Air University Review, January-February 1981
Alan J. Vick
A central assumption commonly overlooked in the debate regarding the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) process in general and SALT II in particular is the belief that some mix of pronounced strategy and acquired weapon systems offers an absolute deterrent to a nuclear attack by another country. That is to say, the United States does not procure weapon systems or design strategies in order to fight and win a nuclear war but to offer a deterrent to conventional aggression in Europe and a deterrent to the initiation of a general nuclear war. This wispy concept of deterrence has all too often assumed identical attitudes on the part of those nations involved.
United States nuclear strategy is profoundly dependent on a theory of deterrence that projects American values and notions of rational behavior onto the Soviet Politburo and General Staff Academy. While there may be some evidence to suggest that a degree of symmetry has existed at various times between the Soviet Politburo and the American presidential cabinet vis-à-vis perceptions of strategic stability, it is not clear that Soviet military leadership has ever accepted "bourgeois" notions about warfare.
Given the increasingly important role of the Soviet military in policymaking since the death of Joseph Stalin and the enormous intellectual and economic resources committed to the development of military theory and power, the 1980s may see a dangerous shift in the Soviet propensity to use military means to realize foreign policy goals, be they ideologically or pragmatically motivated. These trends suggest an immediate need to study Soviet military thought in order to determine how valid previous perceptions of the "Soviet psych" are, to discover where we lack an understanding of Soviet thought, and, perhaps to base future United States strategy—at least, in part--on an awareness of what constitutes a sound deterrent to the Soviets.
This article is offered as a brief review of the basic principles of Soviet strategy, its implications for U.S. deterrence theory, and some important trends in the role of the Soviet military in strategic decision-making.
Military science in the Soviet Union is viewed as a systematic typology that explains warfare based on the objective laws of war elucidated by V. I. Lenin.1 Soviet military theorists--primarily faculty members of the Academy of the General Staff have--refined and expanded Lenin’s writings, arriving at a thorough, comprehensive strategy that is impressive for the sheer magnitude of the endeavor in general and for occasional creative and brilliant thought in particular. It should be pointed out that Soviet military theory uses very precise words to express equally precise concepts. For example, doctrine is the military theory of the Communist Party as presented by the Politburo. Therefore, it has legal force and greater authority than military strategy. Military strategy as defined by Marshal V. D. Sokolovskiv in his award-winning work, Soviet Military Strategy, is
. . . a system of scientific knowledge dealing with the laws of war as an armed conflict in the name of definite class interests. Strategy--on the basis of military experience, military and political conditions economic and moral potential of the country, new means of combat, and the views and potential of the probable enemy--studies the conditions and the nature of future war, the methods for its preparation and conduct, the services of the armed forces and the foundations for the material and technical support and leadership of the war and armed forces.2
Through the systematic study of great battles, particularly those of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet military thought has focused on reducing warfare to a finite number of variables to be fitted into their strategic calculus. Although this may seem somewhat naïve to anyone acquainted with the utter confusion that can result in military operations of any size, the Soviets are not so unrealistic as some would suggest. Indeed, it is precisely because of their profound understanding of the dangers of misdirection, panic, and confusion among the troops that they seek to maintain such tight control. Yet, at the same time, centralization of command and control discourages initiative at lower levels, and if Soviet C3 were substantially disrupted during war, it is not clear that company- and battalion-level leaders would act decisively.
In any case, Soviet military planners seek to control every variable of warfare through the emphasis of demanding continuous training of the troops, stressing mechanistic repetition, extreme centralization of command, redundancy in force structure, mass, and control of battlefield initiative through the use of continuous offensives.
The primacy of the offensive has been central to Soviet strategy and tactics since the Great Patriotic War.3 Yet Soviet theorists no longer believe that concentration of ground forces is necessary to achieve the breakthrough. They argue that dispersion is essential to prevent nuclear strikes from causing widespread losses. Thus, the offensive would take place along a wide front with multiple smaller concentrations of force and multiple breakthroughs realized through the use of nuclear or chemical weapons. The Soviets have not renounced concentration of force and firepower. They have, however, recognized that nuclear and chemical strikes will replace massed artillery and rocket attacks, reducing the number of troops necessary to effect the breakthrough.
