Conversion: An End to the Arms Race?

Abstract

In the past the USSR devoted much interest to the question of military power and its relevance to Western economies as a burden of defence, but has publicly ignored the same question in relation to the Soviet economy. The role of the Soviet armed forces was always to guard the ‘peaceful labour of the Soviet people’ and if the economic factor of the arms race was mentioned, it was in general terms as if a defence burden did not exist in the USSR. Such one-sided approach has recently changed.