Moscow's Military Machine: The Best of Everything
WHILE Moscow was celebrating Lenin's centennial with pomp and rhetoric, the Soviet military marked the occasion in a more dramatic way. Fanning out across three oceans and nine seas, more than 200 Soviet warships staged the greatest naval maneuvers in the world's history. At the same time, hundreds of medium-and long-range Russian bombers ventured far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. The U.S. reported 500 separate sightings as far apart as Japan and Iceland.
It was an impressive display. As part of Operation Okean (for ocean), an attack force of eight vessels built around the new 18,000-ton helicopter carrier Leningrad moved through the North Atlantic toward the Norwegian Sea. There, two larger Soviet task forces lay in Wait to conduct a mock defense near the straits of Skagerrak and Kattegat, the approaches to the Baltic. In the Mediterranean, 45 ships conducted antisubmarine exercises. From the icy Barents and Okhotsk seas to the warmer reaches of the Indian and Pacific oceans, sleek Russian cruisers and black-hulled submarines carried out simultaneous exercises.
During the past eight years, the Soviets have been engaged in a massive and costly military buildup. They have been motivated both by a desire to overtake the U.S. and by deep fear of a possible war with China, an anxiety that is certain to intensify with the launching of Peking's first satellite (see story, page 47). At home and abroad, the Russian military has become an increasingly important factor. In foreign policy, the Soviets are relying ever more on military presence and displays of armed might to tighten their control over East Europe or to influence uncommitted countries farther afield. Within Russia, the military's immense influence has been greatly enhanced by the threat of war with China and the Czechoslovak invasion. The importance of the military was only underscored when Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev flew to Minsk recently for the massive Dvina maneuvers, and stood on the reviewing stand alongside Defense Minister Marshal Andrei Grechko, 66. The unmistakable message for Soviet televiewers was that all was harmonious between the chiefs of the Communist Party and the military establishment.
Guaranteeing Allegiance
An austere, erect, onetime cavalry commander, Grechko has become the Kremlin's most effective enforcer. As Soviet commander in East Germany in 1953, he put down the first East bloc revolt against Communism. In 1968 his forces put an end to Czechoslovakia's "Springtime of Freedom," and he personally visited Prague the following year to oversee the removal of Reformer Alexander Dubcek from the leadership of the party. Czechoslovaks bitterly refer to the bullet-pocked facade of Prague's National Museum as "a fresco a la Grechko."
From his office in the former Czarist Cadets College just off Moscow's broad Kalinin Prospect, Grechko directs a mammoth military machine that employs 3,220,000 people, commands the talent of the Soviet Union's best technical brains, and annually spends an estimated $70 billion. Thus, even though the Soviet gross national product is only two-thirds as large as the U.S.'s, Russia virtually matches the U.S. ruble for dollar in defense outlays. Through a network of some 15,300 advisers, Soviet military influence reaches directly into many countries far beyond the East bloc, including the two main U.S. trouble spots, North Viet Nam and Cuba (see map). Under the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops are stationed in four Eastern European countries to guarantee their allegiance to Moscow.
Within the Soviet hierarchy, Grechko speaks directly to the political leaders without any civilian intermediaries to challenge his recommendations. At least once a month, he meets with the Politburo's defense subcommittee headed by Brezhnev. Their relationship is believed to be extremely cordial, if not close.
Duty and Sacrifice
Brezhnev's concern with the military is understandable, because the Soviet military establishment exerts a far greater influence on Russian life and on the formation of Soviet public opinion than is generally realized in the West. The Soviet Defense Ministry runs one of Russia's largest publishing houses, which turns out 15 million copies of pamphlets and books each year. In Moscow alone, the Defense Ministry publishes no fewer than 40 periodicals and newspapers. Red Star, the official army newspaper, trails only Pravda, Izvestia and the trade union paper Trud in circulation in the entire Soviet Union.
