its allies is
overwhelming.
The Soviet economy is in trouble. There are signs
that the factories may have trouble producing all of
the weapons and equipment that the Soviet military
would like to obtain.
The Soviet Union depends importantly on imports of
grain, technology, and production techniques from
the West.
have vulnerabilities, both of which can be exploited. But they
are also flexible, patient and determined. Lenin once said "Two
steps forward, one step back." Despite its great vulnerabilities,
Russia grew over the centuries in just this way - probing
outward, exploiting opportunities and the vulnerabilities of its
enemies, enduring setbacks (some of them dramatic), but always
reasserting the relentless pressure. This was the pattern of
Russian expansionism for centuries, and so it still remains.
Conclusions
Will Durant once calculated that in the last 3,400 years of
recorded history, only 268 have seen no war. The monumental
conflicts in my story, as described at the beginning, were those
between the emerging civilizations of the West with one
concept of the relationship between an individual and the State,
and the despotisms and barbarisms of the East with a
fundamentally different view of that relationship. And when
those Western civilizations grew tired or lost their will, or for
whatever reason let down their guard, destruction followed.
Edward Gibbon's words in The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire still seem relevant today: "The Romans were ignorant
o~ the extent of their danger and the number of their enemies.
Beyond the Rhine and the Danube, the Northern countries of
Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters
and shepherds, poor, voracious and turbulent; bold in arms and
impatient to ravage the fruits of industry . . . The endless
column of barbarians pressed on the Roman Empire with
accumulated weight." A thousand years of Russian history -
and Marxism-Leninism as well - whisper to the Soviet
leadership that conflict is inevitable, that the contest for
supremacy is unending, that one side will win and the other will
lose, and that destiny or God or the forces of history will
ensure Russia's victory.
President Kennedy some 20 years ago observed that we
were involved in a long twilight struggle. We have now been in
that struggle for just 35 years. Compare that, if you will, with
the centuries of struggle between Rome and the barbarians, the
two and a half century struggle between Europe and the Mongol
horde, and the 200 year struggle against the Turks. It is a long
struggle that stretches before us and the Russians are banking
on the fact that we lack the will to sustain the competition.
The Soviet Union cannot rely upon its allies: indeed,
revolts over a generation in Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia raise questions of the reliability of
their forces for the Warsaw Pact. The inability of
the Soviet Union to absorb these states is, in itself,
evidence of the fundamental cultural and historical
contrast between Europe, of which they are a part,
and Russia.
The Soviet Union has little to offer developing
nations either in terms of economic assistance or as
a model of an effective economy.
Russian advisors, military and civilian, tend to be
detested in virtually every country in which they are
hosted.
In sum, the Soviets are not ten feet tall and they do not
march in seven league boots. They have problems and they
As a final thought, therefore, I would suggest to you that
the chief threat posed by the Soviet Union is not necessarily in
the vastness of its military forces - though vast they are, but,
like the barbarians facing Rome, in the relentlessness of their
assault. The "endless column of barbarians" is pressing on. The
question of inestimable historical importance as we strive both
to counter the Soviet threat and to diminish the dangers of
nuclear conflict, is whether we will remember the origin and
nature of the contest, and the lessons of history: that the whole
historical experience of our adversary teaches him that conflict
is constant and inevitable; and that eventual victory in the
competition is Russia's destiny and the justification for its
centuries of hardship and sacrifice. And so, despite our fondest
hopes to fulfill Isaiah's prophesy, all of human history -- and
especially all of Russian history -- points to our need and the
need of our children and their children for swords as well as
plowshares. It is not a forecast of an altogether felicitous
future - but it is a forecast of a free one.
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
(THIS PAPER IS UNCLASSIFIED)
Robert M. Gates
CIA
Standing before this group to talk about the Soviet
strategic threat is a little like being invited to a convention of
Evangelicals to talk about why they should believe in Jesus. It
is a subject on which all of you have heard countless briefings
and are as a group well informed in terms of Soviet weapon
systems, their capabilities and effectiveness. There is a danger,
however, especially among the well informed, of becoming lost
in the trees, of losing perspective on the nature of the strategic
competition.
