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BOOK RE VIE WS/COMPTES REND US Soviet Armed Forces Review BOOK RE VIE WS/COMPTES REND US Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual. Edited by David R. Jones. Gulf Breeze, FL: Aca- demic International Press, 1982, xi, 431 pp. $47.00. The 1982 edition of SAFRA, as this effort prefers to be known, is the sixth volume in the annual series. Sponsored by the Russian Research Center of Nova Scotia and Dal- housie University, the SAFRA project has established itself as an essentialsource for un- classifiedresearch on the armed forces of the USSR. Although the expert contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, conventional academic standards are maintained and open source citations are liberally supplied. Using the usual SAFRA organizational scheme, this volume includes a general survey of Soviet forces during the year 1981-82, a statistical summary of Soviet military power, reviews of the various Soviet armed services (including marines and airborne forces) and essays on key topics of significanceto the Soviet defense effort. In 3dditiunthere are two special surveys: one on the Soviet MVDand KGB security forces and another on Soviet interests in the Indian Ocean. An essay on the historical development of Sovietrifle and motorized ritlc divisions, as well as a short analysis of contemporary l.ast-Westpolitical warfarc round out the text. Finally, the 1982 SAFRA provides the usual wealth of bibliographic material. This volume features a selected listing of mainly Western languagearticles on Soviet military affairs from 1978 to 1981 and a continuation of David R. Jones' effort to provide an author index to Voennaiamvsl' from 1940 to 1969 with the article titles rendered in Englishtranslation, as well as cumulativetopical table of contents to volumes 1-5. The various bibliographic materials, especially those focusing on Russian language Soviet military literature are invaluable to the serious researcher and represent virtually the only such references publicly available. It is fair to say that the SAFRA volumes have had a mixed reception among their var- ious pubhcs. Defense insiders, used to building complex and highly classified Soviet or- ders of battle, often feel that their secret numbers, ratios, and organizationaltables yield prima facie and unambiguous answers, i.e., that the numbers speak for themselves.The SAIRA specialists who, without full benefit of those arcane data, and, using mainly de- classified information or privately discoveredclues, try to judgeand explain the meanings ,' of the figures and facts through the lense of scholarly scepticisiii,seem to raise a particu- lar ire in the American defense industrial community. That some SAFRA authors can look at the numbers and and still not see the Soviet threat as unrelentingly hostile and aggressiveseems to this community to be particularly perverse. However,that is hardly a fair critique, nor does it show much understanding of the enterprise. The SArRA authors, with neither the institutional military responsibility for Westernsecurity, nor a financial stake in defense production, can afford to abandon the intellectual straight- jacket of the worst-case mode and engage in more realistic analysis and productive specu- lation. The result is impressive. It is this characteristic that the academic community should most appreciate. It has been said that some authors concern themselves too much about the kinds of numbers and facts which are better dealt with elsewhere and that the SAFRA analysts should de- vote more of their attention to broad explanation and less to military kremlinology and organizational detective work. But when the volumes are assessedobjectively, one conclusion is obvious. SAFRA pro- vides the best unclassified annual summary and analysis of Soviet military affairs readily available to Western academic specialists. Robert W.Clawson Kent State Universitv 402 Harriet Fast Scott and WilliamF. Scott. The Armed Forces of the USSR.Second edition, revised and updated. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981. 447 pp. $32.50 cloth; $14.00 paper. The first edition of this book in 1979 established itself quickly as a major reference work on Soviet military forces. This second edition adds to the stature of the volume with new material covering Soviet military doctrine concerning foreign intervention and up- dates on the military officers elected to the Communist Party Central Committee at the 26th Party Congress in Moscow in March, 1981. The Scotts' volume is carefully written, intelligently organized, and meticulously researched, reflecting skilled and subtle use of a wide variety of primary documentary material. It is an indispensableguide to the princi- pal dimensions of the organizing principles and doctrine animating Soviet armed forces, their composition, capabilities, training, support structure, and their role in Soviet society. If the Scotts' volume has a shortcoming, the fault would seem to lie in its strength. It is often too detailed, providing information at the expense of interpretive analysis of the range of goals that Soviet military forces are able to actually achieve,given' current and projected capabilities, and the obstacles that they are likely to confront, externally and internally, in achieving them. The Scotts largelyeschew such speculativeventures in favor of a fact-rich rendering of the Soviet military establishment from the names of present and past commanders of regional theaters to the addressesof the bookstores and officers clubs of Soviet military districts. If the Scotts have no sharp axes to grind, they do paint an arresting, even forbidding, picture of Soviet military forces and Soviet society. According to the Scotts, Soviet mili- tary doctrine has not fundamentally changed since the publication of V. D. Sokolovskii's Military Strategy in the 1960s. Emphasis is still on long-rangerocket forces and on devel- oping a nuclear warfighting capability. In the late 1960s, interest grew in conventional forces, partly in response to NATO's flexible response strategy, but this widening of con- cern was not permitted to obscure the predominance of nuclear warfare.The Afghanistan intervention marks more an enlargement of Soviet strategic ambitions than a re-ordering of strategic priorities. Soviet strategists now worry about "expanding the scale of Soviet military presence and military assistance." As MarshalA. A. Grechko, Ministerof Defense, noted in 1974: "At the present stage the historic function of the Soviet Armed Forces is not restricted to their function in defending our Motherland and the other socialist coun- tries. In its foreign policy activity the Soviet state purposefully opposes the export of counterrevolution and the policy of oppression, support the national liberation struggle, and resolutely resists imperialists' aggressionin whatever distant region of our planet it may appear." (Emphasis added) The Scotts content that, in contrast to American practice, military doctrine and strat- egy drive the formation of Soviet military forces and the acquisition of arms. Moreover, Soviet military doctrine moves to the beat of its own drum and is not a copy of Western thinking, as many analysts believe. The Soviets manifest no interest in parity. Doctrine posits an implacable and relentless socialist-imperialiststruggle. Victory in any encounter with capitalist military forces is the guiding aim, and the search for global and theater superiority is the immediate operating principle. Within so broad a doctrinal framework, Soviet military expansion can proceed largely on its own terms. The pursuit of military superiority thus complements the global pretensions of the Soviet Communist Party. Soviet military power is built around fiveservices-rocket, ground, air, and naval forces, and troops of national air defense. The Scotts present an elaborate sketch of each of these servicesand their historical roots in the evolutionarygrowth of the Bolshevikstate. Noteworthy are the size and sophistication of Soviet air defenses. Whereasthe West has largely abandoned efforts either to protect their home populations or to construct a comprehensive air defense net, the Soviet Union has spent billions of rubles on civil .
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