From his earliest years, a Soviet child is exposed to the influence of the military. Soviet schoolchildren are raised on films that glorify the concepts of duty and sacrifice for the homeland. Sample: During World War II, a 13-year-old boy runs away to the front, and by the time his age is discovered, he has become a hero by spying behind German lines. His reward? Despite his tender years, he is allowed to remain at the front. Schoolchildren are regularly escorted by military guides on tours of World War II battlefields.
Party Controls
The 1967 draft reform, which reduced the length of service by one year, expanded compulsory military training for teenagers. During the last four years in high school, Soviet officers and reservists teach Russian youngsters how to put on a gas mask, attack a bridge and kill a sentry. The students also learn how to fire automatic rifles and perform basic infantry tactics. In addition, they master at least one handy military skill, such as operating a radio or riding a motorcycle. Some boys even learn how to parachute, fly aircraft and use scuba diving gear.
With its vast organization and rigid hierarchy, the Soviet military is a glaring contradiction of the early Communist belief that armies, like the state, would soon wither and die. When Lenin founded the Red Army of Workers and Peasants in 1918 under the command of Leon Trotsky, the force reflected its revolutionary origins. Rank was abolished, leaders were elected, recruitment was voluntary and orders could be questioned. Even so, as Washington Sovietologist Roman Kolkowicz points out in The Soviet Military and the Communist Party, some military characteristics asserted themselves, and all clashed sharply with Communist doctrine: the army's elitism v. the party's egalitarianism, professional autonomy v. subordination to ideology, nationalism v. proletarian internationalism, heroic symbolism v. anonymity.
From the first, the Communist Party regarded the army as both a vital necessity--and a potential rival. During the civil war, political commissars had the power to countermand orders made by the military commanders, a practice that was not completely abolished until 1943. Grechko was chosen largely because he showed no signs of political ambition. In fact, Marshal Georgy Zhukov is the only general who ever openly expressed political ambitions--and the only military professional who ever served on the Politburo. He lasted a bare four months as full member of the Politburo before Khrushchev fired him for "Bonapartism" in 1957.
Today, 90% of the officers are members either of the party or of the Communist youth organization. Grechko and 22 other top commanders serve on the party's Central Committee as well. In the outlying military districts, the commanders almost always participate in the top party leadership of those areas.
Every company size unit of 150 or so men has its own political officer, who reports through a separate chain of command to General Aleksei Yepishev, the party watchdog. Each week the political officer conducts at least four hours of indoctrination for both officers and men. The KGB (secret police) also keeps a close watch on the military.
An Elitist Element
Within Soviet society, the army remains a distinct and elitist element (see box, page 46). Its role is greatly augmented because of the public's overriding preoccupation with security. Of course the Russians, who lost 20 million people in World War II, have a legitimate concern about defense. But the Soviet government and especially the military publications have intensified Russian fears by purposefully keeping alive the memories of World War II and the specter of a rearmed, vengeful West Germany. The Russians still regard themselves as endangered by enemies, notably China. Given such a national psychology, the military understandably gets largely what it wants for the country's defense.
One look at the shape of the Soviet military machine shows that Grechko and his colleagues get quite a lot, indeed. The lineup:
P: THE STRATEGIC MISSILE FORCE, an independent branch in the Soviet setup has grown dramatically. In 1965, the Soviets had only 220 ICBMs and were outnumbered more than 4 to 1 by the U.S. While the number of U.S. intercontinental missiles has grown only slightly to 1,054, the Soviet total is now roughly 1,350 and is still increasing by about 250 a year. The workhorse is the 1-megaton SS-11 (800 operational or under construction). But the Soviet missile that most alarms U.S. defense planners is the awesome S59 (220 operational, 60 launch sites under construction). The S59 is so powerful that it can carry a single 25-megaton warhead or three separate 5-megaton warheads, each capable of knocking out a hardened American underground silo. Thus, U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird warns that 450 SS-9s with triplet warheads could knock out 90% of the U.S.'s 1CBM force. However, though the Soviets lead in the number and megatonnage of iCBMs, the U.S., with its larger fleets of H-bombers and Polaris subs, retains a substantial edge in the overall number of deliverable warheads.