Discussion in the United States of the Soviet threat for
too many years has focused on a very narrow aspect of the
competition. That discussion has tended to revolve around the
presentation of the defense budget and often has concentrated
on what they spend and what they get for their money and what
we should spend and hope to get for our money. But I would
submit that this limits our national attention too much to a
debate about numbers and too little to why we are engaged in
this competition in the first place, the nature of that
competition, and its historical context. We have trivialized the
most profound contest in history into metaphysical debates
about kill probabilities, throwweight, fractionation, fratricide
and survivable C3. Now, I know that the numbers are important
- especially at budget time and especially for those who must
propose and those who must vote on real programs. Indeed, I
will talk to you today about numbers. But the numbers have
crowded out history and meaning, and our citizens have little
basis to judge whether the cost and risk of the competition are
justified because they too often do not understand the nature of
the contest itself. So, today, I turn to the past as a guide to
the future. I want to place the Soviet threat in an historical
context and to discuss the nature of our adversary, his resolve
and commitment to the competition, his weapons, and the long-
range prospects.
First, to the nature of the conflict. Some would have you
believe that this competition is yet another episode of great
power rivalry growing out of nationalisms rooted in the last
century: that it derives from a search for security or to
overcome a national sense of inferiority; or a quest for markets
or spheres of influence, or a host of other traditional modern
European State objectives. More recently, you will have heard
that it is based in misunderstandings or failure at Yalta or the
hobgoblin fantasies of military industrial complexes on both
sides; that the rivalry is based on old fashioned thinking, an out-
dated cold war mentality, or an exaggerated suspicion of the
other side's intentions.
My personal view is that these explanations do not go to
the heart of the conflict: that it is, in fact, a conflict deeply
rooted in ideas and that the ideas and the conflict are as old
as recorded history. The threat posed by the Soviet Union --
by Russia -- is the lineal descendant of the same threat Western
civilizations have faced for three and a half thousand years: it
is the threat posed by despotisms against the more or less
steadily developing concept that the highest goal of the State
is to protect and foster the creative capabilities and the
liberties of the individual. The contest between the United
States and the Soviet Union is, in my view, the latest chapter
in the conflict that pitted the Athenians against Xerxes and the
Persians; the Romans against Attila and the Huns; Medieval
Europe against Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde; and the
Holy Roman Empire against Suleiman and the Ottomans. It is
the contest between two elemental and historically opposed
ideas of the relationship between the individual and the State.
The ideas are irreconcilable.
Our Alien Adversary
The first point I want to make today is that the threat
from Russia is grounded in ideas older than Marx and Lenin and
Bolshevism, and derives from a culture and civilization funda-
mentally different from our own -- despite the best efforts of
some observers to persuade us that the Russian leaders must
think as we do and inwardly share the same spiritual values
because they wear Saville Row suits, like jazz, American
cigarettes and fast cars, and are personable and intelligent.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have asked his Cabinet how many
legs a dog would have if you called the tail a leg. They all
answered five. Lincoln replied, "No, four. Calling a tail a leg
don't make it so." Calling Russia Westernized or European
don't make it so. It is vital to understand just how different
Russia -- the Soviet Union -- is from us, to understand how
different is their history, culture, and outlook. This is an
approach unwelcome to some who see it in American ethno-
centrism or narrow-minded prejudice of some sort. But listen
to the observations of several noted Russian-born historians,
especially Tibor Szamuely.*
For centuries, "Most incomprehensible and alien of all,
pervading and coloring every Western description of Russia, was
the awesome sway of an omnipotent State exercising unlimited
control over the persons, the property, and the very thoughts of
its subjects" -- and the faithful servants of the monarchs of
absolutist Europe were among those who felt this to be a
phenomenon beyond the compass of their experience. There is
a basic fact that today has been largely forgotten or passed in
* Nearly all of the following points are quoted or paraphrased
from Tibor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition (McGraw-Hill
Book Company, New York, 1974), who in turn cites other
historians such as Paul Miliukov and V. Kliuchevsky.
