Air University Review, January-February 1968
There was a time when war was war, fought according to universal concepts of doctrine and strategy. Students of tactics paid little attention to situations that differed from the norm. Weapon systems were developed to be used against a probable enemy who was but a mirror reflection of one's own forces. Opposing generals had read the same textbooks—Napoleon's dictums, Clausewitz's On War, Mahan's concept of the superiority of sea power, Douhet's heretical belief that command of the air would suffice. A tactical instructor from Saint-Cyr would be at home in a classroom at either West Point or Sandhurst. Throughout the major armies and navies of the world there was a common understanding of the manner in which war would be waged.
Today there is no such certainty. A strategy and a weapon system to meet one threat may be of little value against another. The Soviets speak of their protivo kosmicheskaya oborona (anticosmic defense force)1 and of military-technical superiority, which they consider as "the quantity and quality of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery."2 The Chinese, on the other hand, claim that "people's armed forces, beginning with only primitive swords, spears, rifles and hand grenades, have in the end defeated the imperialist forces armed with modern airplanes: tanks, heavy artillery and atom bombs."3
The military professional of today must be able to bridge mentally the gap between the effects of an antiballistic missile (ABM) system on an enemy's first strike and the number of men required to carry supplies on their backs to supply a guerrilla force five hundred miles away. War-gaming techniques and computer models to determine the effects of a second strike in an ABM environment may have little applicability in determining how to combat an enemy whose sharpened bamboo spike makes an effective weapon.
The cardinal sin in military leadership is the failure to understand the nature of your opponents. In regard to both the Soviet Union and Communist China, such misunderstanding on our part would be inexcusable. Marshals, generals, and military theoreticians of these two nations have stated again and again their respective military tactics and strategies. In our concentration on the war in Southeast Asia and with our attention focused, in the main, on forces and hardware for that war, we must take cognizance of other possible threats.
On most issues of strategy, tactics, and weapon systems, the Soviet Union and Communist China have diametrically opposite views. An analysis of these views should be of particular importance at this time. These two nations are influencing the war in Vietnam, and their efforts also are likely to be found in any other trouble spot in the world. An appreciation of the total nature of the military threat is impossible without knowing the military doctrines of the two competing powers.
a contrast in tactics and strategy
The Soviets maintain that technology is the key to military power. The Communist Chinese leaders claim that masses of people, properly indoctrinated, are the decisive force. There is a contradiction, of course, between the stated Chinese view and the effort that nation is exerting on nuclear weapons and missiles. These opposing beliefs of the Soviets and the Chinese are their most significant difference, insofar as warfare is concerned, and are a major issue in the striving of each nation for leadership in the Communist World.
Their polemics clearly define the differences. Lin Piao, the Chinese Minister of Defense and heir apparent to Mao Tse-tung, has stated:
The Khrushchev revisionists assert that nuclear weapons and strategic rocket units are decisive while conventional forces are insignificant, that a militia is just a heap of human flesh. . . . Their theory of military strategy is that nuclear weapons decide everything.