While Soviet theorists have espoused such a strategy for years, they lacked the C3, mobility, weapon systems, and deployment necessary to translate this strategy into battlefield action. Consequently, Western analysts viewed their strategy as so much wishful thinking. In the last decade, however, the Soviets have achieved a quantum improvement in all types of military forces and now appear capable of developing such a strategy on the battlefield.4
Thus, as Colonel Richard C. Head points out, we cannot always look to Soviet force structure to verify our conclusions with respect to their public pronouncements on strategy:
Doctrine can . . . be forward-looking and to a degree inconsistent with current military capabilities. This was a problem in the 1960s, when some U.S. analysts had difficulty taking Soviet writings on land warfare seriously, particularly those parts that called for offensive breakthroughs and high-speed advances. Only in recent years has . . . the vision in their tactical doctrine been supported b technological capability.5
Surprise, the central element in the Soviet offensive, was not fully appreciated by Soviet strategists until 22 June 1941. On that day the German army made a highly successful blitzkrieg attack against the Soviet Union. The Soviets heeded this lesson, finding that surprise combined with sufficient mass breakthrough, and deep penetration of key enemy locations was an eminently effective tactic that prevented the enemy from shifting his forces in time to assist in the defense. Much to the dismay of the Germans, the Soviets, apt pupils always, displayed their keen understanding of surprise in the Volga counteroffensive of 1942 and later offensives following the battle of Stalingrad, most notably at Kursk. The development of nuclear weapons has only reinforced this appreciation of the element of surprise, and now Soviet military theorists argue that Lenin’s comments in 1917 vis-à-vis surprise were the basis for the Soviet use of surprise during the Great Patriotic War.6 One suspects, however, that German battlefield successes impressed Soviet strategists more than Lenin’s trite observations on the element of surprise.
Associated with the importance of surprise in the offensive is the rapid exploitation of shock among surviving enemy troops. Nowhere is shock as critical an element as in the use of nuclear strikes. The shock wave alone causes a loss of self-control and orientation, and the soldier ". . . becomes either too feeble, indifferent, or immobile or, on the contrary, irritated, sensitive and easily swayed."7 Penetrating radiation, which disrupts the functioning of the nervous system and thermal radiation, which causes temporary and permanent blindness and burns, considerably degrade the combat effectiveness of enemy troops. Thus, after the first surprise nuclear strikes, victory pivots on taking ‘‘. . . advantage of confusion and pain among [the enemy’s] troops decisively and rapidly."8
Soviet theorists view the psychological effect of nuclear weapons as extremely important and would capitalize on this by employing airborne shock troops to negate surviving resistance and then control destroyed areas. Yet they do not acknowledge the ‘‘psychopolitical’’ unity of nuclear weapons in crisis situations, believing rather that such weapons have a single purpose: the destruction of aggressive imperialist powers.9
While these developments are not related to strategic nuclear exchanges per se, they do illustrate how seriously the Soviets pursue nuclear war-fighting capabilities. To the Soviets, sound strategy demands that they prepare for every contingency, unpleasant or not. Although nuclear war is no longer considered inevitable, neither is a significant conflict with "forces of imperialism" dismissed as improbable. Characteristically, Soviet military journals maintain that Soviet acquisition of enhanced nuclear war-fighting abilities contributes to peace while any American moves beyond mutual assured destruction (e.g., limited nuclear options) are presented as evidence of murderous intentions.
Although Soviet strategy stresses battle in a nuclear environment, the current balance of power suggests that, in the European theater, the Soviets might prefer to avoid first use of nuclear weapons.
