Soviet strategic conduct and the prospects for stability

Throughout the nuclear age American defence planners have had ample exposure to the broad essentials of Soviet military thought, including its stress on the operational virtues of strategic superiority and its persistent advocacy of forces capable of fighting to meaningful victory in the event of war. Until recently, however, American officials tended to dismiss these views as merely the parochial axe-grindings of the General Staff and to profess confidence that those civilians on the Politburo ‘who really mattered’ had the inherent good sense to appreciate the superior wisdom of prevailing Western strategic logic.1