The authoritative Communist of the Armed Forces, the Soviet military publication that speaks for both the Communist Party and the Ministry of Defense,4 appears to reply to Lin Piao's assertion in an article entitled "Military-Technical Superiority: The Most Important Factor of the Reliable Defense of the Country" :
The development of modern military affairs demonstrates the failure of theorists who consider, it is said, even the most powerful weapons useless in the struggle against the masses of the people. . . . During the Great Patriotic War [World War II] the outstanding soldier with the grenade could still face an enemy tank, but in the event of the use of the nuclear rocket weapon, one cannot wage a victorious struggle with the enemy without having the most modern and powerful technical means.5
These opposing views, as to whether properly indoctrinated masses of people or technology is superior, have a far-reaching impact. They spell out the difference between the "people's war" advocated by the Communist Chinese and the "wars of national liberation" supported by the Soviets. They are the basis for the "protracted war" thesis about which Mao spoke some thirty years ago;6 and also for the nuclear rocket war envisaged by Soviet military leaders at the present time, of which it has been said:
The special characteristics of nuclear weapons let us conjecture that world nuclear war will be short and swift-moving, in which the most decisive impact on its course and outcome will be rendered by the results of the armed combat in the beginning period.7
technology—the basis of Soviet
strategy, doctrine, and tactics
The Soviet view of war is exemplified by the phrase, "revolution in military affairs," which is found in almost every speech or article written by Soviet officers in which military strategy, doctrine, or tactics are discussed. This phrase has been used in the titles of many articles and for at least one book.8 The revolution "is primarily connected with the creation of the nuclear rocket weapon,"9 although it embraces all activities of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Many Soviet writers divide the revolution into three phases: the first the development of the nuclear weapon, the second the combining of the nuclear weapon with the ballistic missile, the third the creation of the control and guidance system. The third phase, sometimes called the "cybernetics revolution," is still continuing.10
The Soviet Ministry of Defense compiled a selection of articles into a book entitled, Problems of the Revolution in Military Affairs, and one of the articles asserts:
Thus, the revolution in military affairs is an accomplished fact. It led to basic quantitative and qualitative changes in the military technological base of the armed forces and in its structure. It marked a revolution in the methods of waging war, a revolution in the theory of military art and in the actual combat training of the troops.11 (Emphasis in original Russian text.)
One of the many results of the revolution in military affairs has been the reorganization of the Soviet Armed Forces. The Strategic Rocket Troops are regarded as their "main" service.12 The Troops of National PVO (air defense) normally are listed in second place. PVO now includes two additional components, PRO (antirocket defense) and PKO (antispace defense).13 PRO has been referred to as the primary component of PVO.14 After these two services the Soviets list their conventional Army, Air Forces, and Navy, each of which is also armed with nuclear weapons.15
In April 1966 Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky, well known in the United States as the editor of Military Strategy,16 stated the Soviet concept of their strategic offensive forces:
In nuclear rocket war, an aspect of strategic action, new in principle, moves out into the forefront—the strike of the strategic nuclear forces on military, economic and political targets of the enemy, that is, the action of the Strategic Rocket Troops, atom submarines and long range aviation.17
In this same article, which apparently was carefully studied in Europe and the United States,18 Sokolovsky makes an interesting point on the possible uses of nonnuclear forces in any future war:
It is completely probable that in nuclear rocket war the previous forms of strategic actions, such as strategic attacks in ground theaters, defense in certain sectors, and also the active operations of the forces of the fleet on the ocean and sea theaters, will find a use, although the modes of their use have been basically changed, insofar as here the main problems also will be solved by nuclear strikes.19
Soviet military theoreticians emphasize "the beginning period of the war" and the possibilities of "frustrating" the' aggressors' attack. For example, the political instructors of the Soviet Armed Forces are directed to present the following doctrine:
The result of using nuclear weapons might be so effective that the aims of the war will be achieved in this [beginning] period. The imperialists are counting on a surprise attack in their aggressive plans for unleashing a war against the USSR and other countries of the socialist camp. However, the Soviet Armed Forces are able to frustrate the aggressor's attack and carry to him shattering blows.20
The same doctrine, presented by Marshal Sokolovsky in 1966, becomes even more thought-provoking:
The beginning period of nuclear rocket war, in our opinion, consists of the segment of time from the moment of the breaking out of war to the fulfillment of the basic military, political and strategic missions.
