THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 25
vailed qualitatively over the West in the conceptualization of the emerging
military-technological realities, but never implemented them.
PART ONE: SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
Soviet Echelonment Doctrine and Origination
of ALB and FOFA
Soviet force development policy addressed two basic issues during the 1960s.
First, because the mobility of the enemy’s nuclear weapons allowed the massing
of firepower over great distances, friendly forces had to b e dispersed to
avoid an enemy nuclear attack. Second, the same maneuver forces had to mass
to break through the breaches in the enemy’s defense. The Soviets found the
solution to the problem of these mutually conflicting requirements to disperse
and to mass at once. To decrease vulnerability to nuclear attack, forces would
be deployed in several echelons in the Soviet rear. When the offensive got
under way, they would all concentrate at the line of contact with the enemy,
too close to enable NATO forces to use tactical nuclear weapons. Where enemy
defenses had b een destroyed by Soviet nuclear strikes, the first-echelon
forces would open breaches through which the echelons that followed could
move rapidly, maneuvering and striking in depth. This strategy was expected
to collapse the NATO defensive front.1
In the mid-1970s NATO and the US Army became cognizant of the Soviet
technique of echelonment and realized that in their current state, their defenses
could not stand up to Soviet conventional superiority. The West found
a remedy in emerging technologies. Since the mid-1970s, highly advanced technological
achievements, particularly in the field of microprocessors, computers,
lasers, and electronics, had enabled the production of so-called smart weapons—an
assortment of conventional munitions that were precision-guided to
targets—even in stand-off ranges. Developments in weapons technology and
evolution of thought about future war in Europe led to similar warfare missions
in the US and NATO: to strike deep against enemy offensive follow-on
forces.
The US response was a deep attack doctrine known as US Field Manual
100– 5or Air-Land Battle (ALB). It rested on the premise that follow-on Soviet
echelons had to be neutralized before engaging with the NATO forces. Attacking
the second echelons and destroying them determined the US tactics
and weapons development. The ALB envisioned attacking the Soviet second
echelons with both stand-off precision fire and ground offensive operations.
26 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
Deep attack required improved air support and more accurate long-rangefire
capabilities.2
The “father” of the ALB, Gen. Donn Starry, believed that deployed
conventional forces could continue to fight the advancing Soviet first
echelon, and in the meantime, before the second echelon had time to regroup
after its initial deep-strike bombardment, release authority for battlefield nuclear
w eapons c ould b e ob tained f rom U S p olitical l eaders.3
Si milarly, t he
impetus for NATO’s Follow-on Forces Attack (FOFA) evolved from the same
concern and was fueled by the development of emerging technologies. During
the 1970s, steps were taken to reduce the ratio of enemy forces arriving at NATO’s
defensive positions by using conventional munitions only. FOFA, like its US
counterpart, was designed to attack the enemy as far into the rear as the target
acquisition and conventional weapons systems permitted. Final FOFA proposals
were submitted to N ATO’s Military Committee in October 1981. The
ALB doctrine was formally released a year later.4
Although differences existed between the two doctrines, the Soviets never
placed much emphasis on the distinctions between the offensive posture of
the ALB and the defensive one of FOFA.5
The Soviet General Staff (GS) anticipated
that the combat outcome of both would be essentially the same—
attacks on Warsaw Pact (WP) “operational” depths that would result in disorganization
a nd d istraction o f i ts s econd e chelons.6
Warsaw Pact defense
ministers saw developments in conventional armaments in the early 1980s as
even more ominous than the strategic change wrought by nuclear weapons de-
velopments.7
A LB a nd FOFA t hat encapsulated t hese c apabilities would have
been extremely threatening to Soviet defensive and counteroffensive operations.8
Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, the conceptual task of Soviet military
operations crystallized, focusing on how to neutralize the ALB and FOFA without
using nuclear weapons that would escalate the conflict into global war.
The Roots of the Soviet Military-Technical Revolution
MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray trace the conceptual roots of the
current Western notion of the RMA to t he Soviet writings on the MilitaryTechnical
Revolution.9
Indeed, Soviet theoretical variations on the MTR originated
during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. They were an outgrowth of two
interrelated professional discussions that took place in Soviet military circles.