Soviet strategic parity with the United States translates into a highly favorable ratio of power in the European theater. With overwhelming conventional and chemical warfare superiority and parity at the theater level also, the Soviets could be reasonably certain that if they restricted their forces to conventional weapons, NATO forces would face quite a dilemma (i.e., whether to risk a conventional defeat by refraining from escalation to the nuclear level or risk a general war by initiating the use of theater weapons). It is not clear, moreover, that the West German government would allow the use of theater nuclear weapons on their territory, where the risks of escalation would be smallest. On the other hand, the fact that we stand willing to escalate the conflict from conventional to theater nuclear to strategic nuclear at some undetermined point presents the Soviets with a significant problem if they wish to avoid crossing this threshold.10
Although many American analysts are skeptical of the utility of strategic superiority, Soviet planners appear to disagree, accepting instead something akin to one observer's belief that ‘‘strategic superiority translates into the ability to control a process of deliberate escalation in pursuit of acceptable terms for war termination."11
Somewhat ironically, the skepticism has been coupled with a growing concern among American analysts that the recently acquired mobility of Soviet forces will allow them to continue penetrating into areas of the globe that were formerly considered beyond their sphere. Some American strategists are concerned that Soviet dynamism in weapons research and development (R&D), procurement, strategy, and projection of power, when coupled with a fairly static state of affairs in U.S. strategic development, signals a dangerous trend.12 European perceptions about the U.S. -Soviet balance of power, moreover, could easily turn Soviet pronouncements on the shifting correlation of forces into self-fulfilling prophesies. Thus, American planners must be just as sensitive to world perceptions of power as they are to the actual ability to project such power.13
Indeed, this is a fundamental problem for U.S. planners: should weapons procurement be based on some yardstick for finite deterrence or go beyond this, seeking to enhance U.S. options during an actual conflict? Given the stated improvements in Soviet strategy and forces, it appears that, while assured destruction is a useful starting point for U.S. strategy and weapons development, the Soviets might be more impressed by a selective "war-fighting deterrent. Admittedly, the linking of "victory" and "spasm war" may be a contradiction in terms, and the death and destruction resultant from even a limited nuclear conflict would be staggering, certainly unprecedented for the United States. Nevertheless, a more selective strategy of victory—if combined with refinements in theater and strategic nuclear weapons and force structures—could improve the credibility of the U.S. deterrent without appearing provocative to the Soviets. Such improvements would make it quite difficult for even a "clever briefer’’ to convince the Soviet Politburo that they could initiate a nuclear conflict with a high probability of success.14
Impressive forces are admittedly no guarantee that our deterrent will not be challenged. If a challenge is presented, however, forces designed to meet such demands will offer a much more efficacious countervailing force than those designed to meet the requirements of this abstract notion of a "yardstick" for deterrence.15
Many American analysts are also beginning to wonder how valid our perceptions are with respect to Soviet values.16 One high-level observer suggested that since 1880 the Russian leadership has systematically chosen military development over economic, political, or cultural development. That is to say, they respect force and have sought to become a global military power in lieu of a global economic power.17 In legalistic and democratic America this preoccupation with force may be difficult to comprehend. Yet, it should be pointed out that
a constant in Russian history has been, for most of her people, an existence on the edge of terror; it is a culture created by frequent chaos, the extreme tensions caused by stifling government controls, and the desire to survive. The Russians have lived with hunger, violence, unimaginable deprivations, the ever-present fear of secret police, exile to labor camps, and torture—these have become a way of life to the Soviet citizen whether under the Czar or Marxism-Leninism. . . . Experiences such as these have produced a view of the world that cannot be perceived with any degree of confidence using American attitudes and experiences.18
The Soviet infatuation with military power suggests they do not view diplomatic, political, and military operations in a hierarchical fashion (i.e., diplomatic pressure; that failing, covert action; that failing, military operations). Rather, they consider all as equally viable, if not equally efficient, options. While this all points toward Soviet use of military power, the Soviets themselves deny being Clausewitzian19 and carefully qualify their emphasis on the offensive by claiming that the Soviet Union has never attacked anyone and would use the offensive only after aggression by an imperialist power.20 Yet, the definition of aggression is up to the Soviet leadership, and one can count on their reaction being decisive, developing with great speed, for they believe that the encirclement and destruction of the enemy ". . .are a simultaneous act, a united and indissoluble process, accomplished without any pause."21 NATO leaders, therefore, can expect little time to deliberate over whether to cross the nuclear threshold.
