spurred NATO efforts to develop comparable weaponry for member navies. The Norwegian Penguin, the French Exocet, and the American Harpoon were the result. Another influence on the size of the Soviet defense budget and the expansion of military programs is the prominence given to the armed forces by Brezhnev. In 1964, the new leadership lost little time in assuring the military that the party held them in high esteem. Since then, the regime has stressed the autonomy and specialized nature of the military. The amorphous "Stalingrad group" has retained its hold on policy-influencing positions, but younger men have been promoted at an unusually high, although erratic, rate. These promotions have been based on the individual's experience with conventional and nonconventional weaponry; the trend is toward great specialization, providing for integration of nuclear and conventional specializations. Not only have younger men been promoted to commands (a large percentage of prominent incumbents in 1972, for instance, were under 60 years old, slightly less in the 50 to 55 age bracket, and some were even in their 40's), they also gained access to the highest policy councils. As professionalism increased, a basic comparability of party and military aspirations increased, and most problems pertaining to military issues and policy are left to Frunze Street. As the 25th Soviet Communist Party Congress makes clear, however, political and economic authority continues to be jealously held by the civilian leadership. U.S.S.R. DEFENSE MINISTRY Another element here is the close, personal links Brezhnev has had with military men throughout his political career. During the Second World War, as political commissar of the Soviet 18th Army, he began his long friendship with Gen. Andrei Grechko; on April 12, 1967, 12 days after Malinovsky died, Marshal Grechko became Brezhnev's defense minister. Other wartime and political colleagues now in key positions are Adm. Sergei Gorshkov, commander in chief of the Soviet Navy; Gen. Viktor Kulikov, chief of the Soviet armed forces general staff and a first deputy defense minister; Marshal Kirill S. Moskalenko, another deputy defense minister and presently the chief of the main inspectorate of the Soviet armed forces; Gen. Sergei Shtemenko, whom Khrushchev had demoted, was returned to rank and authority by Brezhnev and made chief of staff for Warsaw Pact forces (Shtemenko died this spring but has not yet been replaced); until his death in 1970, Marshal Andrey Yeremenko served as inspector general of the Soviet defense ministry; Gen. Ivan G. Pavlovsky, also a deputy minister of defense and commander-in-chief of Soviet land forces (Pavlovsky commanded the units that invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968); Gen. Nikolai Lyaskchenko is Central Asian military district commander; Col. Gen. Anton I. Gastilovich is deputy head of the Soviet general staff academy; Col. Gen. Konstantin Gruskevoi is political commissar of Moscow military district; Lt. Gen. Nikita S. Demin is deputy chairman of civilian "volunteer assistants of the army, air force, and navy" (DOSAAF), a paramilitary and pre-military training organization; and Gen. Aleksei A. Yepishev is chief political commissar of the Soviet Army and Navy and a chief link for Brezhnev to the high command. In 1971, 20 high ranking military officers achieved full membership of the central committee and, of these, seven are close political allies of the secretary general.9 DECISIONMAKING Prof. Marshall D. Shulman of Columbia University has written a detailed description of the Soviet decisionmaking process on SALT matters which shows the military's present predominance in strategic issues, a process John Newhouse also documented in his book Cold Dawn about the SALT I negotiations. Shulman's description also notes the difference between decisionmaking in Washington and Moscow. He writes: There is no Soviet analogue to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; no precise analogue to the National Security Council and its staff; and no circulation of defense scientists in and out of government, as in the United States, to provide an independent lobby and public debates on arms control issues. The Supreme Soviet, the legislative arm of government, does have standing commissions on foreign policy, which approved the first SALT Treaty, but in the Soviet system there is no equivalent to congressional committee hearings, which are independent of and often critical of the administration position during the period when decisions are being made. In the Soviet Union, the military play a larger role in originating positions on SALT than in the United States. The main locus of work on the preparation of positions for SALT is to be found in the Soviet ministry of defense, which has a section charged with this responsibility, under the general staff. Although the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs is involved in the process, its role is largely limited to the diplomatic and political aspects of the negotiations, and it is kept out of the technical hardware details of arms limitation problems. Between the ministry of defense and the party leadership are a number of important mechanisms for coordinating military policy with political and economic