The first of these discussions was disconnected from the debate over Western
military doctrines and started around the mid-1970s, before the seeds of Western
military innovations emerged. In keeping with Soviet military theory, it
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 27
diagnosed a new Military-Technical Revolution and concentrated on the fundamental,
futuristic inquiry into the impact of scientific progress on the methods
of future military operations. The second discussion focused on militarytechnological
remedies for recent Western doctrinal innovations. It generated
an enormous amount of insight that greatly influenced the formulation of
the MTR.
Official Russian military history treats this period as a doctrinal competition
between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with an enormous degree of mutual
emulation in developing new types of concepts. However, it would be an
oversimplification to assert that the MTR concept merely constituted a Soviet
response to threatening Western doctrines.10
While posing the doctrinal antipode
to Western “deep striking” capabilities, it went far beyond any particular
doctrinal countermeasure and offered a new, coherent theory regarding the future
battlefield under the impact of scientific-technological progress. Each of
the Soviet discussions constituted a n ecessary but insufficient condition for
formulation of the final version of the MTR concept. Both discussions were
symbiotic a nd c omplementary. O nly t he merg ing o f t he t wo suc ceeded i n
producing a coherent military theory, which, while relying in part on US and
NATO military-technological achievements, was nonetheless highly original.
Soviet MTR ideas diverged from Western Active Defense doctrines, which
at that time were far from their final formulation.11
From the mid-1970s, the
Soviets began to engage in theorizing about the third Revolution in Military
Affairs—fundamental changes taking place in t he nature of warfare u nder
the impact of the new technologies.12
By the early 1970s, Soviet military theoreticians
and forecasters had i dentified two periods of fundamental change
during t he t wentieth c entury. The first Revolution in Military Affairs was
prompted by mechanization of air and ground warfare and culminated in the
appearance of deep operations in the 1920s and strategic bombing in World
War II. A second Military-Technical Revolution of the early 1950s was stimulated
by the development of nuclear weapons and missile technology.13
In the mid-1970s, Soviet military forecasters declared that the highlight of
the current phase of military development was the unprecedented emergence
of qualitatively new technologies and equipment. Military applications of microelectronics,
laser, kinetic energy, radio frequencies, electro-optic, electromagnetic
pulse, remote control, and particle beam technologies figured prominently
in Soviet professional discussions. Particular attention was devoted
to automated decision support systems, telecommunications, and enhancing
28 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
accuracy, range, and lethality of stand-off and direct-attack precision-guided
munitions. The Soviets believed that the emerging technologies would potentially
extend the depths to w hich future systems—both sensor technologies
and means of fire—would operate.14
They believed that the current stage
was similar to the early 1920s and early 1950s, when the impact of qualitatively
new weapons on operational concepts and force structures transformed the
nature of war. Once the consensus about the arrival of the third MTR was announced,
m ilitary t heoreticians were e xpected to c onceptualize t he consequences
of the change in military regime. The Soviet theoreticians stressed
that the future introduction of these new means of combat into the tactical,
operational, and strategic levels had to be accompanied by the development of
a new concept of operations.15
These initial insights were transformed into unprecedented conceptual activity,
w hich ga thered mo mentum u nder Ma rshal Oga rkov, c hief o f t he G S
since 1977. Following his promotion, a number of senior officers, noted for their
writings about technologies and future warfare, were also placed in key posi-
tions.16
In Ogarkov’s view, a r evolutionary change was under way, due to t he
qualitative improvement of conventional weaponry. In several professional periodicals
and books, Ogarkov continuously utilized the term Military-Technical
Revolution, indicating t hat t he latest technologies, which made i t possible to
“see and to strike deep” in the future battlefield, and the or gan iza tion al changes
that would accommodate these capabilities, would not constitute a phase in a
process of evolutionary adaptation, but a genuine discontinuity in military affairs.