While current Soviet doctrine stresses high intensity battle through surprise, superiority in firepower, speed/high maneuverability, and continuity of operations (all weather, 24 hours a day) with projected rates of advance of 100 kilometers per day under nuclear conditions, American planners should not be lulled into thinking the Soviets will easily "burn out." Although their logistical organization and doctrine indicate an interest, and perhaps preference, in fighting a short intense war, their planning is not so inflexible that it could not be modified to support a long-term conflict on short notice.22
This brief discussion of Soviet strategy has touched on a few of the most basic principles of Soviet military thought. It is hoped that the reader will be struck by the asymmetries in Soviet and American strategic thought and that he will appreciate the problems this dichotomy presents for strategic arms control negotiations. Although these differences do not rule out bilateral negotiations, they do suggest that one ought to tread with great care when attempting to draw parallels between Soviet and American values and strategic thinking. Such differences have often been glossed over in the admirable desire to find areas of agreement. This is unfortunate, for quasi-friendly relations based on misunderstanding offer greater potential for misreading signals and crisis mismanagement than cool relations based on an understanding of our differences.
The Soviet Military:
Its Contribution to
Strategic Debate and Theory
For more than thirty years, from 1922 until his death in 1953, Soviet military strategy was the product of one man, Joseph Stalin. Not surprisingly, this was a period of stagnation For Soviet military thought. Stalin would not allow the military to participate in the development of strategy during this period, and little of value was published in their journals.23 Yet Stalin was not satisfied with these restrictions on military thought, and his fear and suspicions of the military were manifested in the purges of the 1930s, when three-fourths of the Soviet general officer corps were murdered.24 Thus, in an intellectual sense, Stalin did more harm to the Soviet armed forces than all the forces of Nazi Germany could do. In fact, the Germans provided quite an education for Soviet strategists, while Stalin provided little guidance for Soviet strategy. His truistic "Five Principles of Victory" are indicative of the quality of his strategic thinking.25
Within three years of Stalin’s death, the Soviet military would begin its recovery from the intellectually barren years under his rule. It was at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party in 1956 that Soviet military thought was reborn. With Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin at the Congress came new Freedom for the military. Military history departments at the academies came alive, and the subjects of military science and strategy became the object of increased discussion and debate.26
By 1960, the trend of relatively open discussion of strategic issues was clearly established with a Special Collection of Articles becoming a regular feature in the classified journal, Military Thought. These articles were written by the Minister of Defense, military district commanders, commanders of the academies, and other members of the military elite. This high-level support for the discussion of important military policy issues would continue through the sixties, with top military men offering some of the most daring criticism of party policy.27
In 1965 the Soviet press announced the publication, by Voyenizdat, of the Officer’s Library, which would include seventeen different works. All seventeen volumes were published and widely distributed by 1973, with topics ranging from Marshal V. D. Sokolovskiy’s Soviet Military Strategy to B. Byely’s Marxism-Leninism on War and Army.
Khrushchev did usher in a new era for Soviet military leaders as important contributors to military strategy. He, nevertheless, maintained firm control of doctrine in party hands. The military was unable to convince him to shift to a serious doctrine of victory, although he did initiate a massive buildup in the strategic forces. In any event, once he was removed from power, considerable criticism from the military was directed at his military policies.
The Soviet shift in the mid-sixties to the nuclear strategy of survival/victory appears to be a function of a new-found clout of the military, combined with serious questions offered by the Politburo about the viability of deterrence. Soviet leaders of this period probably would have agreed with one American observer who recently stated that "it ought to be clear to all of us that deterrence—really a form of applied psychology— is historically, psychologically, and politically naïve to a dangerous degree, our confidence in it quite unwarranted."28 In any case, the unilateral ability to fight, survive, and win any type of war seems to have been a much more Russian doctrine than dependence on mutual hostage holding.
Beyond pragmatic reasons, Marxist-Leninist ideology encourages the Soviets to believe in a doctrine of survival and victory. If they did not believe this, it ". . . would mean that the most basic processes of history, on which Soviet ideology and political legitimacy are founded, could be derailed by the technological works of man and the caprice of an historically doomed opponent."29
The first public criticism of Khrushchev’s doctrine of ‘‘single variant’’ came in 1965 from Marshal M. V. Zakharov, who offered an interesting critique of armchair military experts, namely Khrushchev. This sentiment was echoed by Marshal Sokolovskiy, who emphasized the need for military, rather than party, control of strategy. Also, in 1965 Colonel E. Rybkin, in an article in Kommunist vooruzhennykh sil (Communist of the Armed Forces), presented the case for nuclear war, initiating the debate over definitions of strategic superiority and the need thereof.30
On the question of superiority, its meaning underwent a dramatic change from its early use by Marshal Sokolovskiy and General Major M. Cherednichenko. They had used it to mean maximizing destruction of an adversary and limiting damage to the motherland, but in a defensive sense. Later, Colonel V. Bondarenko would use it to mean ‘‘quantity and quality" of forces, which would imply that victory was highly probable in a more ambitious and ominous way.
