Abstract
Since World War II the wrestling for military supremacy has played center stage in Soviet-American relations. This competition dominates debates in Moscow and Washington over the allocation of national resources and molds the foreign policies of the two countries toward allies in Eastern and Western Europe. Assistance and coercion in the Third World are often designed to prevent military expansion by the other superpower.
Our policy is one of deterrence.
Former US Defense Secretary Frank Carlucc.
Nuclear deterrence has long outlived itself.
Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov
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Notes
Differing views of Soviet military doctrine, strategies, and activities are set forth in the following: Gareyev Makhmut, “The Revised Soviet Military Doctrine,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1988; Dmitri Yazov, “The Soviet Proposal for European Security,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 1988, pp. 8–11; L. Ivanov, “Nuclear Weapons and Defense of Western Europe,” Pravda, November 29, 1988, p. 6; Casper W. Weinberger, “Arms Reductions and Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1988, pp. 700— 719; Gerhard Wettig, “New Thinking in Security,” Problems of Communism, March-April 1988, pp. 1–14; and William E. Odom, “Soviet Military Doctrine,” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1988/1989, pp. 114–134.
“Western Defense, The European Role in NATO,” EUROGROUP, Brussels, May 1988.
A recent US Government report on burden sharing is “Sharing the Roles, Risks, and Responsibilities for the Common Defense,” A Report to the United States Congress, Department of Defense, December 22, 1988.
The Department of State summarizes the NATO approach to security in Ref. 2.
“Conventional Forces in Europe: The Facts,” NATO, November 1988.
“Statement of the Warsaw Pact Defense Ministers Committee ’On the Correlation of Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Alliance Force Strengths and Armaments in Europe and Adjoining Waters, ” Pravda, January 30, 1989, P. 5.
See Senator Carl Levin, “Beyond the Bean Count,” Armed Forces Subcommittee on Conventional Forces and Alliance Defense, Second Edition, July 1988.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Speech to the United Nations, December 8, 1988, Soviet Mission to the United Nations. A presentation of the proposals is presented in “This Is Not Just a Matter of Tactics,” Newsweek, December 19, 1988, pp. 31–32.
“Understanding the INF Treaty,” US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1988. Also, “The INF Treaty: Questions and Answers,” Department of State, February 1988.
Many articles have been published during the past several years in BuIletin of the Atomic Scientists presenting all sides of the arguments concerning verification and the need for continued testing. The position of the Reagan administration on testing is set forth in “Nuclear Testing Limitations: US Policy and the Joint Verification Experiment,” Department of State, July 1988; and “Reagan Administration Efforts in Nuclear Testing: A Chronology,” Arms Control Update, US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, August 1988. Also, a particularly succinct statement of the US position was released by the US Delegation to the Nuclear Testing Talks in Geneva on September 17, 1987, namely: . . . a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing is a long-term objective, which must be viewed in the context of a time when we do not need to depend on nuclear deterrence to ensure international security and stability, and when we have achieved broad, deep and verifiable arms reductions, substantially improved verification capabilities, expanded confidence building measures, and greater balance in conventional forces.
Early commentaries on SDI and the Soviet response are included in “Soviet Strategic Defense Programs,” Department of State and Department of Defense, October 1985; and R. Z. Sagdeyev and S. N. Rodionov, “Space Based Anti-Missile System: Capabilities Assessment,” Space Research Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1986. A more recent discussion is Benjamin Lambeth and Kevin Lewis, “The Kremlin and SDI,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1988, pp. 755–770.
An expansion of this theme can be found in Matthew Evangelista, “How Technology Fuels the Arms Race,” Technology Review, July 1988, pp. 43–49.
For useful background, see Reykjavik and Beyond, Deep Reductions in Strategic Nuclear Arsenals and the Future Direction of Arms Control, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, 1988.
Additional perspectives on the prospects for arms control agreements are set forth in George Shultz, “The Administration’s Arms Control Agenda,” Department of State, Current Policy No. 1121, November 1988; Jan M. Lodel, “An Arms Control Agenda,” Foreign Policy, Fall 1988; and Leon V. Sigal and Jack Mendelsohn, “The Stage Shifts in Arms Control,” Technology Review, August/September 1988, pp. 52–61.
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© 1989 Glenn E. Schweitzer
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Schweitzer, G.E. (1989). Changing Concepts of Military Power and National Security. In: Techno-Diplomacy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6046-7_2
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