The impact of the “scientific-technical revolution” required exploitation of
emerging technologies to invent innovative means of conducting operations
and to adjust force buildup and structure in each military service.17
Other leading Soviet military theoreticians echoed Ogarkov’s premises of
the emerging MTR. They attributed the change to a “qualitative leap” in the
modernization of the means of armed conflict, resulting from the latest developments
in science and technology, and first and foremost as applied to conventional
“high-precision” means of warfare. They considered the appearance
of these new weapons a t urning point in the development of military art.18
Particularly, the MTR was expected to enable a greater degree of control from
the center, and to i ncrease the likelihood of the potential attacks on troops’
command and control facilities. Equal importance was attributed to f uture
automated information processing, which would potentially compress the “planning
to decision” and “detection to destruction” cycles.19
Long-range and highly
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 29
accurate fire systems in tandem with expanded sensor and target acquisition
capabilities would increase attrition rates against fixed and mobile targets.20
Explosive substances of enhanced power would expand the zone of destruc-
tion.21
Surprise, coordination of high-tempo operations, and intensive fire support
were emphasized as well. The future battlefield was seen as increasingly
complex, with different kinds of forces participating simultaneously in combined
arms theater operation.22
The M TR d iscussion c oevolved w ith t he S oviet r eassessment o f t he
nuclear–conventional balance. Historically, Soviet views underwent a t riple
transformation during the Cold War. In the 1950s–1960s, the “next war” was envisioned
as an unrestrained missile confrontation—nuclear from the outset.
The views of the early 1970s anticipated a gradual passage from an initially conventional
conflict to total nuclear war. In the late 1970s, the Soviets were reckoning
the probability of a dual nuclear and conventional conflict.23
Beginning
in the 1980s, though, they became skeptical about the potential for an outbreak
of the former. Moscow argued that within the context of the emerging revolution
in military technology, nuclear weapons would continue to play an important
but diminishing role in future war, which could well maintain its conventional
character throughout.24
By the early 1980s, the Soviet military recognized
the inability of either side to “ decapitate” its enemy’s nuclear potential from
the first strike. The catastrophic consequences of a nuclear conflict, combined
with the development of high-accuracy conventional weapons, increased the
probability that the next war would be an all-out non-nuclear one. This in turn
boosted the development of the new theory of conventional war.25
The Soviets vigorously discussed the application of innovative technologies
in producing a n ew generation of conventional armaments that would
exceed their predecessors in range, destructiveness, reliability, speed of delivery,
and accuracy.26
The operational effects that could be produced by emerging
c onventional s ystems were on a pa r w ith nuclear me asures. P recisionguided
strikes in combination with timely detection of targets approached the
effectiveness of tactical nuclear weapons. The tempo and the scale of the conventional
operations started to resemble those of the nuclear warfare scenarios.
More and more missions and tasks formerly perceived as solely nuclear were
expected to become conventional.27
Marshal Ogarkov called for greater attention
to preparing for a war that would employ solely conventional means of
destruction.28
D uring t he 1978 Warsaw P act e xercise, t he S oviet c ounterattack
was initially waged with conventional weapons.29
The possibility of a
30 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
large-scale conventional war was raised for the first time during the “Iug” exercise
in 1980 and during the “Zapad” strategic maneuvers in 1981. The 1982
Warsaw Pact exercise held in Czechoslovakia responded to the US strategy to
win a war in Europe by conventional means only. In 1983 the GS formulated
its first vision of waging future war through conventional weapons alone.30
Thus, at the level of grand strategy, the MTR made nuclear war a less desirable
option i n t he e yes of S oviet strategists a nd sh ifted t he e quilibrium toward
conventional co nfrontation. The o nce-nuclear a rms r ace w as t ransformed
into one of technological conventional force multipliers.31
The v ision o f s trategic offensive c hanged g radually i n t he e arly 1980s,
under the influence of the MTR discussions, which rediscovered strategic defense
in Soviet doctrine.32
Analyzing the depths to which the high-accuracy
systems were capable of operating, the Soviets declared that the border that
had divided combat into offensive and defensive was increasingly being erased,
since t hese t wo forms of c onducting w ar were u sing t he s ame weapons to
achieve their operational goals. The MTR made it almost impossible to distinguish
between the defensive counteroffensive and pure offensive attack.33
The
Soviets realized that the choice of the timing of the encounter had ceased to
be exclusively in the hands of the attacker, thus rendering the defense far more
“active.” The defender’s ability to reach the enemy at distant pre-battle positions
or on march routes meant that he no longer had to wait for the attacker
to strike and could make decisions about initiating battle. It was more effective
under these circumstances for the defender, rather than retaining territory,
to defeat enemy forces by means of stand-off deep strikes. Equipped with
a deep-striking precision-guided a rsenal, a def ender’s strikes would not be
limited to t he traditional tactical zone but would achieve a r ange across the
operational depth of the enemy’s deployment.34
With these new capabilities,
the Soviets believed, a defender seemed capable of successfully thwarting an
attacker’s preparations and launching a counteroffensive under favorable con-
ditions.35
The MTR made it possible to inflict heavy losses on the enemy whether
fighting from an offensive or a defensive posture.