Making a retaliatory nuclear strike is its main content, one which might be directed at frustrating a nuclear attack, disorganizing governments and military administrations, and the destruction of the economic forces and armed forces of the aggressor. As a result of the retaliatory nuclear strikes to the aggressor, such a defeat might be inflicted after which he could not continue aggressive actions.21 (Emphasis in original Russian text.)The theme of Soviet military spokesmen on strategy, doctrine, and tactics, whether they be senior commanders or military theoreticians, is overwhelmingly nuclear. This is stressed not only in the official Ministry of Defense newspaper, Red Star, and in the official journal of the Main Political Administration of the Soviet Army and Navy, Communist of the Armed Forces, but also in the widely publicized "Officer's Library," a series of seventeen books on military tactics, strategy, law, and similar subjects.22 For example, one of these books, entitled Tactics,23 is reviewed in Red Star as being the first publication of this nature in 25 years.24 An examination of the book itself discloses an almost total nuclear orientation—an apparent assumption that any future war will involve the use of nuclear weapons. As should be expected, both the Soviet reviews and the book refer to the "revolution in military affairs" which prepares the Soviet Armed Forces for future warfare.
There are many tasks in the Soviet scheme of things for which nuclear weapons would be inappropriate. Among these might be the necessity to quell a second "Hungarian Uprising" or fight a border skirmish with Communist China, of the type which already have been reported on numerous occasions. Another use might be to seize and occupy territory for later inclusion within the socialist camp. While constantly emphasizing the decisive role of nuclear weapons, the Soviets also must justify their maintenance of nonnuclear forces. Therefore, almost invariably, doctrinal writings are concluded with some such statement as
. . . victory over the enemy can be achieved by the united efforts of all the services and branches of the Armed Forces.25
At least once each year a few Soviet writers hedge about the possibility of a nonnuclear war. This was noted in 1962 in Sokolovsky's Military Strategy and has since continued on about the same scale. In 1965 one stated:
In war that is not nuclear rocket, combined arms battle will be carried out as before, with conventional means.26
In 1966 another theoretician noted:
The Soviet Armed Forces must be ready to guarantee the defeat of the enemy not only in conditions of the use of nuclear weapons but also with the use of just conventional methods of struggle.27
And for 1967 a similar caveat is given:
What kind of Armed Forces are necessary for waging present-day war? This question may be briefly answered thus: for waging modern war such Armed Forces are demanded as would be able to wage both nuclear war and any other war.28
When such statements as these are made, they generally are but one paragraph in an entire article dealing with nuclear doctrine and strategy. Any actual discussion of the possibility of a nonnuclear war is difficult to find in Soviet military writings. The thrust of Soviet military doctrine, strategy, and tactics is nuclear and technological.
tactics and strategy of the Chinese People's Army
The Chinese concept of warfare, as expounded today, is the complete antithesis of the Soviet concept. Lin Piao concisely sums up the main points of difference:
In other words, you rely on modern weapons and we rely on highly conscious revolutionary people; you give full play to your superiority and we give full play to ours; you have your way of fighting and we have ours.
In the Chinese view, a war passes through three stages: "the strategic defensive, the strategic stalemate and the strategic offensive."29 Instead of a "short, swift-moving war," so much discussed by the Soviets, the Chinese think in terms of a protracted war. As Lin Piao indicates:
. . . the growth of the people's revolutionary forces from weak and small beginnings into strong and large forces is a universal law of development of class struggle, a universal law of development of people's wars.... [In war, Mao emphasizes that] the contest of strength is not only a contest of economic and military power, but also a contest of human power and morale. . . .That the war will be protracted is certain, but nobody can predict exactly how many months or years it will last, as this depends entirely upon the degree of the change in the balance of forces. . . . The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.
Thus, the Chinese military theoreticians anticipate reverses in the initial periods of war and call upon the people to make exceptional sacrifices. There is no expectation of quick victory. The basic tactics of guerrilla warfare, as described by Mao and Lin, are simple. However, guerrilla war in itself is not expected to bring about the final defeat of the enemy. As "the balance of forces" changes, purely guerrilla warfare is supplemented by mobile warfare. 30
The objective in battle is not simply to rout the enemy. The decisive factor is a battle of annihilation, which produces an immediate impact. As Lin Piao so eloquently stated: "Injuring all of a man's ten fingers is not as effective as chopping off one, and routing ten enemy divisions is not as effective as annihilating one of them." In the war of annihilation, Chinese military doctrine emphasizes that the first attacks should be on dispersed or isolated enemy forces. Some cities and even some districts must be abandoned to the enemy in order that he be lured deep within the country. Then, says Lin, the final blow is administered after the enemy "becomes elated, stretches out all his ten fingers and becomes hopelessly bogged down."