considerations, including the military council, on which Brezhnev sits as chairman, and the military industrial commission, which oversees the Soviet armament industry. The Soviet penchant for extreme secrecy on military matters has restricted technical information on arms control issues to a small circle within the Soviet military establishment, although the effects of summit meetings on SALT may have widened the circle of party and government officials who are informed and involved in arms limitation matters.10 9 John Dornberg, Brezhnev: The Masks of Power. New York, 1974. For a view of the central role of the party chief and the party in military policy formulation, especially Brezhnev as a "Bonaparte" in the Soviet system, see William E. Odom, "Who Controls Whom in Moscow," Foreign Policy, Summer 1975. 10 Marshall D. Shulman, "SALT: Through the Looking Glass." Arms Control Today, February 1975. DEFENSE IDEOLOGY An analysis of Soviet military considerations affecting national policymaking written by Dr. Carl G. Jacobsen formerly of Harvard. University contends, "Although the armed forces constitute only one of the policy-effecting instruments of the political leadership, the armed forces establishment is integrated into this political leadership to an extent which entails considerable influence on the choice of instruments." This influence extends to the economy. For example, at the 24th CPSU Congress in 1971, Brezhnev acknowledged that 42 percent of (the defense industry's) output is used for civilian purposes." The significance of this figure is also reflected in the privileged position of the defense's recruitment of scientists, the productive capacity of these industries, and the state of military/civilian integration. In that same speech, Brezhnev justified increased military spending because of the increasing American commitment to the Indochina war and to China's anti-Moscow bellicosity." One result after a decade of Soviet military self-oversight is the lavish display of procurement. And the institutional momentum continues today. This level of military activity, of course, injects a large degree of uncertainty into any analysis of the relationship between increased military spending and Soviet ideology and national interest. Another situation putting pressure on the Soviet military budget is the enlargement of para-military forces maintained primarily for internal security purposes. The KGB border guards and MVD security troops have grown substantially in recent years. The dissident voices of intellectuals and religious groups coupled with activities against Brezhnev by party members Shelepin (over ambition), Suslov (over Czechoslovakia), and Shelest (over Westpolitik), caused the leadership to exert more stringent and security-conscious controls on its own citizens. To this end, the home guard was instituted, armed and trained. With the onset of detente externally, increased repressive measures were taken internally. VISIBLY INCREASED PREPONDERANCE Viewed as a whole, the U.S.S.R.'s armed forces have expanded in recent years to provide a "visibly increased preponderance," to use Foreign Minister Gromyko's phrase, behind the country's foreign/ military policy. The reasons for this military expansion are mainly based on the peculiar international and internal security situation the Soviet Union currently perceives it faces plus the psychological sense the leadership has of the country's role in world affairs. As a result, there is now a symmetry in the U.S./U.S.S. R. military balance and a shift of the Soviet Union from a continental power to a country with the modest capacity to intervene locally in contested trouble spots or create some of its own on faraway continents. Whether this military buildup will persist is unclear. The forces in the field today are the result of decisions made before the Brezhnev policy of detente was enacted in 1972. The SALT-era decisions dealing with the deployment of new weapons are an unknown. 11 C. G. Jackson, Soviet Strategy-Soviet Foreign Policy: Military Considerations Affecting Soviet Policy-Making. Glasgow, 1974. Ill. Usefulness of U.S./U.S.S.R. Military Spending Comparisons III. In analyzing the force balance between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., are comparisons of military spending useful? It is argued that such comparisons (a) can show the relative size of the effort devoted by each side to producing and maintaining military power; (b) provide clues to the intentions of each side; and (c) indicate a trend in relative military capability. Spending comparisons serve to aggregate a very large number of different elements supporting military power into simple and apparently comprehensive sets of numbers. But if the forces and activities on both sides are given common weighting factors-prices, in effect— and the products aggregated, the resulting sums can be compared. Relative size and trends are immediately apparent. And since the weighting factors are money valuations, and most people believe they know the value of money, the resultant numbers have an appealing "feel" of reality. Other uses of spending comparisons are thought to include helping to make judgments about the relative burden of military expenditures on the economies of rival states, about the efficiency