During the same period, the Soviets turned to t heir past experience for
developing new conventional doctrines.36
Elaborating on the lessons of the
Great Patriotic War, Soviet theoreticians were concerned that Soviet military
art had become preoccupied with offensive operations at the expense of a more
balanced offense–defense mix.37
The availability of “deep” defensive strikes
through the entire depth of the enemy’s deployment could buy time for com-
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 31
pleting mobilization and improving the conditions for an imminent counter-
offensive.38
From 1984 onward, massive theater maneuvers that exercised fullscale
strategic defensive operations took place in various military districts of
the USSR. The buildup of forces reflected the defensive climate of Soviet strategic
thinking.39
Even before Gorbachev’s defensive civilian reforms, and purely
out of MTR considerations, the defensive posture of operations began to gather
momentum.40
Reflections of Western Doctrines in Soviet
Professional Literature
Although S oviet m ilitary f orecasters had de veloped a sig nificant r ange o f
their own vision even before the introduction of deep-striking concepts in
the West, beginning in the late 1970s, they inquired intensively into Western
doctrinal innovations. The professional military periodicals indicate that the
Soviets had identified Western technological developments in the field of conventional
warfare almost immediately after the first discussions were held in
the US in the mid-1970s on deep-strike capabilities. It happened before the
official US and NATO shifts had been made in favor of ALB and FOFA in the
early 1980s.41
The trend in the West towards an emphasis on new conventional
weapons was carefully monitored. In 1978, the military intelligence warned
that NATO’s technological surprise moment might be coming. A special emphasis
was given to the use of innovative deep-strike features against the second
echelon of the advancing adversary.42
The Soviets saw Western development
of the conventional technologies as a confirmation of their initial assumptions
about the MTR and exploited them as an auxiliary frame of reference to consider
how emerging technologies might be used in future war.
From 1978 onward, Zarubezhnoe voennoe obozrenie (ZVO) and Voennyi
vestnik (VV) published an unprecedented number of articles that recognized
that emerging technologies were combining precision target-location capabil-
ity43
with increased distance striking capacity from the land44
and air,45
and
linking them via automatic command and control equipment.46
For the next
three years, ZVO focused intensively on emerging Western capabilities and
by early 1980 reflected a c lear realization that such a c ombination would
allow a deep stand-off striking capability, either offensive or defensive, enabling
adversary formations to hit with forces located far behind the zone of immediate
contact.47
By 1980 and onward, in the classified issues of the Soviet General
Staff’s Voennaia Mysl’ (VM), the flood of articles on Western military-
32 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
technological innovations was accompanied by profound discussions of US
and NATO m ilitary doctrines ba sed on t he new stand-off precision-guided
munitions. Analyses concentrated on the emerging ALB and on the possible
adaptations of such deep-fighting concepts by NATO forces.48
Ogarkov and
other senior military figures expressed their concerns that Western advances
in military technologies could offset Soviet advantages in t he conventional
balance.49
By debating these conceptual innovations and by analyzing NATO exercises,
t he S oviets r econstructed t he o perational l ogic o f Western do ctrine.
Among the conclusions, three were especially stressed by the Soviets: deepstrike
precision-guided and reconnaissance capabilities were deemed capable
of destroying the second echelons of the potential enemy; the previously limited
non-nuclear stage in any given conflict had increased considerably; and
an increase had occurred in the volume of tasks resolved by troops utilizing
only conventional weapons.50
The Soviets argued that the emerging ability to
conduct massive and precise conventional strikes into the entire depth of the
operational rear could, at the very least, disrupt the successful implementation
of assigned missions and, at worst, have profound strategic implications
for the entire front of operations.51
An analysis of Soviet military publications indicates an exceptionally
sophisticated level of professional understanding by the Warsaw Pact officers
of Western military-technological innovations. What is even more striking is
that the Soviets were able to p lace these innovations in a m uch deeper and
broader context, reflecting a far more profound grasp of these developments’
implications than the West itself possessed. For Western military leadership,
the massive equipping of forces with new means of combat in the framework
of ALB and FOFA represented little more than the development of a new form
of combat action against the enemy’s second echelons on the Central Front.
