The politics of doctrine: Khrushchev, Gorbachev and the Soviet military. (Volumes I and II)

This study is an attempt to illuminate the politics of Soviet military doctrine, the system of official views on the nature, essence and conduct of war. What is Soviet military doctrine? Where does it originate, what does it reveal about Soviet attitudes toward international conflict, as well as about Soviet politics? In treating military doctrine as a problem of both foreign policy and domestic politics, this study attempts a comprehensive model of doctrinal formulation.;The study shows that doctrine is shaped by both internal politics and international events. External catalysts, such as technological change or changes in Western attitudes and policies can serve to initiate doctrinal debate; over time, disagreement between civil and military elites creates a conflictual situation in which rhetoric becomes more severe and political goals become more important as each side seeks to prevail. Civilian seizure of doctrine as an issue, in which the General Secretary and his group assert the nearly exclusive right to formulate doctrine, is resisted by the military on national security as well as political grounds, while civilian interest in doctrine seems to reflect goals in foreign policy as well as the desire to broaden civilian control of military issues in the domestic arena. Thus, doctrine appears here as both a source of guidance in national security policy as well as a valuable political resource.;After an historical overview of the origins of the concept of doctrine in the USSR, two periods of significant change in Soviet doctrine were examined for purposes of comparison: the 1959-1964 period under Khrushchev, and the 1986-1988 period under Gorbachev. The study adopted as a working assumption the idea that doctrine may be a political problem along civil-military lines; the analysis of Soviet elite writings in both periods confirms the validity of this assumption. Some changes in Soviet military organization and practices, as well as Soviet military research programs, were examined in order to tie doctrinal changes to more concrete changes in Soviet behavior.