Why the Soviets Buy the Weapons They Do

1984 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Evangelista
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Weapons Procurement ◽  
The Military

The authors of three recent books attempt to account for Soviet military developments by exploring a wide range of possible explanations. In Soviet Strategic Forces, Berman and Baker adopt a“requirements“approach; they argue that the Soviet strategic posture has developed mainly in response to threats generated by the West. Andrew Cockburn, in The Threat, maintains that internal factors—in particular, bureaucratic politics and the workings of the military-industrial complex—are responsible for Soviet weapons decisions. David Holloway's more eclectic explanation, in The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, describes both the internal and external determinants of Soviet military policy. The evolution of Soviet regional nuclear policy, and particularly the deployment of the SS-20 missile, can be accounted for by several different explanations—indicating a problem of overdetermination of causes. One way to resolve this problem is by adopting a framework developed by James Kurth to explain U.S. weapons procurement. It suggests that the“modes of causation” for Soviet weapons decisions are generally the opposite of those for American decisions. This generalization is consistent with what an analysis based on the relative strengths of state and societal forces in the two countries would predict.

New War, Old Law: Can the Geneva Paradigm Comprehend Computers?

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Jason Beckett
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Information Warfare ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The West ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military

Strategic Information Warfare (SIW) has recently begun to garner significant interest among the military and strategic defence communities. While nebulous and difficult to define, the basic object of SIW is to render an adversary's information systems inoperative or to cause them to malfunction. While information is the key, the means, and the target of SIW, real world damage is the intention and effect. It is, nonetheless, an area which has been almost completely ignored by positive international law. The purpose of the present article is to begin to resolve this lacuna by analysing the applicability to, and effect of, international humanitarian law (IHL) on SIW. The author makes recommendations as to possible alterations and improvements to IHL to resolve this lacuna. [In] 1956 when Khrushchev said: “We will bury the West.” What he was really saying was that the military industrial complex of the Soviet Union would win out over the military industrial complex of the West – and note that it's industrial. What Khrushchev didn't understand was that 1956 was the first year in the United States that white-collar and service employees outnumbered blue-collar workers. […] The industrial complex, military or not, was at its end point.Alvin Toffler, Novelist and Social Theorist

The August 1991 Coup and Its Impact on Soviet Politics

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Dunlop
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military ◽  
Coup Attempt

A book published by the author in 1993 contained a lengthy chapter on the August 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union. This article builds on and updates that chapter, making use of a trove of newly available documents and memoirs. The article discusses many aspects of the coup attempt, but it particularly seeks to explain why the coup failed and what the implications were for the Soviet Union. The events of December 1991 that culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union were the direct result of changes set in motion by the failed coup. The major state and party institutions that might ordinarily have tried to hold the country together—the Communist Party apparatus, the secret police, the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense, and the state administrative organs—all were compromised by their participation in the coup. As a result, when events pushed the Soviet Union toward collapse there was no way of staving off that outcome.

scholarly journals Zmiany w funkcjonowaniu rosyjskich parków naukowo-technologicznych

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 145-152
Author(s):  
Urszula Grzyb
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Science Park ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Industrial Crisis ◽  
The Military

Science and technology was thought to be one of the main assets of the Russian Federation, the basis for an economic recovery once it was no longer submitted to central planning. It was expected that this wealth of knowledge bequeathed from the Soviet Union would give rise to a boom in the creation of innovation companies and that foreign investment would flow in large amounts into the science sector, but both these expectations did not materialise.In Russia the first science park (science parks created by universities are called by the Russian name technoparks) was established in Tomsk in 1990 by higher education, scientific institutions and industrial enterprises jointly. Federal programmes provide support to the existing technoparks, but this support is rather meagre. Due to the industrial crisis and to the severe cutbacks in federal financing, the scientific institutions, more than 70% of which were in 1990 still connected with the military industrial complex, are nowadays experiencing a serious crisis. The number of scientific workers decreased more than twofold between 1989 and 1994 and continues to fall. Nowadays the innovation centres have a more commercial profile and, therefore, are more selective in the choice of the tenants as they have to become self-sufficient and repay the debts arising from re-construction of their premises.

scholarly journals ≪Non-discoverable-spaces≫ of full-fledged socialism’s technological parks

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  
N.P. Knekht ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Military

The author tries to outline the ways to build a new, deeper ontology of the Soviet Union as a dynamic interaction of human and «non-human» actors that create the specifics of the «natureculture » of late socialism. The article examines the influence of the military-industrial complex on the geography and life of people. Starting from the concept of «performative shift» (Alexey Yurchak), the author shows that the Soviet map reflects a specific changing technoscientific object located on the border of Nature and Society.

scholarly journals Commissariats of Military Industry during the Great Patriotic War

2015 ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Il’In
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Defense Industry ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Industry ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Military