However, in Soviet eyes, the ability “to see and to strike” through the entire
depth, precisely and simultaneously, was treated as a y awning discontinuity
that had significant ramifications in terms of the methods of employing corps
and armies, and that shaped the nature of war in a revolutionary way. The Soviets
saw ALB and FOFA as much more than simply a doctrinal update or an
operational threat and sought broader theoretical frames of analysis in order
to describe these developments.52
The insights acquired through inquiring into
the operational concepts of the West and seeking a countermeasure provided
the Soviets with a frame of reference and intellectual fuel for the MTR concepts.
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 33
Learning f rom Western i nnovation c onstituted t he multiplier f or p revious
and subsequent Soviet variations on the topic.
The Implications of the MTR for Soviet Military Power
Describing the dialectical relationship between the scientific-technical revolution
and military science, the Soviets emphasized the primacy of the latter
over the former.53
Soviet sources assumed that equipping the military with
PGMs and new means of reconnaissance and control would occur at an equal
rate on both sides; thus, superiority would be gained by whichever side realized
the concept more rapidly and broadly.54
The Soviets argued that the emerging forms of weapons made war in the
MTR era extremely dynamic: forces could now attack with a smaller density
of personnel and equipment, yet at considerably greater depth and with greater
momentum.55
They deduced that given the expanded scope and unprecedented
tempo of the modern battlefield, and especially in light of the shifts in nuclear–
conventional and offense–defense balances, previous forms of employment of
military forces had ceased to correspond to existing conditions. Ogarkov argued
that mere modifications and adjustments could no longer produce the
desired results, and that an elaboration of new forms of combat operations was
urgently needed.56
The theoretical debate about the impact of the MTR on the
vision of the future battlefield resulted in the development of three interrelated
concepts: reviving of the “deep operations battle”; the reconnaissance-strike
(RUK) and fire (ROK) complexes; and the concept of operational maneuvering
groups (OMG).
Soviet military science was the science of future war that operated, however,
within strict confines of t he past. Traditionally, t he assessment of t he
current generation of new doctrinal models leaned heavily on historical operational
analyses. Analytical study of military history was considered essential
for predicting future developments in warfare.57
Thus, the fresh vision posited
by the GS led many to t urn to t he experiences of WWII and to t he old
doctrines in search of new operational forms. Since the MTR elaborated on the
notion of applying the new technology in conducting operations in “depth,”
the Soviets had no need to reinvent the wheel; they had merely to revive the
Deep Operations theory of the 1930s. When the new technologies arrived in
the mid-1970s, the Soviets already possessed the conceptual consciousness,
the scientific framework, and the advanced system of military terminology
for bridging t he gap b etween t he a bstract (operational c oncepts) a nd t he
34 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
mechanical (high technology) in the extended battlefield. Professional military
publications clearly indicate that Soviet theoreticians turned to Tukhachevsky’s
theory of deep battle of the early 1930s, applying its essence to contemporary
and future operations. The authors pointed out the relevance and
the importance of emulating this early concept for modern operations.58
In
1976 Marshal Ogarkov himself contributed a h istorical article to t he Soviet
military encyclopedia on the concept of operations in depth. He maintained
that the general principles of the original Deep Operations theory had not lost
their significance.59
Combining this early concept with the new, more advanced technology
potentially meant significantly increasing the intensity of the strike to the entire
depth of the enemy, penetrating its defense, and establishing a rapid pace for
developing swift “operational success.” The Soviets stressed the need for better
command, control, and methods of targeting, and they noted the increasing
importance of the deep rapid maneuver under long-range precision fire.60
In Ogarkov’s view, the “theater-strategic operation,” that is, orchestrating a
number of armies and fronts in a simultaneous single action, had to be instituted
as the principal method of waging a campaign. To execute such an operation
successfully, the military had to be able to achieve deep targeting within
the theater, so that ground forces would be able to rely on theater fire support
to the full depth of their deployment.61
The Soviets argued that the modern
air-land operation would be three-dimensional combined arms battles fought
simultaneously on the forward edge of contact and in the depth, on the ground
and in the air.62
In theory, the concept of the modern MTR era operations
coalesced into the notion of simultaneous strike against the entire depth of the
enemy’s operational structure by stand-off precision weapons.63
The innovative
means for implementing this concept were primarily twofold: reconnaissancestrike/fire
complexes and the operational maneuvering group.