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Robert M. Gates
silence: "Every country of modern Europe either was at one
time a province of the Roman Empire or received its religion
from Rome. Russia is the sole exception. It is the only country
of geographical Europe that owed virtually nothing to the
common cultural and spiritual heritage of the West."
The absence of natural frontiers for Russia led to a
history of armed struggle against invaders that for length,
intensity, and ferocity has no parallel in the annals of any other
nation. For centuries Russia was the frontier, "the great open
defenseless dividing-line between the settled civilized commu-
nities of Europe and the nomadic barbarian invaders of the
Asian steppes." This was Russia for a thousand years. The
cruel relentless struggle never abated. It was a permanent part
of her life for most of her history. The death of the great
Khan Batu saved Europe from the Mongols: Russia lived under
Mongol rule for 250 years.
This was a national experience and a national existence
radically different from that of the West. It created a social
and political system, a national character, a mentality, a way
of life utterly dissimilar to the patterns evolved in Western and
Central Europe. The Mongols gave to Russia a political and
administrative system, a concept of society quite unlike
anything learned in the West. The Mongol Empire was in fact
"a State grounded on an ideology," not just a State among other
States but a "World Empire in the Making," the object of which
was the establishment, by means of war, of a system of
universal peace and of a worldwide social order.
The three centuries that followed Russia's proclamation of
full sovereignty after expelling the Mongols were for her people
a period of unremitting and relentless armed struggle such as no
other still existing nation has endured. It was "the fierce
struggle of a nation placed on the frontier between Europe and
Asia, on the great dividing line between settled and nomadic
society, between Christian, Moslem, and Pagan, of a poor but
hardy resourceful nation pushed out of its homeland into the
inhospitable environment of northern forests and Arctic waste."
the struggle of a nation that felt it had been assigned
by Providence and by nature to the stupendous task of
colonizing and settling a wilderness far greater in size than the
whole continent of North America . " This combination of
national purpose, moral fervor, self-defense, and everyday
struggle for a bare existence was the driving force behind the
Russian people's travail. The state of never ending war gave
their society its distinctive form.
In Russia, military service was obligatory and permanent.
In wartime, each and all were compelled to go to battle. "And
wartime was all the time." To gain an idea of the colossal
effort, compare it with medieval military practice in Europe.
From the 1300s, Russia raised and maintained a permanent
armed force of 65,000 men. At the battle of Crecy in 1346, the
King of France commanded the largest army yet seen in feudal
Europe - 12,000, and the force of the First and greatest
Crusade numbered 25 - 30,000. And these campaigns were
"short-lived spurts of energy that left their begetters utterly
exhausted." Yet Russia, with a much smaller population than
France. maintained its huge army not just for an isolated
campaign but for 300 unbroken years. while at the same time
conducting an endless series of wars against more highly
developed Western neighbors and also colonizing a continent.
The result was the rise of a political system "based on the
unquestioning obedience and unlimited submission of the sub-
jects: on the principle of the obligations owed by each and
every subject to the State, on the impressment into the State's
service of all the creative forces of the nation, and on the
sacrifice of private interest to the State's demands." The Tsar
combined symbols of terrifying power with very real and
extremely effective authority over the lives and welfare of
every one of his subjects, regardless of degree or rank. The
position of the Tsar (of the State) was one of unique strength.
He was the sole and exclusive wielder and the source of power.
All authority in the country emanated from him. He shared
power with no one.
