Gorbachev and the Soviet Military

F. Stephen Larrabee

From Foreign Affairs, Summer 1988

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Summary:  When Gorbachev came to power, the influence of the military had declined somewhat from its highest point in the early 1970s. It was tainted with the blunders of SS-20 deployment, Afghanistan and the shooting down of the Korean airliner (later, the Mathias Rust flight supplied a fourth blunder). Notes in some detail changes of personnel, which have tended to reduce military influence, as has the greater assertiveness by the Party. The military have generally supported Gorbachev's arms control policy but the shift in doctrine from parity to reasonable sufficiency has been argued more by civilian than military analysts. Notes that technological imperative transcends the military-civil divide. Gorbachev needs to continue to control personnel, to enjoy some economic and arms control success and to avert upheaval in Eastern Europe.

F. Stephen Larrabee, a member of the National Security Council staff from 1978 to 1981, is Vice President and Director of Studies of the Institute for East-West Security Studies in New York. The views expressed here are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute.

Since his assumption of power in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev has embarked upon a program of far-reaching economic and social reform. One of the key factors determining the ultimate success or failure of Gorbachev’s efforts will be his ability to persuade the Soviet military to go along with these changes.

The military represents a powerful force in Soviet society. As the institution most directly responsible for maintaining Soviet security, it plays a key role in defining the nature of the external threat faced by the Soviet Union. The military is also an important claimant on scarce Soviet resources. The defense industry has priority access to the best raw materials, the most advanced machinery and the most qualified workers. Thus any successful reform over the long run is likely to run up against powerful military interests. Similarly, any arms control agreement will need the military’s support.

There are growing signs that Gorbachev sees a deep interconnection between his program of economic restructuring and the need to restructure military policy. Since coming to power he has made a number of important changes in the military-security area that could have important consequences not only for civil-military relations in the U.S.S.R. but for broader East-West relations. As the United States looks to shaping the U.S.-Soviet agenda in the aftermath of the fourth Reagan-Gorbachev summit, it may be useful to examine these changes in some detail.

II

Gorbachev’s current relations with the Soviet military must be seen against the background of developments in the late Brezhnev period. Under Brezhnev the influence and power of the military had significantly increased; indeed, the early Brezhnev years have aptly been termed the "golden age" of the high command. During this period (until about 1975) the concerns of the armed forces were given precedence and requests for resources were rarely challenged. The presence of the military was also institutionalized in the Politburo in 1973 (with the promotion of Marshal Andrei Grechko to that body), giving it a direct voice in the highest decision-making body.

Relations with the military deteriorated, however, in the latter half of Brezhnev’s rule as the rate of Soviet economic growth declined from four percent in the 1960s to a little more than two percent in the late 1970s. This slowdown accentuated critical resource allocation decisions and prompted the Soviet leadership to cut back on the rate of growth of defense spending. Whereas Soviet defense spending had increased at a rate of four to five percent in the period 1965-1975, it dropped to two percent from 1977-1983, with investment devoted to the procurement of new weapons showing no growth at all during the same period. During that period, by contrast, U.S. defense spending visibly increased, especially after the election of President Reagan in 1980.

The slowdown in Soviet defense spending lasted too long to have been caused by technical problems or bottlenecks. Rather it appears to have been the result of a deliberate policy decision to peg the growth rate of defense spending ...

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