The chain of developments that led to the birth of RUK and ROK was as
follows. The deep- strike PGMs incorporated in ALB and FOFA stimulated
the Soviet military to create its own concepts and combat architecture to invalidate
Western deep-strike measures and to i mprove capabilities against
the enemy’s depth.64
Soviet theorists realized that given the tendency toward
greater mobility and deception, the time available between acquisition
of the target and the ability to de stroy it would be limited. This demanded
the establishment of a complex combat architecture that would consolidate
the means of reconnaissance with high-precision, fire-destruction elements,
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 35
linked t hrough c ommand a nd c ontrol c hannels. The qu intessence o f t hat
ability was labeled reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance fire complexes,
which constituted an all-encompassing implementation of the Soviet MTR.
This “system of systems,” which was to consist of an integrated triad of ground,
air, a nd spac e r econnaissance, su rveillance, a nd t arget ac quisition a ssets;
deep-strike weaponry; and advanced command and control, was designed to
conduct the war over much greater distances and with greater precision, coordination,
and tempo than ever before.65
The first, although somewhat obscure,
mention of the reconnaissance fire complex appeared as early as 1979,66
and by 1982 the WP officers were already acquainted with ROK fire coordi-
nation.67
Laborious discussions on the definition of RUK and ROK emerged
in ZVO and VV from 1983, where the concept was attributed to the US mili-
tary,68
not unlike the Soviet military dictionary, which defines it as a “foreign
term.”69
Though the West was the first to de velop all the military capabilities attributed
to t his concept, US defense specialists who a nalyzed t he MTR referred
to RUK and ROK as an exclusively Soviet innovation with no analogies
in the Western military vocabulary.70
According to American sources, the Soviets,
while analyzing the tests of systems such as Assault- Breaker in the late
1970s, gave the US military far more credit than it deserved for developing the
reconnaissance-strike compl ex.71
The te chnologically i nferior S oviets r elied
successfully on the Western scientific advantage and exploited it as a s tarting
point for their conceptualizations. The Americans treated the Soviet RUK and
ROK concept as revolutionary, studied it intensively, and later emulated parts
of its rationale.72
Though the US planners devoted greater resources than did
the Soviets to the conventional weaponry, the latter paid greater attention to
the ideas of the “integrated battlefield.” Soviet observers actually provided the
initial historical argument in the 1980s that US forces were exhibiting revolutionary
capabilities.73
The concept of the operational maneuvering group was, at least in theory,
a maneuvering component of the MTR that “leaned into” long-range supporting
fire and intelligence of ROK and RUK.74
OMG was a reworked version of the
mobile group concept from the Great Patriotic War, when autonomous armor
formations, using stealth and mobility, infiltrated the enemy’s operational rear
and, using shock and firepower, created command and control chaos from
within. Modified in light of the deep precision strike and enhanced intelligence
c apabilities, t he e ssence o f t he O MG ad hered to t he p rinciples l aid
36 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
down in Tukhachevsky’s original theory. The OMG concept committed part
of the force across the front much earlier and deeper, to a void an ALB and
FOFA attack, thus carrying out a S oviet preventive blow into NATO’s rear.