The debate was most intense during the spring and summer of 1965, with the Politburo supporting "sufficiency" and the military leadership advocating superiority as a more appropriate goal. Clearly, the military was no longer the voiceless tool of the party. Indeed, the 1965 debate over strategy apparently went to the military, for Soviet weapon procurement and strategic thought since then suggest a flexible strategy that can initiate or respond to nuclear warfare at many levels of violence. The Soviet military leadership has apparently maintained its in dependence from the party, for in an August 1969 article in Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia), Marshal N. I. Krylov, commander in chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, admonished Soviet leaders not to grow complacent as they enjoyed this new position of world power. Marshal Krylov suggested that Soviet weapon procurement continue so that there would be little doubt of their ability to match U. S. strategic forces.31
The Soviet military organization of 1980 is far superior—by any standards whether they be training, quantity and quality of equipment, force structure, strategy, manpower, deployment, or the ability to fight a sustained battle—to any Soviet armed force that ever existed. No longer just a continental power, the Soviet Union can project its military power to many areas of the globe. Not only do Soviet mobility capabilities suggest this, but their doctrine has endorsed such actions since Marshal A. A. Grechko’s statement in 1974 that the Soviet Union would react militarily to "imperialists’ aggression in whatever distant region of our planet it may appear." Thus, such challenges appear to be a singularly distinct possibility in the near future.32 Its air force, strategic missile force, and navy can deliver nuclear warheads to targets anywhere in the world, in numbers that could cause unprecedented death and destruction. Its navy, while of limited value in protecting Soviet shipping, could disrupt Western shipping throughout the world and thus deny NATO forces vital reinforcements, materiel, and oil.
This historically unique development of military power has created a staggering drain on the Soviet economy and, thereby, on every Soviet citizen. While it remains to be seen if the Soviet leadership intends to take direct advantage of the new strategic balance, it is not alarmist to predict that some challenges will arise. In part, these may be essentially harmless probes to justify Soviet defense expenditures (i.e., to illustrate the constant threat to socialist states exhibited by Western adventurism and demonstrate their ability to decisively protect worldwide class interests). More serious challenges may result if the Soviet military convinces the conservative party leaders to probe Western defenses in order to test "imperialist" resolve, study responses and capabilities, or dull Western sensitivity to Soviet activities before a more substantial blow (i.e., increasing the international background noise—false alarms to some extent). If Brezhnev dies in the immediate future, moreover, we can expect to see some drop in the mean age of the Politburo and conceivably less conservative attitudes toward international risk taking.33
Whatever the rationale for an enlarged military sphere of responsibility, it is essential that Western analysts appreciate this key point: Soviet military leaders do not accept academic theories of deterrence presented by American civilians. They are, however, impressed by high-quality military forces combined with the political wherewithal to use them. Thus, given first-rate Soviet military forces and strategy and increased political power for the military elite, a reasonable American response would be to procure weapons and develop strategies designed to meet military requirements for retaliation at sub-SIOP and single integrated operational plan (SIOP) levels. Such an approach would not only make a Soviet first-strike less likely but, in the event deterrence fails, would enhance intrawar deterrence, enabling the United States to prosecute and terminate the war below the SIOP level.
This is not to say that such forces and strategies will deter all types of Soviet behavior which we find offensive. Perhaps, in a given crisis situation, no combination of U.S. military forces, diplomacy, and "shots across the bow" will deter the ultimate conflict with the Soviets. Yet in such a situation where deterrence fails, forces and strategies that are designed to fight and win a war will be eminently more useful than weapons selected for their "psychopolitical" value in American deterrence theory.