If masses of people filled with revolutionary zeal are the decisive factor, then the types of weapons used are of little importance. "The opposing side is the principal source of weapons, equipment and ammunition."31 One of the purposes of fighting the battles of annihilation is, according to Lin, that "our army is able to . . . capture weapons from the enemy in every battle, and. . . our weapons become better." An army that simply is routed in battle may keep its own weapons during the retreat.
In a remark directed at the so-called "imperialistic powers," Mao Tse-tung sums up his strategy and tactics:
You fight in your way and we fight in ours; we fight when we can win and move away when we can't. . . . When you want to fight us, we don't let you and you can't even find us. But when we want to fight you, we make sure that you can't get away....32
competition for Communist leadership
The military writings on doctrine and strategy by both the Soviets and the Chinese are directed not only for internal consumption and to each other but also to establish their respective claims to leadership in the Communist World. The Chinese are blunt and more outspoken than the Soviets. Un Piao calls far a people's war on a broad scale:
Comrade Mao Tse-tung's theory of the establishment of rural revolutionary base areas and the encirclement of the cities from the countryside is of outstanding and universal practical importance for the present revolutionary struggles of all the oppressed nations and peoples, and particularly for the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America against imperialism and its lackeys.
Lin Piao argued that many of the nations in these continents had political and economic conditions similar to that which had existed in old China. The nations that have predominantly peasant populations are in a position to use the countryside as broad areas where revolutionaries can maneuver. With this rationale, he developed his theme of North America and Western Europe being the "cities of the world" and Asia, Africa, and Latin America as the "rural areas of the world." According to Lin:
In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of Asian, African and Latin American peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Many governments of the world were alarmed by Lin's call to arms:
Today, the conditions are more favorable than ever before for the waging of people's wars by the revolutionary peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. . .
Instead of the "people's war" as advocated by the Chinese, the Soviet Union supports "wars of national liberation."33 However, the Soviets are vague as to how such wars should be fought and what kind of aid might be given to the nation or group concerned.
Some reasons for the Soviet reticence are fairly simple to understand. The Chinese claim that the Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics are in reality colonies and as such should throw off the yoke of their Russian conquerors. This would be a war of national liberation in the Soviet sense. The problems the Soviets had with their wars of national liberation attempted in East Germany in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956 are well known.
Soviet writers are careful not to place wars of national liberation into anyone category:
The forms of national liberation struggle of oppressed peoples are sufficiently diverse, from a national armed uprising, for example, in Algeria and Angola, to a comparatively peaceful achievement of independence of the former French colony of Guinea.34
Any commitment by the Soviet Union to any nation engaged in a war of national liberation also is indefinite. To paraphrase a certain former well-known industrialist and United States Secretary of Defense, "What is good for the Soviet Union is good for the rest of the socialistic-communist nations." Through Soviet eyes, it is natural that:
(Emphasis in original Russian text.)By providing the most favorable international conditions for the building of communism in our country and the building of socialism in the countries of all the socialistic-communist nations, Soviet foreign policy thus makes its own contribution to the common revolutionary cause of all nations.35
The concept of a Soviet shield is stated by Marshal N. I. Krylov, Commander in Chief of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Troops:
The main role in defending the peace and the socialist gains of nations belongs to the Soviet Union, the stronghold of social progress. Under the leadership of the Communist Party the Soviet people have created such military power which serves as an insurmountable block on the path o£ the aggressive aims of imperialism.36
In the struggle for leadership of the Communist World, accusations between the two nations take a remarkable turn: each accuses the other of cooperating with the United States in Vietnam. The Chinese accusations are direct, while the Soviets are a bit more subtle. To quote Lin Piao:
The Khrushchev revisionists have come to the rescue of United States imperialism just when it is most panic-stricken and helpless in its efforts to cope with people's war. Working hand in glove with the U.S. imperialists, they are doing their utmost to spread all kinds of arguments against people's war and, whenever they can, they are scheming to undermine it by overt or covert means. . . . The Khrushchev revisionists insist that a nation without nuclear weapons is incapable of defeating an enemy with nuclear weapons, whatever methods of fighting it may adopt. . . . Isn't this helping the imperialists in their nuclear blackmail? Isn't this openly forbidding people to make revolution?