The U.S. holds an ever greater edge in the latest breakthrough in missile weaponry. That is the development of multiple warheads that are carried by a single missile. There are two types. The simpler ones are called MRVs (for multiple re-entry vehicles). They land in a preplanned pattern, but they cannot be steered to widely separated targets. The S59 is of this type, carrying three warheads designed to land in a "footprint" similar to the layout of U.S. Minuteman silos. But the U.S. is already installing a much more advanced version of these weapons called MIRVs (for multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles). Since each MIRV warhead has its own guidance system, a cluster of the weapons carried by one missile can hit an array of targets scattered over a wide area. While the Pentagon has evidence that the Soviets are testing MIRVs, it will probably take Moscow at least two or three years to perfect and install the devices. If the U.S. speeds up the conversion of its land-based ICBM and Polaris force to MIRVs, it can virtually triple its offensive capacity, but such action is certain to evoke a Soviet countermove, thus adding more momentum to the arms spiral.
P: THE NAVY, the world's second largest, has 465,000 men sailing 25 cruisers, 77 destroyers, 400 seagoing and coastal vessels, 280 minesweepers, 150 Osa-and Komar-class boats, and 350 patrol craft.
In addition, the navy has two new helicopter carriers, the Moskva and Leningrad. The Soviets also possess by far the world's largest undersea force--350 submarines, 80 of which are nuclear-powered. At the present rate of construction, the Soviet fleet of twelve missile-bearing nuclear subs could outnumber the U.S. fleet of 41 Polaris subs by 1973-74. The Soviet navy's ships are newer and often faster than the U.S. navy's; only 1% of Russian naval ships are 20 years old, while 60% of American vessels have been in service for two decades or more. Nonetheless, U.S. craft have superior electronic devices to detect and destroy enemy ships and planes. The Soviet navy's air arm, operating from land bases, includes 300 TU-16 Badger medium bombers and 50 TU-20 Bear reconnaissance planes.
P: THE ARMY, which was neglected by Khrushchev, has climbed back to 1,500,000, partly because of the China border dispute. Khrushchev's successors, who reversed his one-sided reliance ori rocketry, have placed great emphasis on the modernization of the army. Now a mobile, fast-striking force, the army is fully motorized and possesses the world's largest array of tanks--about 40,000. Geared to fighting over vast continental masses laced by countless rivers, the Russians have far better mobile bridge-building equipment than the U.S., and many of the tanks are equipped with six-foot snorkels for fording rivers.
P: THE AIR FORCE is composed of 9,900 planes and 400,000 people. The Soviets have 200 strategic bombers that can make round trips to the U.S. There are some 700 medium bombers (range: 3,000 miles); the U.S. has had none since the B-47 was phased out. The Soviet tactical air force includes 4,800 planes, mainly attack bombers such as the YAK-28 and fighters (MIG-21s and SU-7s), which can be used for low-level bombing and strafing missions. There are also some 1,700 transport aircraft, including an estimated 20 of the monstrous Antonov-22s, which can carry 720 troops. Despite the Soviet advantage in numbers, most experts rate the U.S. Air Force superior to the Russian in every important category because of superior U.S. equipment and pilot combat experience.
P: THE AIR DEFENSE COMMAND, also a separate branch, has 500,000 men. It has 3,400 interceptor aircraft, mostly MIG-19s and MIG-21s, and a number of giant TU-114s, which patrol Soviet borders as early-warning radar aircraft. Long-range antiaircraft SA-5 missiles are installed on the Tallinn Line along the Gulf of Finland. Around Moscow the Soviets have deployed the world's first ABM system, consisting of 64 Galosh missiles, which carry a 1-or 2-megaton warhead and have a range of several hundred miles. Because the Soviets halted deployment of the Galoshes three years ago, many Americans felt that the system was being abandoned as technically unfeasible. The Pentagon maintains, however, that the Soviets have developed an improved version. In addition, the Russians have embarked on the nationwide installation of their Hen House radar stations (so called because they look like large rectangular cages), designed to track incoming missiles for the Soviet ABM system. The Pentagon cites the Soviet developments as a reason for pressing ahead with the next phase of the U.S.'s Safeguard program. Should one side develop an effective ABM system first, it would upset the balance of nuclear terror. In the dreadful scenario of nuclear war, the country that first has ABMs might be tempted to launch a nuclear attack against the other side, since it would itself be protected from the stricken foe's retaliatory strike.