Swift infiltration of a group of armored divisions along several axes would create
a deep and dynamic center of gravity in NATO’s rear. It would turn over the
defense, create operational shock, paralyze the enemy’s ability to r eact, and
result in operational disor gani za tion.75
In theory, the OMG consisted of a reinforced combined-arms armor division
that operated in conjunction with fixed- and rotary-wing air support. At
least two OMGs would operate autonomously on different axes on the fragmented
a nd n onlinear de ep ba ttlefield i n t he mo de o f en counter enga gements
intended against PGMs, command and control, intelligence capabilities,
or the tactical nuclear weapons of the enemy.76
The OMG concept was inaugurated
during the Zapad- 81exercise. The maneuvers practiced deep conventional
t hrusts of t he Pact a rmor g roups into NATO territory to d isrupt its
military infrastructure. The WP Soiuz- 83exercise practiced extensively the
deployment of the OMGs in the Western Theater of Military Operations.77
At
the later stage of concept development, the coordination between ROK/RUK
and OMG resulted in their eventual organic unification under the term the
Reconnaissance-Fire Group. In theory, intelligence assets, stand-off fire capabilities,
a nd ma neuvering elements of t he e xtended battlefield were to b e
orchestrated as one integrated whole.78
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the GS worked on the seminal classified
publication The Fundaments of Preparation and Execution of Operation in the
Soviet Military Forces. This five-volume work was drafted by Gen. A. D. Danilevitch,
the deputy of the GS Operational Directorate for military theory and
a close associate of Ogarkov. The publication incorporated insights and remarks
from most of the Soviet senior leadership and constituted the general
guidance for waging all spectrums of operations under the MTR. From 1980,
when the critical mass of concepts was developed, Ogarkov initiated several
war games, exercises, and maneuvers to test and to experiment with the innovative
visions presented in the volumes.79
The MTR visions were tested during
the exercises Iug- 80 and Zapad- 81, and after learning the initial lessons, its
quintessence was embodied in Zapad- 83 maneuvers. The goal of the maneuvers
was to train forces to operate in war waged by PGMs from both sides. The
specific tasks included the defense against the enemy’s PGMs, counterattacks
of the enemy’s ROKs and RUKs, and training command and control of the
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 37
Soviet ROKs and RUKs. Special attention was paid to t he use of ROKs and
RUKs in the forward engagement and their interoperability with the OMGs.
The Zapad- 84 maneuvers were a variation on the previous year’s theme. They
carried out training in combat concepts for reconnaissance-strike systems on
the operational-tactical and the strategic levels. According to Gen. V. I. Varennikov,
then chief of the GS Operations Directorate, the maneuvers confirmed
basic Soviet assumptions about the nature of MTR era warfare and produced
enormous i nsights for i mproving operational concepts a nd force organization.
On the operational-tactical level, MTR provided the ability to conduct
simultaneous action, by fire and maneuver, against the enemy to the entire
depth of their operational formation.80
Why Did the Soviets Fail in the Implementation of the MTR?
The Soviet military championed t he conceptual breakthrough in military
affairs but never fully implemented it. The operational execution of MTR ideas
and massive fielding of MTR weaponry was beyond the political, economic,
and cultural capacity of the Soviet state.
The Soviet version of the MTR, which became associated with an unpopular
chief of GS, had not accelerated, lacking bureaucratic support. Soon after
his nomination, Marshal Ogarkov, the intellectual engine of the Soviet MTR,
fell into professional disfavor. Although serving under Minister of Defense
Dmitry Ustinov, Ogarkov overcame his superior professionally and intellectually
and often outmaneuvered the minister in his contacts with senior Soviet
bureaucracy. Ustinov, however, tried to subordinate the GS to the Ministry of
Defense by any means. Ogarkov’s relationship with Ustinov deteriorated following
his opposition as a chief of GS to intervention in Afghanistan. The split
grew deeper w ith additional disagreements over questions on military a nd
procurement policies and on the nature of the Soviet military presence in the
Third World. In this atmosphere Ogarkov’s proposals to reform the military
in accordance with MTR principles fell on deaf ears and could not muster
necessary support from the Kremlin, the Foreign Ministry, or the KGB. The
rift between Ustinov and Ogarkov was probably the deepest between a de fense
minister and a GS chief in the history of the Soviet Union. This dynamic
surrounding Ogarkov ultimately led to his ouster as chief of the GS. Ogarkov
was demoted in September 1984 and moved to the position of CINC Western
Theater of Operations, stationed in Poland.81
Ogarkov was held in high professional
esteem in the WP. He continued to implement his ideas; however, his
38 THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION
authority a nd i nfluence were extremely l imited. He was removed f rom h is
post in 1988.82
In a broader sense, from 1985 the general political climate of perestroika
in the USSR was not suited to military innovation. Although Ogarkov’s
MTR concepts were still afloat, the massive defensive reform overshadowed
all previous ideas and innovations. By t he end of the Brezhnev era, the GS
suggested that the US might surpass the Soviet Union, thanks to the American
Military-Technical Revolution. It argued for the necessity of increasing the
Soviet military budget, shifting decision making on industrial priorities back
to military control, and reorienting procurement toward the kind of investments
to which the West had shown its commitment. This advocacy for major
budget increases was unthinkable during perestroika; the political leadership
was reluctant to a llocate the necessary resources for implementation
of the MTR, and civilian experts, who began to take a leading role, advanced
the argument of “defensive sufficiency.” A political course contradicted the
MTR v ision a nd h indered su pport f or b uilding a nd fielding MTR-type
weaponry.83
In addition to p olitical obstacles, implementation of the MTR was hampered
by economic factors. The USSR and, later, the Russian Federation never
possessed the necessary economic capacity to emba rk on such an ambitious
military transformation. In one of his publications of the mid-1980s, Ogarkov
stated that the new weapons and military technologies were not yet available
in sufficient quantities to i nitiate a n ew stage of Soviet force development.
