50 and 75 battalions of SA-2's, SA-3's, [and] SA-4's, as well as several regiments of SA-6's." " No doubt, these form an integrated air defense environment for the GDR as well as for the Soviet forces, perhaps thereby in the Soviet view-mitigating any need for separate East German capabilities.

Air defenses, of course, include interceptor aircraft as well as missiles, but here again one finds a pattern of Pact dependence on the USSR.20 All Pact states possess MIG's of the 17, 19, and 21 varieties. In addition, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, and Hungary have the SU-7 short-range fighter-bomber, and the first three also have the 11-28 longer-range fighter-bomber. But every one of these planes appeared in Soviet inventories before 1960, although they have been modified significantly in subsequent years (in the case of the MIG-21 [Fishbed-J], as recently as 1970). Moreover, the USSR boasts newer interceptors-the Foxbat (MIG-25), the Flagon E (SU-15), and an air-to-air version of the Flogger (MIG-23). All were first shown in 1967, and they went into service in 1971, 1974, and 1971, respectively. However, none has yet been placed in nonSoviet WTO national air forces. The Soviet Air Force also has the Fencer (SU-19), a fighter-bomber with variable-geometry wings, and a Flogger modified for ground attack. These, too, have been held back from other WTO air forces.

The dependence of other WTO countries on the Soviet Union for air defense is further underlined by the absence of any separate air defense command for the Pact. Instead, the Pact relies on the Soviet Air Defense Command, now headed by Marshal P. F. Batitsky.

All the equipment just discussed, it should be noted, has been created and deployed in accordance with Soviet military doctrine. Doctrine and forces, of course, have a symbiotic relationship. Although much of official Soviet military doctrine is shrouded

19 See Hearings, Part 1, p. 183.

20 For descriptions of aircraft characteristics and East European air forces, see The Military Balance 1974-75, pp. 11-14 and 74. Some assessments are also provided in General Brown's testimony, Hearings, Part 1, pp. 147, 162, and 178-84.

21 For many years, the work of Thomas W. Wolfe of the Rand Corporation has been authoritative on the subject of Soviet military doctrine. See especially his Soviet Power and Europe, 1945-1970, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1970 pp. 451-58, 477-82. Two useful and more recent discussions can be found in Trevor Cliffe, Military Technology and the European Balance, Adelphi Paper, No. 89, London, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1972; and John Erickson, Soviet Military Power, Special Supplement to Strategic Review (Washington), Spring 1973.

22 Wolfe, op. cit., pp. 478-80, and Erickson, op. cit., pp. 106-08. 23 See especially A. A. Sidorenko, Nastuplenie (The Offensive),

in great secrecy, discussion in the military press provides some indication of the content of that doctrine." When hardware and forces appear in the field, they constitute a final test of the nature of the official doctrine. Judged by the discussion in the military press, by the disposition of Soviet forces, and by practices in military training exercises, the principal alteration in the doctrine of the WTO during the last decade has been preparation for combat operations with tactical nuclear weapons. Whereas public discussion of Soviet doctrine until the mid1960's largely maintained that any use of tactical nuclear weapons would result in a prompt escalation to general nuclear war, after the fall of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964 increasing attention was paid to tactical nuclear weapons, and statements began to appear in the military press with slightly different nuances of meaning. Some Soviet sources admitted the possibility that war in Europe might under some circumstances be restricted to a tactical nuclear confrontation and not escalate—at least, not immediately-into strategic nuclear war. Warsaw Pact joint exercises after 1964 also stressed combat in a nuclear environment.22 Thus, the indications in the public discussion of military doctrine appear to be confirmed by an examination of WTO training and equipment.

In the view of Soviet military theorists, tactical nuclear war required seizure of the initiative, highly mobile forces, and widely dispersed formations.23 These requirements, in turn, dictated not only an emphasis on tanks and armored personnel carriers and the employment of vast quantities of mobile surface-to-air missiles, but also some capabilities at a lower level than those described above-e.g., widely dispersed bridge-crossing material and tank units with an in-formation decontamination capability.

