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Soviet Union [USSR] The Sokolovskii Era, l962-68
In January 1960, Khrushchev unveiled the new nuclear strategy
in a speech to the Supreme Soviet. According to Khrushchev, this
strategy's aim was deterring war rather than fighting it
(see Soviet Union USSR - Evolution of Military Doctrine
, this ch.). Despite Khrushchev's
emphasis on deterrence and reductions in military manpower,
Sokolovskii's Military Strategy focused on apocalyptic
scenarios for fighting a world war with nuclear weapons and
stressed the need for mass armies. The idea of preemption
resurfaced, this time on an intercontinental basis, because the
Soviet Union had acquired nuclear intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) and could threaten the territory of the United
States. Sokolovskii maintained that the Soviet side had to
"frustrate" an enemy coalition's attack by delivering massive
nuclear strikes on the enemy's territories. These strikes would
destroy not only the enemy's weapons but also the enemy's will to
continue the war, thus limiting the damage from a retaliatory
strike.
This view of nuclear strategy prevailed during most of the
l960s. Soon after the publication of the third edition of his
Military Strategy in l968, however, Sokolovskii wrote with
an eye on the future: "Military affairs are entering or have
already entered the next stage of their development, and apparently
it is necessary to introduce essential changes into military art."
Such changes began to occur in the 1960s and continued through the
1970s and 1980s.
Data as of May 1989
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