The Russians' attitude toward their state was determined
by their acute consciousness of the fact that only a powerful
and rigidly centralized State in full control of the nation's
every resource could ensure national survival. Another deter-
minant was the centuries-old isolation from Europe and the
resulting ignorance and fear of the outside world. But even
these cannot account for the ecstatic rapture, the exultation
bordering on idolatry with which Russians learned to regard
their country and their State. "Russia was a state of mind, a
secular ideal, a sacred idea and object of almost religious belief
- unfathomable by the mind, unmeasurable by the yardstick of
rationality."
Messianic Communism in Russia grows out of a centuries-
old identification of Russia with Orthodox Christianity, its
cause with the cause of God, its State power with the power of
God. The State and the faith became one. In 1510, this found
expression in a monk's address to the Tsar: "All Christian
Empires have converged into thy single one; two Romes have
fallen, but the third stands and no fourth can ever be. Thv
Empire shall fall to no one." This became the "Russian idea"
- dismissed over succeeding centuries by Western Statesmen
and journalists as hypocritical mumbo jumbo. Yet, the
conviction that Russia occupied a special place in the world
permeated every segment of the Russian people - the ultimate
vindication of an otherwise unbearable social and political
system. The idea lives on today.
Over the centuries, the Russian idea developed into an
exotic amalgam of emotions that struck vibrantly upon the
high-strung chords of the Russian soul: "deep national feeling, a
sense of belonging to a nation set apart from others by its own
history; ... the conviction that the individuals' duty toward the
State . transcended all other obligations. . .; the idea that
collectivism . . . was nobler than individualism; the assumption
that idealism and other worldliness were inherent in the Russian
national (spirit) in contrast to the gross materialism of the
Western scheme of values: . . . consciousness, to the point of
exaggeration, of the profound difference between Russia and
the West: the Messianic fervor that imbued the 'Russian idea',
the conviction that the Russian nation was a 'God-fearing
people' entrusted with the mission of sharing with others the
revelation of unity and of true freedom which had beer
vouchsafed to them alone, and of redeeming the world from the
bonds of individualism and materialism."
Russia, as it emerged onto the European stage. had three
main peculiarities: 1) the military structure of the State -
"great Russia-in-arms" fighting West and East for her very
existence: (2) the compulsory, extra-legal nature of the
internal administration and social structure; (3) and a supreme
authority with unlimited sphere of action. It does sound
familiar.
Even at the end of the 18th Century, "Western govern-
ments and public opinion began to assume that Russia was a
State much the same as any other absolute monarchy, only
considerably larger, rather more backward, and consequently
mysterious. To a certain extent, this was due to ignorance of
Russian conditions and to the remarkably thorough-going way in
which Russian educated society had adapted itself to the forms
of European life. Much more telling, however, was the
unremitting conscious effort of the government itself to
implant, both abroad and at home, the image of a well-ordered
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Robert M. Gates
society that had chosen its political system partly out of
necessity and partly for its manifested advantages."
A final note on the nature of our adversary. Much has
been made in recent months about technology transfer to the
USSR. I would point out to you that industry and technology
were transplanted from the West to Russia, beginning with
Italian architecture in the 14th Century and carried forward by
Peter the Great. Imagine, if you will, the sight of the great
seven-foot tall Tsar touring and working as a laborer in Western
Europe in the late 17th century to learn the ways of the West,
to hire Western technicians and craftsmen and to acquire whole
industries and technologies and factories - which he would
bring back to Russia to begin to modernize that backward
State. And, as Szamuely observes, this artificial creation was
forced upon an unwilling nation by Peter to overcome its
military weakness. The very act of modernizing Russia -- of
establishing and exploiting contacts with the West - from the
beginning was to make Russia a great military power. Did
Peter intend that' Westernization accompany modernization?
He once told a companion, "We shall need Europe for a few
decades, and then we can turn our backside to her." Can the
Soviets' still aggressive quest for Western technology surprise
us, realizing that the development of industry in that land
originated with a transplant, a foreign graft, artificially
protected and fostered by the State from then until now?