with which rivals convert resources into military force, or about the real nature of crucial military balances.' Whether presently available spending comparisons are appropriate to these uses is a technical question to be taken up later in this section. But there can be little doubt that we would like to have a clearer understanding of these questions of burden, efficiency, and balance, and that the costs of the forces in question are relevant to these issues. A. CRITICISM OF BUDGET COMPARISONS The usefulness of cost comparisons as measurements of resource inputs to military forces has been challenged by Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham, retired former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Graham expressed skepticism about the usefulness and validity, particularly of dollar costing, a technique that will be explained later in this section of the study. His reasons for such skepticism are based on his years of close association with intelligence on Soviet military programs. He was unable to believe that the very large increases in Soviet military forces, programs, and activities which he observed during that period were adequately reflected in the very slowly rising CIA cost figures covering the period. Graham testified before the Joint Economic Committee Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government that, "As to dollar presentations, I will probably retain my basic distrust of results. They are simply misleading. While it is not completely clear from Graham's testimony whether he believes there might be a right way to do dollar costing and, if so, whether he thinks the result would be useful, there is a hint that he considers the problem to be fundamentally methodological. He stated, 1 For example, the famous "PEMA-People Paradox" by Alain Enthoven and Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program 1961-1969, New York, 1971. The gist of the paradox is as follows: "The Warsaw Pact had overwhelming ground force strength in Europe, even though they have only slightly more men under arms than NATO, and spend about the same amount on their equipment, operations, and maintenance." for example "... I doubt that the Soviets, with full access to the data denied to us, could produce a valid dollar value of their defense efforts." This seems to imply a view that the problem is exceedingly difficult, but not, in principle, impossible. COST COMPARISONS CAN BE USEFUL Other observers appear to believe that cost comparisons could be useful if properly done. Andrew W. Marshall, Director of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, in a letter submitted to the Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government for its hearings, wrote, "Properly conceived and executed analyses of comparative U.S. and Soviet defense expenditures can provide valuable insights into the status and trends of the two defense efforts." An enclosure to the letter is an extremely thorough and competent treatment of the technical problems involved in making cost comparisons, which concludes, among other things, "On balance, the current estimates tend to underestimate the size of the Soviet activity relative to U.S. defense expenditures. Little confidence is held, therefore, in the absolute magnitude of the Soviet dollar figure specified by the CIA documents." In contrast to those who would concede some usefulness to cost comparisons, if properly done, are those who argue that such comparisons are irrelevant. This line of argument goes as follows: "It doesn't matter what the other side pays for its military forces. It is irrelevant. The real problem is how best to provide a countervailing military capability and that is an internal resource allocation problem unaffected by considerations of the costs the other side incurs. Thus, we confront two differing interpretations regarding cost comparisons: Those who think they could be useful, if properly done, and those who think even theoretically impeccable estimates would not be relevant to the questions they purport to address. B. COSTING METHODOLOGIES Before discussing cost comparison methodologies and attempting to clarify the question of relevance, it is most important to stress that they are extremely complex technical exercises, and that argument about the details of costing or possible systematic bias in the comparisons are likely to be distracting and hence counterproductive. This is because a lot of the methodological problems are insoluble and others, given the massive number of individual calculations, each requiring assumptions, estimates, and approximations, are extremely uncertain as to their effect. Arguments over these points can go on at great length without reaching a conclusion. DOLLAR COSTING The technique by which dollar costing of Soviet military programs is pursued involves two steps: (1) cataloging all of the items involved in those programs; and (2) imputing a dollar cost to each. The cataloging involves counts of observables, such as army divisions, ships, aircraft, tanks, and so on. Many different intelligence-gathering techniques are required to make such counts, and where intelligence gaps exist, estimates of such items, the correct numbers, tempo of operations, logistics support, manning, and so forth must be made. |