Is the military threat to NATO declining, and will it diminish significantly in the 1990s? The answer is not clear, but it is big news that the question can be raised at all. It is bigger news yet that the answer might be yes, considering that the answer has been consistently no over the past four decades.
In 1949, Soviet military power looked threatening: While its quality was poor, the number of divisions was large, and the Soviets also had just exploded their first nuclear weapon. In early 1950, Paul Nitze, as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, completed NSC-68, a study of the Soviet challenge. It projected a growing Soviet military capability that would present NATO with "maximum vulnerability" in 1954 unless the balance were rectified.
The 1960s began with concern over the "missile gap." Although the extent of the gap proved to be an exaggeration, the sixties did witness the beginning of a broad-based Soviet military buildup. By the 1970s, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's prediction that Soviet ICBM forces would not exceed ours looked dubious, if not yet flatly wrong. The Nixon administration was sufficiently troubled to reverse its aversion to arms negotiations and to begin SALT. Notwithstanding the SALT I treaty, Soviet forces continued to expand, particularly ground and naval units. Sen. Mike Mansfield introduced an amendment to reduce the number of U.S. forces deployed in Europe. The Nixon administration responded by initiating the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks in Vienna. While not achieving results, the negotiations served their real purpose of preventing unilateral American troop withdrawals.
In 1979, NATO's 30th anniversary, SALT II was signed, but the trends in the Soviet military buildup were so alarming that the treaty could not be ratified by the U.S. Senate. Modernization and expansion of Soviet forces continued throughout most of the past decade.
Against this record of NATO facing an alarming increase in Soviet military power at the beginning of each of its first four decades, it is a remarkable change to be able to anticipate a leveling, or even declining, trend in Soviet military power. Such a dramatic shift demands that we approach Mikhail Gorbachev's new line with caution. Too much is at stake to act otherwise.
The events creating the new outlook are well enough known. In 1986, the Conference on Disarmament in Europe (CDE) produced a treaty on confidence-building measures, allowing short-notice inspections of military exercises in both NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. Then Soviet negotiators agreed to the American "zero-zero" proposal, and the INF Treaty was signed in 1987.
'Reasonable Sufficiency'
Gorbachev has promulgated a new Soviet military doctrine, "reasonable sufficiency," ostensibly a purely "defensive" doctrine. Optimism about the Conventional Stability Talks (CST) began to grow as discussion of reductions in conventional forces went forward, creating the prospect that the stalemate at MFBR might be overcome at CST. The publics in Europe seem to hope so, although some of the governments, particularly France, show less enthusiasm. Soviet spokesmen have called for "asymmetrical" reductions, a tacit admission of Warsaw Pact superiority and,
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