It is this unique State which we now confront - a State
and a culture shaped by a thousand years of constant war,
sacrifice, and the conviction that Russia's destiny is to establish
a new world order. And still we ask if they can sustain their
defense effort.
The Threat
With this historical insight into the nature of our rival, let
me turn to its military machine - the threat itself. The Soviet
Union embarked on a long-term buildup of strategic forces
which will continue throughout the decade; a comprehensive
program intended to achieve military objectives against the
United States and Eurasia and involving improvements to
offensive and defensive forces and the means to control them.
The estimated dollar costs, excluding RDT&E of Soviet stra-
tegic forces during the last decade were more than three times
US outlays. In 1981 alone, estimated dollar costs of Soviet
intercontinental attack forces exceeded US outlays by about 50
percent -- even at a time when the US was investing in Trident,
air launched cruise missiles, and B-52 enhancement programs.
ICBMs
The Soviet ICBM force currently consists of nearly 1,400
launchers. More than half are SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19 missiles,
most of which are equipped with multiple, independently
targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The Soviets have nearly
completed a modernization program to deploy large numbers of
the most accurate versions of these ICBM systems. As a result,
the Soviets now possess the necessary combination of ICBM
numbers, reliability, accuracy, and warhead yield to put most of
the US Minuteman and Titan silos at risk from an attack with
a relatively small proportion of their ICBM force. Each
warhead on the MIRVed SS-18, for example, has a better than
50 percent chance of destroying a Minuteman silo. The single
RV versions of the SS-18, with their large destructive power and
accuracy, are capable of destroying, with high probability,
current fixed targets. ICBMs not suitable for hardened
installations can be targeted against strategic bomber airfields,
conventional military bases, including ports for repair and
basing of US SSBNs, and administrative and economic centers.
In 1981, estimated Soviet dollar costs for ICBMs were 10 times
as large as US outlays.
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Soviet ICBM modernization will continue over the next 10
years. We already have identified four new ICBM programs.
These programs feature further improvements in accuracy and
increased survivability. One is a solid-fueled missile, believed
to be medium-sized, which carries a MIRV payload and is
probably intended as a replacement for the SS-11 and perhaps
the SS-17. Another may serve as a mobile ICBM. While
retaining existing types of liquid missiles, such as the SS-18,
future solid-propellant ICBM development and deployment will
give the Soviets additional flexibility in handling and in basing
their missile forces.
The Soviets currently have deployed over 5,000 warheads
on their ICBMs. They are in a position to add several thousand
warheads to their ICBM force by the end of the decade.
SLBMs
The Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile submarine
force currently consists of 62 modern SSBNs. These SSBNs --
YANKEE, DELTA, and TYPHOON-class units - are armed
with 950 missiles (SLBMs) with a total of almost 2,000 nuclear
warheads. The estimated cumulative dollar costs between
1972-81 of Soviet SLBM programs was about 65 percent greater
than corresponding outlays by the US.
The range capabilities of the Soviet SLBMs capable of
strikes against the US vary from 3,000 kilometers for the SS-
N-6, carried by YANKEE-class submarines, to 9,100 kilometers
for the SS-N-8, carried by DELTA I and II-class units. The
accuracies and yields of these missiles also vary, but none
currently have the combination of accuracy and yield necessary
to threaten hard targets such as US ICBM silos. Soviet SLBMs
would, however, be effective against a range of targets,
including US SSBNs in port and bomber bases. The portion of
the bomber force held on alert for rapid take-off would escape
the strike, assuming DOD planning factors are correct.
Over the next 10 years, the Soviets will deploy more
SSBNs armed with long-range, more accurate missiles. Their
force of submarines with long-range missiles is capable of
striking targets in the United States while remaining in waters
close to the Soviet Union where they can be protected by other
naval and air forces.
The overall size of the force is likely to remain
unchanged. But, as newer MIRV-capable SLBMs are deployed in
greater numbers, the Soviet SSBN force will be able to cover
additional targets. If the SS-NX-20 carried by the TYPHOON-
class submarines were fitted with seven warheads - the number
carried by the SS-N-18 - six TYPHOONs could cover more
targets than all of the current operational YANKEEs together.