Ridiculous as this statement is, the Soviets seem compelled to make similar charges:
Speaking of the help of the Socialist countries to the Vietnamese people, one cannot pass over in silence that pernicious role which the Peking leadership is playing in this business. . . . With their adventuristic internal and external policies they have complicated all the political conditions in Asia and have stabbed the struggling people of Vietnam in the back. In spite of wordy statements, the practices of the Chinese leaders have played into the hands of the American aggressors. The world press unanimously reports that the present policy of Peking has eased the Pentagon's resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam.37
This competition between the Soviet Union and Communist China, the two giants of the Communist World, is a contradiction of Marxism that would not have been dreamed of a decade ago. It is one of the significant events of this century. To the military professional, it is a phenomenon that must be clearly understood.
There is a danger that our perceptions of military doctrines, strategies, and organizations of other military forces could revolve around our own "blue team and red team" concept. In our planning, war-gaming, maneuvers, and so on, we tend to match the blue team against the red team, and the two sides generally are identical in organization, composition, and types of weapons available. The moves of each are "rational," and rationality means the same to both sides. Hence we may find it difficult, in actual situations, to understand why the opposing side does not react to our military moves as we expect.
This brief analysis indicates there is little similarity between the military forces and doctrines of the two major Communist powers. Furthermore, each is far from being a mirror image of our own. This is but another reflection of the nuclear age, in which the tactics and strategies of past eras have little meaning. Have we really faced up to the problem?
Hq United States Air Force
Notes
1. Explanatory Dictionary of Military Terms (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1966), p. 348.
2. Lieutenant Colonel V. M. Bondarenko, "Military Technical Superiority: The Most Important Factor of the Reliable Defense of the Country," Communist of the Armed Forces No. 17, September 1966, p. 9.
3. Lin Piao, Minister of Defense, Communist China, in a speech "Long Live the Victory of the People's War," 2 September 1965. (All the following quotations of Lin Piao are taken from this speech.)
4. Communist of the Armed Forces is the official publication of the Main Political Administration of the Soviet Army and Navy, which has "the rights of a department of the Central Committee." See I. Butsky, Political Work in the Soviet Army (Moscow: Progress Publishers, n.d.), p. 23.
5. Bondarenko, p. 8.
6. Mao Tse-tung, On Protracted War (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1966). This book is a reprint of a series of lectures delivered by Mao during the period 26 May to 3 June 1938.
7. General Colonel Nikolai A. Lomov, "The Influence of Soviet Military Doctrine on the Development of Military Art" Communist of the Armed Forces, No. 21, November 1965, p.16. (General colonel is roughly the equivalent of three-star rank in the U.S. armed forces.)
8. For example, "The Revolution in Military Affairs and the Task of the Military Press" by Marshal R. Ya. Malinovsky and "The Revolution in Military Affairs and Its Results" by General Lieutenant N. A. Sbitov, both included as selections in Problems of the Revolution in Military Affairs compiled by the Soviet Ministry of Defense (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1965).
9. Explanatory Dictionary of Military Terms, p. 393.
10. General Major N. Ya. Sushko and Colonel S. A. Tyushkevich (eds.), Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1965), p. 247. (A Soviet general major roughly corresponds to one-star U.S. rank.)
11. General Lieutenant N. A. Sbitov, "The Revolution in Military Affairs and Its Results," a selection in Problems of the Revolution in Military Affairs (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1965), p. 89.
