Excerpt from The Impact of Gorbachev's Reform Movement on the Soviet Military: Hearing Before the Defense Policy Panel of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, Hearing Held July 14, 1988
Gorbachev inherited a bloated military infrastructure. The sheer Size Of the force requires large amounts of manpower, puts enor mous strains on modernization. So we see the Soviets talking about the future and using arguments from the past. I think part Of that ii because they are reacting to an inheritance. I want to emphasize t at.
Probably the biggest single change in the new Soviet doctrine has been their discussion of accepting a defensive defense.
The third figure in the prepared text, is based on Soviet sources as briefed to their Officers and the General Staff Academy in about 1984 in which they were making the following arguments that in the event of war - and they clearly say that they wouldn't start the war - but if there were a crisis and hostilities were imminent, if there were hostilities, they would expect the following from the armed forces.
They would be expected on key selected areas Of confrontation to seek out and destroy the opposing forces, control the Opposing terri tory, make sure that the war was not fought on their territory and also destroy or retard with conventional means the defender's abili ty to respond with nuclear weapons.
In a perverted way, their strategic view Of the Eurasian land mass, I think, could be interpreted as defensive, as saying, Our area is sacrosanct and we are trying to provide this perimeter secu rity. But that ends up being offensively driven. That is, they are invading other peoples' lands to get that defensive requirement. That is a strategy that Gorbachev inherited.
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