The accuracy of Soviet SLBMs will improve over the next 10
years and they might achieve a limited hard target capability
by the early 1990s.
IRBMs
The Soviets currently have some 580 intermediate and
medium range ballistic missiles carrying about 1,250 warheads
deployed in bases throughout the USSR. They still have about
240 older SS-4 MRBMs and SS5 IRBMs. They also have deployed
about 340 highly accurate SS-20 mobile IRBMs, each with three
independently targetable warheads. All but about 100 of these
are opposite NATO. The Soviets have instituted a moratorium
against additional SS-20 deployments in the western USSR, but
we expect the force to expand in the east.
Bombers
Even in this area the US has considered its preserve for
many years, the Soviets are showing new interest. The Soviets
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
Robert M. Gates
are developing a new intercontinental bomber that is similar in
appearance to, but larger than, the US B-1. The new bomber
will probably begin to enter service with the Soviet Air Forces
during the mid-to-late 1980s. It is expected to have a
supersonic capability and the ability to penetrate Western air
defenses at low altitudes. The Soviets probably will configure
the new bomber to carry free-fall bombs and long-range cruise
missiles. This weapon flexibility would allow them to use some
of the new bombers to penetrate air defenses and deliver
bombs, while using others as standoff platforms for launching
cruise missiles.
The Soviets currently have some 150 heavy bombers
assigned to their strategic aviation forces. Almost half of
these aircraft - some 70 TU-95 Bear - are equipped with air-
to-surface missiles that can be used to attack both land and
naval targets. These aircraft could be reequipped within the
next several years to carry long-range cruise missiles. The
additional cruise missile carriers could be used to complement
the new bombers.
The Soviets continue to produce about 30 Backfire
bombers per year and about half are assigned to the Soviet Air
Force. The Backfire probably is intended for strikes against
land and naval targets on the periphery of the Soviet Union and
Warsaw Pact countries, but has the capability to perform
missions against the US under certain circumstances. More-
over, the Soviets also may choose to equip it with long-range
cruise missiles, which would increase significantly the area
threatened by the Backfire.
Ballistic Missile Defense '
The USSR is currently upgrading and expanding ballistic
missile defenses at Moscow within the limits of the ABM
Treaty. The Soviets will increase the number of ABM launchers
at Moscow to the Treaty limit of 100 by the mid-1980s. Such
a force could be easily overcome by a large US missile attack,
but it would provide some protection against small attacks.
Research, development, and test programs are improving their
ability to expand ABM defenses, although there is no evidence
at this time that they are planning to do so.
In the strategic defense area generally - ABM, SAMs,
interceptors, and control and warning systems - the estimated
cumulative dollar costs of Soviet spending were more than ten
times as great as US outlays between 1972 and 1981 and for
1981 alone more than 20 times as great, reflecting differences
in the two countries' strategic doctrine and differences in the
bomber threat.
The great disparity between Soviet and US outlays year
after year for a decade -- and before that, Soviet expenditures
in strategic weaponry in the late 1960s and early 1970s when US
defense resources were focused on Vietnam - has led to
substantial cumulative advantages for the USSR.
And do we see a slowing? In the first three year, of this
decade. we have already identified as many systems under
development as in each of the previous two decades. Among
these are fighter and airborne warning and control aircraft.
ballistic and cruise missiles, space systems and submarines. We
project that more systems will reach initial operational capa-
bility in the 1980s than in either the 1960s or 1970s. The new
systems cover the full range of technologically advanced
weaponry the Soviets will need to modernize all major elements
of their forces.
Steady expansion of production floorspace - averaging 2-
3 percent a year - has also occurred since the mid-seventies.
This has provided the Soviets with the potential to translate the
new systems into deployments in the field.