Filching Apples
In research and development, the Soviets now spend $16 billion v. the U.S.'s $13 billion. Much of this effort is defensive. To blind American radar, the Soviets have developed a metallic radar chaff that forms an impenetrable curtain in the air. When the invasion of Czechoslovakia began, the Russians used this "metallic mist" to blind Western radar while Soviet transports swept into Prague airport. The Soviets are working on an anti-satellite that can examine U.S. spies-in-the-sky and knock them down. They are putting into service a Mach 3 twin-finned MIG-23, primarily a bomber killer, and are developing three classes of quieter and faster attack submarines whose mission will be to seek out and destroy submarines. Also under development: a second-generation "coasting" or "loitering" ABM, which would linger in the anticipated flight path of an incoming enemy missile and pounce on it from above.
But the Soviet R&D effort is not all defense-oriented. The Russians have developed a swing-wing bomber and a fractional orbital bombing system (FOBS), using ICBMs that are fired on a low trajectory and would approach the U.S. from its blind side: the Southwest, where American radar coverage is still scant. At the Sary-Shagan test site in Kazakhstan, the world's largest missile impact range, the Russians are also developing a longer-range sub-fired missile for its new Yankee class submarines: one of them is already on patrol off the U.S.'s Atlantic coast.
Impressive as it is, the Soviet military has serious deficiencies. It lacks an efficient logistics system, as Czechoslovakia proved when Moscow had to press civilian trucks into service and when Soviet soldiers ran out of rations and water after a few days. Russian soldiers are trained, however, to live off the land; some did so in Prague by trying to filch apples from the garden at the American embassy.
Despite improvements, Soviet submarines do not run as deeply and quietly as U.S. subs and are thus easier to detect and catch. Soviet surface ships lack air cover when they venture outside Russian waters. The Soviet navy is now trying to remedy that failing through the installation of shipboard antiaircraft missiles.
The Soviets have two other severe handicaps. One is the questionable reliability of their Warsaw Pact allies, who in the event of an emergency might not prove too helpful to the Communist cause. An even more serious failing is lack of experience. For better or worse, the U.S. has fought two major wars in the past two decades. An entire generation of Soviet officers and N.C.O.'s, however, have never been subjected to the crucible of combat.
For all its ominous overtones, the Soviet military buildup has had one positive result. If the Soviets had not gained parity with their old rival, they undoubtedly would have refused to participate in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which started in Vienna two weeks ago. For the U.S., however, the question is when--or whether--the Soviets will halt their missile momentum. In his speech last week, Laird emphasized that if Soviet strength were to level off, Washington would not be alarmed. But if the Kremlin sought to move from parity to superiority, the Secretary of Defense added, the U.S. would have to launch its own buildup. It is no secret that Gerard Smith, the chief U.S. negotiator at SALT, and Secretary of State William Rogers would have preferred not to draw public attention to the Soviet buildup. But President Nixon felt otherwise and, as Laird explained privately, "if I don't give this speech, the President will have to."
Critics of the Pentagon, who recall past U.S. overreaction to a supposed Soviet bomber threat in the late '50s and an imaginary "missile gap" in the early '60s, fear that Laird is overdramatizing the Soviet menace. Senator William Proxmire, for example, accuses the Defense Department of resorting to scare tactics to coax more funds out of Congress. Many critics regret that the Nixon Administration refused to heed the
Senate's advice to propose to the Soviets an immediate mutual moratorium on the deployment of defensive and offensive strategic weapons, including MIRV and ABM. As these critics see it, this approach would have involved no serious risks for U.S. security. Their argument is that the U.S. deterrent is capable of dealing with any contingency and that the Polaris fleet remains invulnerable to Soviet countermeasures. Thus, Moscow's missile buildup has not yet approached the point where it could alter the nuclear balance.