Out of this brief description of Soviet and Pact

Moscow, Voenizdat, 1970, pp. 57-64. This book has been translated in a useful series put out by the United States Air Force. (For bibliographic information and a review of the first four volumes in the series, see p. 63 of this issue-Eds.) Sidorenko's position on the conduct of tactical nuclear does not differ a great deal from that set forth in the 1962 edition of Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky's important work, Voennaia Strategiia (Military Strategy). See Military Strategy (an English-Language translation), New York, Praeger Publishers, 1963, pp. 278-95. The difference is one of emphasis. In the early 1960's, Sokolovsky's volume envisioned tactical nuclear warfare as a feature of general and global nuclear war. As the decade wore on, the possibility of limiting nuclear war, and even of conducting nonnuclear war, between "the imperialists and socialists" began to be discussed by military writers. None of this discussion, however, excluded the possibility that war between the US and the USSR would become general and nuclear.

bilities within the Warsaw Pact. Pact forces have been upgraded quantitatively and more important-qualitatively during the period under examination here. Yet the pattern of military capabilities of the WTO continues to ensure the military predominance of the USSR and to make the armed forces of the East European states almost wholly dependent on the Soviet Union in two ways. First, the Warsaw Pact lacks any capabilities in some critical areas strategic deterrence and air defense being the most significant. Second, the East European members of the Pact possess none of the most modern generations of Soviet weapons, for the USSR has carefully and systematically withheld these weapons from distribution. This is most obvious with respect to fighter-bombers and interceptor aircraft, but it is also true in regard to items like the SA-6 and tanks.

In combat terms, the preceding elements of dependency on the Soviet Union promote alliance cohesion by ensuring that any East European state would have difficulty maintaining an effective defense posture outside the Pact-either against another WTO member or against NATO-and by simplifying command and control problems through absolute integration of forces. At the same time, the second element in particular could pose long-term difficulties within the alliance. In recent years, not only North Vietnam but also Egypt and Syria have received Soviet equipment as yet unintegrated into the national armed forces of Pact members, and while one cannot predict whether there might be further manifestations of the kind of resentments that the Romanians have occasionally hinted at and the Czechoslovaks demonstrated in 1968, one cannot help feeling that the professional military establishments of loyal allies must find the contrast between their total dependence on the Soviet Union for current-generation technology and the access of armed forces outside the WTO structure to such technology especially galling.

Nothing in the Helsinki CSCE document substantially affects this general picture, but the agreement of each signatory to give 21 days' prior notification of military maneuvers involving in excess of 25,000 troops "which take place in an area within 250 kilometers from its frontier facing or shared with any other European participating state" could ultimately have some significance for relationships within the Pact." While the obligation "rests on a voluntary basis," its fulfillment over time not only would do a great deal to ease tensions between East and West

military affairs, but also might further inhibit operations like that launched in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Prior notification followed by intervention would, of course, have the counterproductive effect of devaluing the CSCE agreements, and clandestine intervention would be even more injurious to the whole CSCE framework. It should be pointed out, however, that prior notification will not materially improve intelligence-gathering, for troop movements of the contemplated size are difficult to camouflage even in the absence of the agreement.

At the same time, the proposals under consideration in the mutual force reductions (MFR) negotiations in progress in Vienna could potentially have far greater impact. NATO has proposed reductions in two stages. The first would involve the withdrawal of 29,000 American troops and 68,000 Soviet troops, after which negotiations for the second round would aim at cutting back forces to a common ceiling of 700,000 troops for NATO and the Warsaw Pact.25 The USSR's original proposal called for a first-stage reduction of 20,000 troops by each side, although this proposal was modified on October 31, 1974, to permit the initial cutbacks to come from the forces of the Soviet Union and the United States alone.26 This first stage was to be followed by reductions of 5 percent and 10 percent in successive years. While the two proposals obviously reflect very different conceptions of the military balance, either one would affect Warsaw Pact capabilities and might also bring about significant adjustments in the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe, with a corresponding diminution of Soviet preponderance within WTO forces.

A General Assessment

Three sets of developments, then, have occurred in the Warsaw Pact since 1969: (1) Pact institutions have been modified in a manner which probably enhances the national roles of East European states; (2) vigorous consultation took place among Pact

24 At the time this article went to press, the "Final Act" of the CSCE was not generally available in printed form, although the substance of the agreement had been published in The New York Times, July 30, 1975. The quoted material comes from a nonclassified, typewritten copy used inside the US government.