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The Challenge in the Third World
In many respects, a description of Soviet intercontinental
attack forces, and even the forces opposite NATO and China,
tends to obscure what I regard as the more immediate threat
posed by the Soviet Union now and for years to come: the
challenge in the Third World. Even here the Soviets bring
important advantages.
The first is the ability to provide substantial
quantities of weapons of varying degrees of sophis-
tication with great speed and often attractive terms
to countries in need of arms, either for internal
control, national defense, or aggression. The steady
flow of arms from the great depot at Nikolayev to
Syria, Cuba, Iraq, and a host of other nations is
testimony to attractiveness of Soviet weapons.
What is so dismaying is the ready availability of
huge stocks of weapons, which permit the Soviets to
answer calls for military equipment almost imme-
diately. And with the weapons come Soviet advi-
sors, maintenance, and resupply.
A second advantage is the Soviet program of active
measures or covert action. All that need be said
and can be said is that the program is vast,
sophisticated, well-funded, and highly professional.
It incorporates the full range of such activities,
including agents of influence, political manipulation,
propaganda, forgeries, and disinformation, exploita-
tion of instability, and support of insurgencies.
A third advantage is an aggressive program of
training for both military and security forces in host
countries and in the Soviet Union itself.
A fourth advantage is the Soviets' opportunity to
make use of surrogate or proxy governments which
provide military forces. In Ethiopia and Angola, the
Cubans help maintain the current governments in
power and at the same time are able to ensure that
forces hostile to the Soviet Union and Cuba do not
threaten sympathetic governments. In Central
America, Cuba has armed Nicaragua with older
Soviet weapons and Nicaragua in turn has become an
exporter of revolution and insurgency. Surrogates
minimize the cost and risks for the Soviet Union of
involvement in the Third World and at the same time
lessen the chances of the kind of dramatic expulsion
that the Soviets endured in 1972 in Egypt or the loss
of a sympathetic figure as in Chile in the early
1970s.
In sum, I believe the most likely immediate threat from
the Soviet Union during the next decade will be the Soviets'
exploitation of economic, social, and political problems in the
Third World to foster instability. and that the arsenal of tools
they have at their disposal makes them a formidable adversary
in this arena as well as in the strategic military competition. It
is not accidental that their new more active role in the Third
World began in the mid-1970s and coincided with our expulsion
from Vietnam. That and subsequent events led the Soviets to
conclude that the United States would not compete militarily in
the Third World. As long as they perceive the risks of
confrontation with this country to be small, they will not
hesitate to exploit any opportunities that present themselves.
The Soviets also see an opportunity to exploit differences
between this country and our allies and will use every means at
their disposal to magnify those differences and to use them to
divide the West. In the forefront of this has been their broad
effort to derail the deployment of INF. While it is hard to
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THE SOVIET THREAT (U)
Robert M. Gates
quantify the magnitude of that effort, I can tell you that there
have been some estimates that their campaign to prevent
deployment of the enhanced radiation weapon (neutron bomb) in
the late 1970s involved a covert program costing perhaps as
much as $100 million.
A final word about the threat. I believe we will not see
open Soviet aggression against an ally or China or Iran, for
these are dramatic actions the Russians know would galvanize
the West, and give new life to NATO and preparedness even in
the most cost-conscious countries. No, the Soviet way has been
far more clever than Hitler's open aggression. They strive to
avoid armed conflict with important and militarily strong
adversaries, as in 1939 and in 1962. They use military power
cautiously and most often when they have overwhelming force.
But they advance where there is a vacuum, where hostile forces
are weak, or they insinuate themselves through clandestine
means. They believe time is on their side; there is no need to
hurry. The fruit will drop when it is ripe. And the
circumstances will usually be sufficiently ambiguous that their
role cannot be proven to a skeptical, disbelieving West.
