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Soviet Union [USSR] Threat Assessments and Force Requirements
Since the nuclear era began, worst-case threat assessments have
dominated Soviet military thinking. As a result, even during the
years of détente and strategic arms control, Soviet military policy
and doctrine have called for disproportionately large forces for
the fulfillment of strategic missions, and Soviet military planners
have drawn up plans in response to doctrinal requirements.
In the l980s, Soviet worst-case scenarios have centered on the
modernization of the United States ICBMs, on United States
deployment of the Trident ballistic missile submarine armed with
long-range, accurate nuclear missiles, and on United States
procurement of low-flying ground-, sea-, and air-launched cruise
missiles. Soviet spokesmen also have persisted in portraying the
SDI as an offensive system and have claimed that it would enable
the United States to launch a first strike against Soviet territory
with impunity.
Dmitrii Iazov, appointed minister of defense in 1987, adopted
a contradictory position on Soviet military planning and threat
assessment. Implying that the Soviet Union was willing to scale
down its military expenditures and would modify its military
doctrine and strategy, Iazov publicly endorsed reductions in the
nuclear and conventional armaments of both the United States and
the Soviet Union to a level commensurate with a defense-oriented
doctrine and strategy. Yet he retained the traditional worst-case
scenario when he called for a robust Soviet nuclear capability that
could punish an attacker "even under the most unfavorable
circumstances." Although he relied on "reasonable sufficiency"
rather than on superiority, Iazov also defined "reasonable
sufficiency" in traditional terms as the ability to "reliably
guarantee the defense of the Socialist Community" with armed forces
structured and equipped for offensive action.
Data as of May 1989
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