|
Soviet Union [USSR] Chapter 17. Military Doctrine and Strategic Concerns
UNDERSTANDING THE STANCE that the Soviet Union has adopted on
military affairs requires analyzing the meaning the Soviet regime
has given to concepts such as military doctrine, military policy,
and military science, as well as comprehending the ideological
basis of these terms. In Soviet military writings, these concepts
overlapped considerably, and Soviet military theorists stressed
their interdependence. Military doctrine represented the official
view on the nature of future wars and on the methods of fighting
them. Military policy offered practical guidelines for structuring
the Soviet armed forces and for building up Soviet defenses.
Military science--the study of concepts of warfare and of the
weapons needed to accomplish military missions--supported the
formulation of doctrine and policy. Military doctrine and military
policy directed the findings of military science toward fulfillment
of the political goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU).
Soviet military doctrine was grounded in
Marxist-Leninist (see Glossary) theory as the CPSU interpreted it.
The party understood
the world as a battleground of classes and social systems and
predicted the "inevitable victory of socialism." Thus the party's
interpretation of Marxist-Leninist doctrine provided the Soviet
military with a framework for developing strategic and operational
concepts for winning wars.
Soviet military doctrine was the most fundamental and the most
influential of the theoretical concepts that governed the conduct
of Soviet military affairs. It influenced procurement of weapons,
colored threat assessments, and provides a theoretical basis for
the party's military policy. It determined Soviet arms control
proposals and the kinds of arms control agreements that the Soviet
Union would be willing to sign. Together with the government's
military policy, military doctrine shaped Soviet military-strategic
initiatives abroad.
Until 1956 Soviet doctrine was based on Lenin's thesis on the
"inevitability of war" between capitalism and
socialism (see Glossary). Such a war would be fought in
defense of the socialist
motherland and end with the clear-cut victory of socialism. Thus,
it would be both defensive and victory oriented. The development
and deployment of nuclear weapons changed doctrinal views on war's
inevitability. It soon became clear that nuclear war would cause
such widespread destruction that it could not be a rational tool of
policy, that victory in a nuclear war was problematic, and that a
nuclear power ought to deter rather than fight such a war. Soviet
civilian leaders and military theorists expressed their belief in
nuclear deterrence by declaring that a world war with capitalism
was no longer unavoidable. They also argued that the shift in the
correlation of forces and resources (see Glossary) in favor of
socialism has made war avoidable. But Soviet political and military
leaders did not condemn the use of nuclear weapons for fighting a
war, and they did not relinquish the requirement to win. As a
result, Soviet military doctrine combined the concepts of nuclear
deterrence, nuclear war, and victory.
Consequently, even in the nuclear era, Soviet military science
remained, in the words of the eighteenth-century Russian commander
Aleksandr Suvorov, a "science of victory" in armed conflict. The
most important component of military science, military art, and the
latter's highest level, Soviet military strategy, continued to aim
at complete defeat of the adversary. The drive to prevail at all
costs and under all circumstances directed the other two components
of military art: operational art and tactics. In the late 1980s,
theoretical concepts for the study and conduct of armed warfare--
such as the laws of war, the laws of armed conflict, and the
principles of military art--continued to emphasize victory.
Marxist-Leninist military doctrine has had considerable effect
on arms control. On all levels--strategic nuclear, theater nuclear,
and conventional--the doctrine's orientation toward victory has
demanded capabilities for fighting and winning wars.
The Soviet Union never allowed arms control to interfere with
achievement of its military objectives nor to constrain the
strategic goals of the armed forces. Even in the late 1980s, in
spite of General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev's
"new thinking" (see Glossary) and his strong emphasis on
arms reductions, the
military remained mistrustful of political solutions and reluctant
to accept sweeping changes in doctrine and strategy.
Data as of May 1989
|