Vulnerabilities
I have sketched out a mindset and an arsenal of weapons
and other instruments of foreign policy that suggest that we
face a formidable adversary indeed. But it is an adversary with
weaknesses and vulnerabilities:
The United States does not stand alone. The Soviet
Union faces also a powerful NATO Alliance in the
West, and China in the East. The military might of
the United States and its allies is great and growing
stronger. The economic might and technological
prowess of the United States and its allies is
overwhelming.
The Soviet economy is in trouble. There are signs
that the factories may have trouble producing all of
the weapons and equipment that the Soviet military
would like to obtain.
The Soviet Union depends importantly on imports of
grain, technology, and production techniques from
the West.
The Soviet Union cannot rely upon its allies: indeed,
revolts over a generation in Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia raise questions of the reliability of
their forces for the Warsaw Pact. The inability of
the Soviet Union to absorb these states is, in itself,
evidence of the fundamental cultural and historical
contrast between Europe, of which they are a part,
and Russia.
The Soviet Union has little to offer developing
nations either in terms of economic assistance or as
a model of an effective economy.
Russian advisors, military and civilian, tend to be
detested in virtually every country in which they are
hosted.
In sum, the Soviets are not ten feet tall and they do not
march in seven league boots. They have problems and they
UNCLASSIFIED
have vulnerabilities, both of which can be exploited. But they
are also flexible, patient and determined. Lenin once said "Two
steps forward, one step back." Despite its great vulnerabilities,
Russia grew over the centuries in just this way - probing
outward, exploiting opportunities and the vulnerabilities of its
enemies, enduring setbacks (some of them dramatic), but always
reasserting the relentless pressure. This was the pattern of
Russian expansionism for centuries, and so it still remains.
Conclusions
Will Durant once calculated that in the last 3,400 years of
recorded history, only 268 have seen no war. The monumental
conflicts in my story, as described at the beginning, were those
between the emerging civilizations of the West with one
concept of the relationship between an individual and the State,
and the despotisms and barbarisms of the East with a
fundamentally different view of that relationship. And when
those Western civilizations grew tired or lost their will, or for
whatever reason let down their guard, destruction followed.
Edward Gibbon's words in The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Y ire still seem relevant today: "The Romans were ignorant
extent of their danger and the number of their enemies.
Beyond the Rhine and the Danube, the Northern countries of
Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters
and shepherds, poor, voracious and turbulent; bold in arms and
impatient to ravage the fruits of industry . . . The endless
column of barbarians pressed on the Roman Empire with
accumulated weight." A thousand years of Russian history -
and Marxism-Leninism as well - whisper to the Soviet
leadership that conflict is inevitable, that the contest for
supremacy is unending, that one side will win and the other will
lose, and that destiny or God or the forces of history will
ensure Russia's victory.
President Kennedy some 20 years ago observed that we
were involved in a long twilight struggle. We have now been in
that struggle for just 35 years. Compare that, if you will, with
the centuries of struggle between Rome and the barbarians, the
two and a half century struggle between Europe and the Mongol
horde, and the 200 year struggle against the Turks. It is a long
struggle that stretches before us and the Russians are banking
on the fact that we lack the will to sustain the competition.
As a final thought, therefore, I would suggest to you that
the chief threat posed by the Soviet Union is not necessarily in
the vastness of its military forces - though vast they are, but,
like the barbarians facing Rome, in the relentlessness of their
assault. The "endless column of barbarians" is pressing on. The
question of inestimable historical importance as we strive both
to counter the Soviet threat and to diminish the dangers of
nuclear conflict, is whether we will remember the origin and
nature of the contest, and the lessons of history: that the whole
historical experience of our adversary teaches him that conflict
is constant and inevitable; and that eventual victory in the
competition is Russia's destiny and the justification for its
centuries of hardship and sacrifice. And so, despite our fondest
hopes to fulfill Isaiah's prophesy, all of human history - and
especially all of Russian history - points to our need and the
need of our children and their children for swords as well as
plowshares. It is not a forecast of an altogether felicitous
future - but it is a forecast of a free one.
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