Abstract
Soviet strategic culture clearly affects Moscow’s definition of strategic fact, threat and counter-threat, yet it is less a product of Soviet—American competition than it is a product of Moscow’s centuries- long relations with neigbours — friends and foe. For a thousand years there was scarcely a generation that escaped war with one neighbour or another. Historians count 245 external attacks between 1055 and 1462, including 200 assaults just between 1240 and 1426; of the 528 years from 1365 to 1893, Russia was at war for a total of 305.1
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Notes
D. R. Jones, ‘The Defence Burden Through History’, in C. G. Jacobsen (ed.), The Soviet Defence Enigma: Estimating Costs and Burden, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 151–74. See also S. M. Solov’ev, Istoriia Rossiis Drevneishikh Vremen, 23 vols, Moscow, Izd. Sots-ekonomicheskii Lit., 1959–66, vol. V, pp. 514–15.
One of the best histories of the early years of Lenin’s Russia is E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923, 3 vols, London, Macmillan, 1953.
On Soviet relations with China and Japan, see C. G. Jacobsen, Sino-Soviet Relations Since Mao: The Chairman’s Legacy, New York, Praeger, 1981
C. G. Jacobsen (ed) Soviet Foreign Policy. New Dynamics, New Themes, London, Macmillan, 1989
D. R. Jones (ed.), Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual (SAFRA), Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press, vol. I–XI, 1977–89.
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© 1990 Carl G. Jacobsen
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Jacobsen, C.G. (1990). The Impact of Neighbours and Allies: the Soviet Case. In: Jacobsen, C.G. (eds) Strategic Power: USA/USSR. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20574-5_31
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