12. Explanatory Dictionary of Military Terms, p. 383.
13. Dictionary of Basic Military Terms (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1965), p. 181.
14. Ye. K. Bragin and A. G. Kubarev, Anti-Missile Defense (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1966), p. 3.
15. General Major K. S. Bochkarev (ed.), The Program of the CPSU on Defending the Socialist Fatherland (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1965), p. 114.
16. Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky (ed.), Military Strategy, appeared in Moscow bookstores in August 1962, about two months before the Cuban missile crisis. English translations, entitle Soviet Military Strategy, were available in the United States in 1963.
17. Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky and General Major M. I. Cherednichenko, "On Contemporary Military Strategy," Communist of the Armed Forces, No.7, April 1966, p. 64.
18. Wing Commander J. F. L. Long, RAF (Ret), "Shifts in Russia's Strategic Posture," Royal Air Force Quarterly, Winter 1966, p. 299.
19. Sokolovsky and Cherednichenko, p. 64.
20. Colonel S. V. Malyanchikov, "The Character and Features of Nuclear Rocket War," Communist of the Armed Forces, No. 21, November 1965, p. 71. This article was listed in the "'political Studies Department" of the magazine, and political instructors were to devote six hours to the study of the particular theme.
21. Sokolovsky and Cherednichenko, p. 65.
22. Publication of these books by the Military Publishing House began in 1965. As of April 1967 only nine of the announced seventeen volumes had appeared.
23. General Major V. G. Reznichenko (ed.), Tactics (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1966, first printing 40,000 copies, cost 1 ruble 61 kopeks [$1.77]), 408 pp.
24. General Lieutenant V. Davidenko, Red Star, 14 December 1966.
25. Colonel V. V. Larionov, "New Weapons and the Duration of War," Red Star, March 1965.
26. Colonel A. A. Strokov (ed.), The History of Military Art (Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1966), p. 616. The manuscript of the book went to press in 1965. The book is one of the "Officer's Library" series, with a first printing of 35,000 copies.
27. Colonel I. P. Prusanov, "The Work of the Party in the Strengthening of the Armed Forces in Terms of the Revolution in Military Affairs," Communist of the Armed Forces, No.3, February 1966, P. 10.
28. General Lieutenant I. G. Zavyalov, "On Soviet Military Doctrine," Red Star, 30-31 March 1967.
29. Samuel B. Griffith, Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 21.
30. Ibid., p. 20.
31. Ibid., p. 24.
32. Quoted by Lin Piao, op. cit.
33. Sushko and Tyushkevich, op. cit. Chapter Two of the book is entitled "The Social Character and Types of Wars in the Modern Era," pp. 69-113. Also see V. V. Zagladin, "The Leninist Course of Foreign Policy of the USSR," Communist of the Armed Forces, No.9, May 1966, pp. 12-20.
34. Sushko and Tyushkevich, p. 104.
35. Zagladin, p. 13.
36. "Reliably Guarding the Achievements and Security of the Nations," Red Star, 9 May 1967.
37. "The Cause of Vietnam Is Just," Izvestia, 24 February 1967.
Contributor
Colonel William F. Scott (USMA; M.A., Georgetown University) is assigned to Headquarters USAF. After graduation at West Point in 1943, he served with the 398th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force. From 1947 to 1950 he was assigned to the Strategic Intelligence School, War Department General Staff, first as a student, then on the faculty. He next served as an exchange officer at the RAF College, Cranwell, England, instructing in bomber operations. He attended Air Command and Staff College in 1952 and afterwards taught air operations at Air University. Subsequent assignments have been as Chief, Electronics Division, ACS/Intelligence; U.S. Air Attaché, Moscow, 1962-64; Research Associate, Foreign Policy Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania, and exchange duty with the Department of State. Colonel Scott's master's thesis, "An Analysis of Time Factors in the Development and Production of Air Weapon Systems," was used during the 1957 Senate subcommittee hearings in its inquiry into satellite and missile problems. He has been a previous contributor to Air University Review and Orbis.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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