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Douglass, Jos ep h D . J r . and A m ore t t a M. H oebe r , Conventional Warand Escalation: The Soviet View. Nat iona l S t ra t egy In fo rmat ion Cen ter ,Inc . , New York: Crane, Russak and Co. Inc . , 1981.

Dziak, J.J. , Soviet Perceptions of Military Power: The Interaction of Theoryand Practice. Nat ional St rategy Informat ion Center Inc . , New York:Crane, Russak and Co. Inc . , 1981.

O n e of the co m m on es t of m an kin d's m any follies is that of takingoneself as the measure of al l mankind. This fal lacy has caused as manywars as anything el se: wishful or e thnocent r ic th inking has helpedalong many a decision to go to war—"the Bri t ish don' t real ly care

about the Falk land Is lands ," "only a few thousand Soviet t roops arene ed ed to sor t ou t Afg hanis tan ," and so on . T h e pr inc ipal them e ofthese two monographs addresses specif ic examples of this fal lacy—namely that the ru lers of the USSR regard nuclear war as "unth inkab le" and that they make the same dist inct ions about mil i tary andpoli t ical matters that we do. Nei ther is the least bi t t rue and holdingto ei ther of these rather pious bel iefs wil l do us no good.

The thesis of Douglass and Hoeber 's work is simply stated: theUSSR is planning for a nuclear war (at least on the tactical level) and

indeed sees the use of nuclear weapons as inevi table in any WarsawPact /NATO general war . Like the Duke of Wel l ington, they knowthat great nat ions cann ot have smal l wars . T h e au tho rs are w r i tingagainst a belief, which they claim is pervasive in Western circles, thatthe Soviets have given up the not ion that they may have to f ight anuclear war , are p lanning a purely convent ional war and, fur thermore, make the same dis t inc t ion between the two that Western p lanners do. On the contrary, to the Soviets war is war and, as such, al lweapons are avai lable . They quote Marshal Grechko (Minis ter of Def-

en ce un til his de at h in Apr il 1976): ". . . in a fu tu re w orld w ar, if theimperialists start i t [as, by definition, they will], nuclear missiles willbe the decid ing means of warfare ." That ' s a pret ty def in i te s ta tement .The authors argue, that for the Soviets , the debate i s not whether touse nuc lear weapons bu t where a n d when.

In recent years the Soviets have been discussing convent ional warmore and, according to the authors , seem to be coming to an agreement that there are some compel l ing reasons for s tar t ing a war notwi th nuclear weapons but wi th convent ional weapons. General ly

speaking, star t ing a war convent ional ly would al low the Soviets tocomplete thei r mobi l izat ion and to wear down NATO's nuclear weapons and command and con t ro l appara tus—in shor t , t ha t t he in t ro duction of nuclear weapons would be more effective after a conventionalp r e l u d e . Fu r t h e r mo r e , t h e au t h o r s c o n t en d , t h e So v i e t s ' ap p a r en tcurrent emphasis on convent ional forces represents thei r convic t ionthat nu clear w eap ons c ann ot do th e whole jo b effec tively by them selves. Ac cord ing to the au tho rs , th is recen t emp hasis on conven t ional

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Dziak 's wo rk is a l so ad m on i tory an d con ce rne d w i th s t ra tegicethnocent r i sm. Whi le the f i r s t book d iscussed warned us not to th inkthat the Soviets bel ieved that nuclear and convent ional war were twodifferent things, this one caut ions against the bel ief that the Soviets

see war and peace or pol i t i cs and mi l i tary ac t ion as separate . Theyare but d i f ferent aspects of the same th ing . As every Marxis t -Leninis tknows, wars are the inevi table concomitant of imper ial i sm; therefore ,as long as imperial ist regimes exist , there wil l be wars. Peace is theabol i t ion of the causes of wars (not merely the absence of wars);the ref or e p eac e is th e final des t ruc t ion of imp er ial ism-cap i ta l i sm an dthe t r iumph of soc ial i sm. Thus , by th is logic , war i s peace and peaceis victory.

Dziak takes passing aim at that wel l- loved speculat ion (much cur

rent today with the new succession r i tes) that there wil l be a st rugglefor power between the "mi l i tary" and "pol i t i cal" leadership of theSoviet Union. In real i ty they are the same people—no one can r i sein the arm ed forces unless he is a t rus ted an d vet ted par ty m em be r .T h e fou nd ers o f t he Bo lshev ik s ta t e we re de te rm ined to p reve n t "Bon-apar t i sm" and took care to ensure that the armed forces were wel lcontrol led by the party. In this they were successful . With the possibleexcept ion of the Tukhachevsky af fai r in 1937, there has never beena mi l it a ry a t t em pt a t a co up , o r any o th er a t t em pt fo r t ha t m at t e r .Officers, l ike everybody else in the Soviet apparat , are subject to observat ion by the KGB and, addi t ional ly , are watched by the MainPoli t ical Administrat ion of the armed forces. In fact , the connect ionis even closer tha n this . I t is no t simply tha t the party wa tched thearmy but that , a t the h ighest levels , the two are one. Brezhnev wash ead o f t h e p a r t y ap p a r a t u s , h ead o f t h e g o v e r n men t ap p a r a t u s , an dhe was Su pre m e Com m ande r - in -Chief . In shor t , like the Czar , he wasthe Vozhd , t he Leader . The members o f t he Defence Counc i l a re theimpor t an t members o f t he Po l i tbu ro . Th i s s t ands in g rea t con t ras t t oequivalent bodies in the West in which a commit tee of generals and

civi l servants advises the pol i t ical leaders; in the USSR, al l committeesa r e p eo p l ed b y t h e s ame memb er s .