25 The details were reported accurately by Leslie Gelb in The New York Times, Feb. 8, 1974.

26 See an interview with Oleg N. Khlestov, chief of the Soviet delegation in Vienna, in Izvestia (Moscow), Dec. 14, 1974. Also see Bernard Marguerite's analysis in Le Figaro (Paris), Nov. 11, 1974.

between the USSR and the "imperialist" statesWest Germany in particular-and Soviet preoccupation with the Northern Triangle (i.e., the territory embraced by the German Democratic Republic, Poland, and Czechoslovakia) and with the areas flanking it (Hungary and the Baltic approaches) results directly from Moscow's determination not to permit another invasion of the USSR by this route. Thus, the argument goes, the Warsaw Pact has military importance to the Soviet Union in two senses: it guarantees the defense of the USSR in forward positions, and it affords a means, through the maintenance of Soviet garrisons in the Pact states, of securing the "rear" of the battlefield of insuring safe access to the reserves and materiel that the Soviet Union would provide in the event of a conventional or tactical nuclear war. Although this view upgrades the military value of Eastern Europe to the security of the USSR, it nonetheless pictures the role of East European military forces as largely neutral in terms of that security.

In some representations, the one or the other of these first two schools of analysis is combined with a sinister evaluation of Soviet intentions. If one judges Soviet intentions as aggressive, of course, the military reality can be made to fit the political judgment, for the need to station troops forward for political control of Eastern Europe or to make a forward defense does place troops nearer to West European targets. All adherents of both schools, however, downgrade the military contribution of East European forces to the achievement of Soviet purposes.

The final school of analysis, which does not crop up often in Western political writing but receives serious attention among contingency planners in the Western defense ministries and in NATO, holds that the forces of East European WTO members are far more integral to Soviet security calculations than either the "political-control" image or the "tangential-security" image would suggest. Its proponents point to the positioning of GDR, Polish, and Czech forces and their employment in Warsaw Pact military exercises as evidence that these forces would prove formidable opponents if Western forces should become involved in a conventional or tactical nuclear conflict with them.

Some subscribers to this school share the judgment of those adherents of the other schools who see the Soviet Union as aggressive. Nevertheless, all its proponents have a substantially higher regard for the potential military contribution of the non

Soviet Warsaw Pact forces than do the proponents of the other two schools.

Some aspects of recent developments would tend to lend credence to each of these images of Soviet purpose. The quantitative and qualitative improvements that have been effected in Soviet forces in the last few years and the continued reluctance of the USSR to release the most modern equipment to its allies might be thought to reinforce the contention that political control of Eastern Europe constitutes the major factor in Soviet judgments about the military worth of the Pact. Moscow's positioning of five divisions in Czechoslovakia even after the political situation there had stabilized and continued Soviet insistence that the Pact's Joint Command and Staff be dominated by Soviet officers could be seen as support for the "tangential-security" argument. And the qualitative improvements in non-Soviet Pact forces combined with the possible trend toward more genuine sharing of command authority within the Pact might be viewed as corroborating the notion that the Pact is integral to Soviet security.

None of the images, however, is totally adequate in itself to explain the pattern of post-1969 changes within the Pact. For example, while the recent quantitative and qualitative upgrading of Soviet WTO forces and the continued reluctance of the USSR to release the most modern weapons to its allies can be said to uphold the validity of the "politicalcontrol" image, they do not compel that conclusion. One can argue that the upgrading has simply been designed to designed to maintain the NATO/WTO balance achieved prior to the period under examination. NATO has made, and is making, improvements of its own. For instance, the reorganization of West German forces and the application of the JacksonNunn and Nunn amendments to US forces in Germany have considerably enhanced NATO's combat capability since 1971." It is also possible to see

27 For discussions of US efforts to improve combat capabilities in Europe during recent years, partly under the impact of the JacksonNunn and Nunn amendments, see Schlesinger's Defense Posture Statement, pp. iii-29, and General Brown's testimony in Hearings, Part 1, p. 193. The original text of the Jackson-Nunn Amendment, which sought to offset "any balance of payments deficit" resulting from stationing US troops in Europe by freezing the numbers of those troops unless US allies increased their contributions, may be found in the Congressional Record (Washington, DC), Sept. 25, 1973, p. S17621. An Ad Hoc Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee held hearings on it in February and March 1974, and these contain useful data on the general subject. See US Military Commitments to Europe, Hearings of Ad Hoc Subcommittee, House Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, 1974, especially pp. 49-50, 126-29 (the (Continued on p. 18)