He expressed his concern that, given these limitations, the existing methods
would be preserved with no revolutionary changes in the force structure and
concept of operations.84
Ogarkov’s pessimistic assessment proved prophetic.
The Soviet Union never succeeded in creating the economic preconditions for
implementing the MTR. Before the era of Gorbachev, it had been possible to
manage the economy authoritatively and to reorient production and acquisition
through a de cision dictated from above. But back in the Brezhnev and
Andropov eras, there was no bureaucratic willingness to do s o, while under
Gorbachev, major economic collapse made such a reorientation infeasible and
undesirable for political reasons. Even in post-Gorbachev Russia, a deteriorating
and outdated Russian military that undertook several defense reforms did
not enjoy t he e conomic a nd material preconditions for a g enuine m ilitary
transformation. Its military science and theory, however, are advanced, futuristic,
creative, and sophisticated as usual.85
THE SOVIET MILITARY-TECHNICAL REVOLUTION 39
The Soviet campaign in Afghanistan reflects considerable Soviet technological
inferiority and a fundamental inability to implement the MTR vision
for material reasons. Although the Soviet military realized the potential embodied
in reconnaissance, command and control, and fire, it was not able to
link these elements together across the Afghan battlefields. Some operations
were designed and executed along these principles, but they were marginal
and localized.86
The S oviets s tarted to f ormulate n ew c oncepts f or w aging
nonlinear warfare suited to operating in battlefields dominated by PGMs, to
turn a way f rom t raditional f ormations, to r edefine e chelonment c oncepts,
and to reorganize its forces in a more flexible way. However, on balance, during
the campaign in Afghanistan the Soviet military was increasingly unable
to cope with the military-technological realities brought about by the MTR.87
The MTR vision of war was oriented toward large-scale, conventional, air-land,
combined arms battle. Afghanistan, however, obliged the Soviets to w age a
counterinsurgency campaign.88
Moreover, innovative concepts such as ROK/
RUK and OMGs were massively exercised for the first time only in 1983. They
had just begun to emerge and to mature when the Afghan war was approaching
its end. Ogarkov, as an opponent of the Afghan campaign in general, was
probably not overly enthusiastic about using Afghanistan as a testing ground
for innovative concepts.89
PART TWO: RUSSIAN-SOVIET STRATEGIC CULTURE
Cultural Characteristics and Cognitive Style
The normative image of Russian culture is collectivistic.90
The sense of commonness
with narod (the people) is a powerful and necessary concept in Russian
culture. Communalism was not an invention of the Soviet era, but an
innate characteristic of Russian society. For generations collective will took
priority over individual needs and rights in Russia, and mutual dependence
was a u nifying f actor. Russian-Soviet c ollectivistic s ociety w as organized
hierarchically, and the collective mentality emphasized group-centered rela-
tions.91
Individuals in collectivistic Russian and Soviet cultures lived in a complex
and interdependent social world with prescribed roles. The scholars who
observed R ussian a nd S oviet s ocial i nteraction a nd c ommunication s tyles
defined it as a h igh-context culture. The products of this cultural environment
predominantly express themselves in indirect, cyclical, understated, and
vague language in text and speech, relying on the listener’s or reader’s ability to
grasp the meaning from the context. Form, ceremony, and the expression of