University of California, Irvine
Notes
1. Military science holds an eminent position as an academic discipline in military education in the Soviet Union. Soviet military academy cadets and professors, unlike their counterparts in the United States, do not feel they must apologize for their study of this subject, nor are they considered intellectual lightweights among scholars. See Colonel Richard G. Head, USAF, "Soviet Military Education: Technical, Tactical, Traditional," Air University Review, November-December 1978, pp. 45-57.
2. V. D. Sokolovskiy, editor, Soviet Military Strategy, translated by Harriet F. Scott (New York: Crane, Russak, 1975), p. 11.
3. See A. A. Sidorenko, The Offensive (Moscow, 1970), translated and published by the USAF (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976).
4. See Jeffrey Record, Sizing up the Soviet Army (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1975).
5. Colonel Richard G. Head, USAF, "Technology and the Military Balance," Foreign Affairs, April 1978, p. 548.
6. V. Ye. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics (Moscow, 1972), translated and published by the USAF (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 230-40.
7. V. V. Shelyag et al., editors, Military Psychology (Moscow, 1972), published by the USAF (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 361-62.
8. Savkin, p. 234.
9. See Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Political Potential of Equivalence: The View from Moscow and Europe (Santa Monica, California: The Rand Corporation, 1978).
10. Bernard Brodie, Escalation and the Nuc1ear Option (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 28-29.
11. Colin S. Gray, "The Strategic Forces Triad: End of the Road?" Foreign Affairs, July 1978, p. 774.
12. Interview with Colonel Richard G. Head, USAF, Crisis Planning and Assessment Group, J-5, Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense, 9 May 1979.
13. See Fritz W. Ermarth, "Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought, International Security, Fall 1978, pp. 138-55.
14. For a persuasive, tightly reasoned argument in favor of a strategy of victory, see Colin S. Gray, "Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory," International Security, Summer 1979, pp. 54-87.
15. While the destruction of 200 major Soviet cities and 70 percent of her critical industry is hardly something for Soviet analysts to scoff at, it is not clear that potential economic devastation is the most effective deterrent to Soviet aggression. Thus, while procurement of the M-X, for example, might appear to an American analyst as an unnecessary addition to already extensive U.S. nuclear capabilities, it may significantly improve the credibility of the American deterrent in the eyes of a Soviet strategist.
16. For a fascinating discussion of Soviet life and attitudes, see Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1975).
17. See Robert Legvold, "The Nature of Soviet Power," Foreign Affairs, October 1977, pp. 49-71.
18. Colonel William M. Charles, Jr., USAF, "Rethinking the Unthinkable: Limited Strategic Nuclear Options—Credible or Dangerous?" Air University Review, May-June 1977, p. 65.
19. Such a disclaimer is hardly persuasive, for Lenin was Clausewitz and Soviet military strategy is founded on his observations on warfare. See B. Byely et al., Marxism-Leninism on War and Army (Moscow, 1972) and Lieutenant Colonel Alan C. Gropman, USAF, "The Beacon of Clausewitz," Strategic Review, Summer 1978, pp. 88-91.
20. Sidorenko, p. 3.
21. Ibid., p. 37.
22. Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Understanding Soviet Military Developments (Washington: Department of the Army, 1977), p. 23.
23. Harriet F. Scott, p. xxvii.
24. Ibid., p. xxv.
25. Record, pp. 2-4.
26. Scott, p. xix.
27. Ibid., p. xx.
28. James A. Stegenga, "Deterrence: Reckless Prudence," Air University Review, January-February 1977, p. 81.
29. Ermarth, p. 144.
30. John Erickson, "Soviet Military Power, Special Supplement to Strategic Review, Spring 1973, pp. 1-3.
31. Ibid., p. 39.
32. Harriet F. Scott and William F. Scott, The Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979), p. 57.
33. See Rein Taagepera and Robert Chapman, "A Note on the Aging of the Politburo," Soviet Studies, April 1977, pp. 296-305.
Contributor
Alan J. Vick (B.A., University of California, Irvine) is Coordinator, Arms Control Colloquim at the University of California, Irvine. Recently, he served as an intern in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (European Region and NATO Affairs). In the U.S. Army, he was a recon team leader in the battalion reconnaissance platoon, Airborne Infantry, 82d Airborne Division; studied Soviet military capabilities as an assistant instructor at the First Army Intelligence School.
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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