Yet, if a new action-reaction cycle is set in motion with the deployment of ABMs and MIRVs, the present balance of terror could be upset. Warns M.I.T.'s George Rathjens: "The American deployment of the MIRVs is not in our own national interest and is a threat to both countries." His point is that, as a countermeasure, the Soviets may feel compelled to link the firing of their own ICBMs to a radar warning system. That would leave the decision to launch with a machine, which could suffer a short circuit and set off World War III. Rathjens and many other American intellectuals, notably Columbia's Marshall Shulman, feel that U.S. security would be better served by holding off on MIRV deployments while trying to seek a mutual ban on the weapons with the Soviets at SALT.
Aside from SALT, the Soviet military surge worries U.S. and NATO defense planners because of the new flexibility it gives the Kremlin. Present Soviet military doctrine warns that the imperialists are plotting to unleash a nuclear war and stresses that the Russians must be ready to deliver "a timely rebuff to the aggressors." Despite this purposely vague formula, the Russians reject the idea of starting an unprovoked nuclear war themselves. As Sovietologist Raymond L. Garthoff, now an adviser to the U.S. delegation at SALT, pointed out in his 1966 book, Soviet Military Policy: "Communist doctrine does inject unusually strong hostility and suspicion into Soviet policymaking, but Marxism-Leninism does not propel the Soviet Union blindly toward war or the witting assumption of great risks." Communist doctrine does, however, impel them toward a global competition short of direct U.S.-Soviet warfare.
Economic Dilemma
What will the Russians do with their power? For one thing, they may be emboldened to become less wary about facing down the U.S. in isolated instances abroad. Equally important, the U.S. may become more cautious about situations that could lead to a confrontation. With Soviet ships all over the Mediterranean, a U.S. landing in Lebanon of the 1958 variety would be virtually out of the question today. The main thrust of Soviet power, however, is almost certain to be toward undermining the confidence of U.S. allies in the value of American protection and to move into areas where the West's influence is either marginal or declining.
In Western Europe, the Soviets are attempting to capitalize on fears about the declining effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear umbrella and the likely departure of large numbers of U.S. troops. In this anxious situation, the Soviets obviously hope that their own growing power will persuade the Western Europeans to be less closely aligned with the U.S.
In the Middle East, the Russians now have some 12,000 advisers, and they have supplied the Arabs with at least $3 billion in arms aid since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Earlier this month, Soviet landing craft loaded with Egyptian and perhaps Syrian troops simulated a landing south of Tel Aviv, while some 50 Soviet warships were strung out across the Mediterranean from Libya to Greece as a blocking force against NATO fleets. A Soviet flotilla regularly patrols the Indian Ocean, until recently a British and American preserve, and
Soviet naval activity in the Pacific has doubled in the past few years. Along the Sino-Soviet border, the Russians have doubled their troops to 300,000, brought up medium-range missiles (MRMs), and established a new area command to coordinate the defense efforts.
The Soviets have paid a high price for their military buildup. Though they have assembled an impressive array of military might, they have done so at the cost of neglecting important sectors of their economy. The heavy emphasis on defense spending is one main reason why large sectors of Soviet industry have lagged so far behind in modernization. The Soviets have given up a whole array of consumer goods that other people in other countries, even within Eastern Europe, take for granted.
In the coming months, Russia's military machine may well pose a crucial dilemma for Leonid Brezhnev. If he does indeed depend on the generals for vital support, he will naturally be extremely wary of cutting into military expenditures. On the other hand, since he has staked his political reputation on his ability to improve the Soviet economy, he will be under increasing pressure to carry out a reordering of Soviet priorities.
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