Dziak 's expl icat ion of the decis ion-making commit tees a t the topof the Soviet pyramid makes i t perfect ly clear that al l decisions aremade wi th an eye to the overal l s t ruggle between capi ta l i sm and soc iali sm u p on w hich M arx fo un de d h is theory of h is tory . In s t ress ingthat war is a cont inuat ion of pol i t ics, Dziak could equal ly st ress thecon vers e, pol it ics ar e a co nt i nu at io n of war. I t is on e st rug gle an d al lforces ar e co ord ina ted a nd app l ied to the v ic tory . T h e "correla t ionof forces" could be seen s imply as the s t rength to "make us an offerwe can ' t refuse." I t is presumably in this l ight that Douglass andH oe bn er ' s m on og ra ph shou ld a lso be seen . W he the r o r no t t he Sov ie tsreal ly bel ieve that they can f ight and win a nuclear war, they veryl ikely bel ieve that i t wil l never need to come to that . They probablyag ree wi th on e of the shrew des t and m ost successfu l p lo t ters of h is tory ,Tokugawa Ieyasu , that "The r ight use of mi l i tary power i s that i t

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should conquer whi le remain ing concea led in the breas t . To take thefie ld with an army is to be found wanting in the real knowledge ofit."1 One of the clearest i l lustra t ions of the way in which armed mightcan be us ed w itho ut res or tin g to fire-power is th e way in which th eSoviets took over the Baltic states in 1939. There was no need to fight,the correla t ion of forces saw to that . 2

In pla in te rm s, Dziak is sta t ing tha t the re is ind ee d a plot ; th er eis a Sovie t "Plan for W orld C onq uest ." Un for tun a te ly , s ince S ena torMcCarthy, this message is too easily dismissed. Now, in fact, there isno "plot ;" there is no secret document wri t ten by Lenin in 1905 whichlays out a l l the moves to checkmate. Only poor chess players play bytrying to work out a l l their moves in advance. A real ly good chessplayer does not do this at all . He sets out to slowly and carefully buildu p a posi t ion of stre ng th. His op po ne nt , i f he is no t up to his quali ty ,

f inds h imse l f slowly s t rang led an d h is f reedo m of m ov em ent red uc edunti l the chess master feels that the correla t ion of forces wil l permitthe f inal mov es. Ju st wh at these f inal mov es are d ep en ds on how thegame has deve loped. From a powerfu l posi t ion , there a re many routesto checkmate . There never was a de ta i led p lan but ne i ther was thereany doubt where the chess maste r was going .

Dziak shows in the clearest possible way that the chess masters inthe Kremlin do have the long-range a im of winning the game and a l ltheir resources are bent to this end. Occasionally they lose a pawn,

occasionally o ne of their s nar es is block ed, bu t a lways they ar e g oingthe same way. Why do the Soviets have such a large navy? That 'seasi ly answered—all chess sets have rooks. They intend to block al lthe rou tes so tha t when they ma ke th eir offer, we can ' t refuse i t.

Bo th o f the se works a re wr i t ten by peop le who un de r s t a nd the i rsubjec t thoroughly and have gone to the source for the i r suppor t ingda ta . Both of them are a rguing a re la ted poin t—the Sovie ts do th ingsdi f fe rent ly than does the West , and we must accura te ly de te rminethe i r methodology. Anyth ing less and we wi l l be de luding ourse lves .

These books should be read, but probably wil l not be , by al l thosewho take the (appealing and cheerful) view that , i f only we could si tdown toge ther , every th ing could be worked out to a mutua l ly sa t i s factory conclusion. I t is not t rue that 'our ' s ide does a l l the thinkingand that the 'other ' s ide a l lows us to define their categories of stra tegicthought . The Sovie ts would l ike us to cont inue in th is de lus ion . Thechess player who sees the game only in terms of his own ini t ia t ives,and his opponent 's react ions to them, wil l surely lose the game.G . P . A r m s t r o n g

Head , War Game Methodo logy Sec t ionDi rec to ra te o f Land Ope ra t iona l Resea rch

Na t ional De fence He ad qu a r te r s

Ot tawa , On ta r io

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F o o t n o t e s

1. To ku gaw a Ieyasu won a long and involved pow er s t ruggle in 16th centu ry Japanbeco min g Sho gun in 1603 and foun ded a dynas ty which endu re d unt i l 1868. T h equ ota tion is take n fro m a collection of sayings which h e left to guide his heirs .

Despite his own advice, h e took th e field ma ny tim es but his final battle at Sek igaha rawas won by guile as m uc h as by fighting. H e is the origina l of the cha rac ter T or an gain the novel Shogun. Chinese s t ra tegis t Sun Tzu expressed s imilar sent iments inhis famous observat ion tha t " to subdue the enemy without f ight ing is the acme ofskill."

2. Ho we ver, th e Finns de m on str ate d that the correla tion of" forces was no t quit e asfavourable as Stalin thought; had Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia elected to fight i tis possible that they, like Fin land , wou ld be in de pe nd en t tod ay.

J

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