Research for Doctrine

In January 1977, General Secretary L.I. Brezhnev delivered an address in the city of Tula whose impact on Soviet doctrine and capabilities continues to this day. By rejecting the possibility of a means of defense against nuclear weapons, or a damage-limiting capacity in nuclear war, Brezhnev closed the door on a debate that had lasted over a decade in Soviet military thought. Since Tula, the Soviet politico-military leadership has presented a consensus on the reality of 'Mutual Assured Destruction' in present-day conditions. The Soviet debate on the viability of nuclear war as an instrument of policy was likewise resolved by a consensus: nuclear war is so unpromising and dangerous that it remains an instrument of policy only in theory, an instrument of policy that cannot be used. While the Soviet consensus on the diminishing military utility of nuclear weapons represents a ground-breaking shift in doctrine since the heyday of Marshal Solokovskiy, there is scant evidence of any dispute on the new correlation of war and policy in a nuclear age. Marshal N.V. Ogarkov and other hard-minded military figures have themselves emerged as the architects of the Soviet shift away from a nuclear war-fighting and war-winning strategy, while General Secretary Gorbachev has fashioned a corresponding arms control agenda.

U.S. defense officials have often said that the Soviet Union expects Western Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) forces to attack its Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBNs) and thus is prepared to defend them in war. These Soviet expectations may have been encouraged by U.S. declaratory policy on the subject--that is, the totality of official and other authoritative statements on strategic doctrine and policy, ASW technology and programs from which Soviet observers reach conclusions about U.S. intentions. This paper reviews U.S. declaratory policy between 1970 and 1985 to determine specifically what that policy has been and then to infer what it has probably meant to the Soviets. It concludes that throughout this period official U.S. declaratory policy has implied an intent to engage in strategic ASW and that the Soviets have had strong reasons to believe that their SSBNs have been and will continue to be targets of U.S. ASW forces.

This paper discusses the Soviet naval doctrine: Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing Carrier or the Conventional takeoff and Landing Carrier.

Examines shifts in the Soviet perspective on long-term military development, and discusses the doctrinal realization of these shifting perspectives in the course of successive five-year plans.