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Soviet Union [USSR] Strategic Operation in a Theater of Military Operations
The concept of the combined arms operational offensive in a
theater of military operations (teatr voennykh deistvii--
TVD) developed in the l920s as the theory of the deep offensive
operation
(see Soviet Union USSR - Military Art
, this ch.). According to this theory,
Soviet infantry, armor, and artillery would coordinate to achieve
operational goals with operational breakthroughs and firepower. The
deep offensive operation concept underlies the modern, expanded
theater operation, which, according to Marshal Ogarkov, is "no
longer a front or group of fronts, but a strategic operation in a
TVD" and can lead directly to the achievement of strategic
objectives. Since the mid-1970s, such an operation in the Western
TVD, covering NATO's Central Region, was expected to be fought
mainly with new, improved conventional weapons. Although primarily
offensive, the modern strategic operation also incorporated
defensive concepts because of changes in NATO strategy.
American military expert Phillip Petersen believed that a
conventional air operation against NATO's airfields and nuclear
weapons sites would substitute aviation and the fire of
conventional missiles for nuclear strikes. The air operation could
neutralize NATO's air defense assets, destroy nuclear weapons, and
disrupt command and control capabilities. Highly mobile first- and
second-echelon ground forces, known as operational maneuver groups,
could break through the forward defenses and penetrate deep into
the enemy's rear. If NATO's nuclear weapons could be successfully
destroyed, Warsaw Pact tanks and armored personnel carriers could
advance rapidly across Western Europe to the North Sea coast and to
the Danish Straits before NATO could mobilize fully and bring
reinforcements from North America. Similar operations would take
place in the Northwestern and Southwestern TVDs and would continue
until Soviet troops achieved the strategic objective of victory in
Europe.
Although Soviet military theorists traditionally have
deemphasized defensive operations, in the 1980s they have paid more
attention to defensive concepts on the strategic, operational, and
tactical levels and have called defense "an essential form of
combat action." In the l980s, Soviet military writers also have
emphasized the increased depth of operational defenses in
connection with the deep-strike concepts incorporated in the United
States Army's
AirLand Battle doctrine (see Glossary) and in NATO's
Follow-on-Forces-Attack
(
FOFA--see Glossary) concept. The Soviet
concept of defense has been distinguished by extreme "combat
activeness," i.e., using massive firepower to destroy the enemy's
aircraft and attacking ground forces while Soviet forces prepare a
counterattack.
Data as of May 1989
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