Strengthening national defense by building up military and economic potential was the most important vital task of the Soviet Union during the whole period of its existence. The price of enormous effort of labor, research and design teams, huge material and financial costs in the course of the prewar five-year plans in the Soviet Union was paid and incurred to create the military-industrial complex (MIC) - sector of social production, designed to provide security for the state in armed struggle. The core of the DIC were four industry: Commissariat of Aviation Industry (NCAP), the People’s Commissariat of ammunition (NBC) weapons Commissariat (IEC) and the People's Commissariat of the shipbuilding industry (NCSP), formed in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on January 11, 1939 by separation of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry of the USSR. They became a separate group of central government, designed to provide measures for the implementation of strategic decisions of the military and political leadership of the country. Objective assessment of commissariats effectiveness were the results of their operations in wartime. From this point of view it is necessary to ascertain performance of its mission - to supply front with modern means of warfare. Largely due to this fact, the Soviet Union won in serious confrontation with the military-industrial complex military industry of Nazi Germany and its satellites. On the basis of archival documents and testimony of contemporaries the article shows the contribution of the defense industry in the Soviet Union's victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Russian Security and Nuclear Policies: Successor to the Superpower Arsenal?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariya Y. Omelicheva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War was a period of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers engaged in a nuclear arms race. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, some scholars perceived that Russia’s military-industrial complex has deteriorated considerably, and that the country has fallen behind the United States and Europe in the area of information technologies and other strategically important sectors of national economy. Others insist that the image of Russia’s political irrelevancy and demotion of the country to a status of a “small” or even “medium” power is mistaken. The new Russia, they argue, has never surrendered its claims as a great power. Discussions about Russia’s global role have been fueled by its continuing nuclear standoff with the United States, along with growing concerns about its plans to develop more robust nuclear deterrents and modernize its nuclear arsenals. There is substantial scholarly literature dealing with Russia’s foreign, security, military, and nuclear policy, as well as the role of nuclear weapons in the Russian security framework. What the studies reveal is that the nuclear option remains an attractive alternative to Russia’s weakened conventional defense. Today, as before, Russia continues to place a high premium on the avoidance of a surprise attack and relies on its nuclear capabilities for strategic deterrence. There are a host of issues that deserve further investigation, such as the safety of Russia’s nuclear sites and the regional dimension of its nuclear policy.

REFORMING THE CREDIT SYSTEM IN THE USSR IN THE PERIOD OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-194
Author(s):  
Yury F. Likholetov ◽  
Igor A. Grigoriev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Economic Management ◽  
Financial Flows ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military ◽  
Further Development

Introduction. In modern Russia, even today, the process started back in the 1990s continues to gain momentum – the emergence of state-monopoly capitalism. This phenomenon always includes such a feature as centralization in the economic and political spheres of public life. The concentration in the hands of the state of the mechanism for the regulation of economic processes in a country is not always negative. There are enough examples in history to prove this thesis. The purpose of this article is to show a positive example of competent centralization of the economic sector, referring to the experience of reforming the credit system in the Soviet Union during the period of industrialization. The authors of the article strive to demonstrate an example of an effective mechanism for maneuvering means, as well as to evaluate the results of this process. Materials and methods. This research is based on traditional methods used in Russian historical science: problem-chronological, systemic, and comparative-historical. Results. The reform of the credit and banking sector carried out in the Soviet Union was a logical conclusion to the centralization of the country’s internal economic management system, which enabled the state to take a more precise approach to planning, distribution and, most importantly, to accounting for funds. Discussion and Conclusion. The result of the reform was that all financial flows concentrated in the hands of the state proceeded in the order strictly established by the party, in accordance with a single political line. In turn, this made it possible to create a base for maneuver with the means that went to strengthen the defense – industrial complex and qualitatively re-equip the army. The development of centralization, in fact, became the basis for the further development of the military economy with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

scholarly journals Les dépenses militaires soviétiques ou le fardeau de la défense soviétique

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-548
Author(s):  
Carl G. Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
The West ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Military ◽  
Defence Expenditure ◽  
Independent Calculation

Our understanding of the Soviet defence burden remains woefully inadaquate. The official Soviet defence expenditure figure is not helpful. It is not inclusive. There is no concensus on what or how much is covered by other budget accounts. Soviet statistics do not allow independent calculation. Official Western estimates, on the other hand, are equally dubious. They reflect more on Western political dynamics than on Soviet reality. The Soviet defence industry is not immune from the vicissitudes of the economy at large. The Soviet military do not enjoy carte blanche. They contribute extensively to civilian needs, both in terms of goods and services. But, in turn, they extract benefits from a wide range of civilian endeavors. The military-political culture, rooted in an older Moscovy, and reinforced by Lenin's Clausewitzian leanings, is quite different from that which prevails in the west. There is no military-industrial complex threatening the Soviet State. In the USSR the military is OF the State, integral to a wider establishment. The military burden cannot be specified, for much is inextricably fused with the burden of State, and culture. It is systemic. It will be sustained. Because it is OF the System. Western debate is ethnocentric. We need new research, new under standing.

SMALL ARMS OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION ARMED FORCES

2020 ◽  
Vol 152 (4) ◽  
pp. 105-126
Author(s):  
Jarosław NAWROTEK
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Arms Trade ◽  
Leading Position ◽  
Russian Military

Russia has been for many years one of main producers and exporters of arms and military equipment. But even if the Russian Military-industrial Complex still maintains a leading position, there is at least one domain where it was forced to quit positions kept during the Soviet Union and does not present any new achievements. The question refers to firearms where relatively low costs of manufacture are transformed on a few percentage share in the world arms trade. This market has a significant symbolic meaning for Russia despite of its modest financial dimension. Military operations require a deployment of infantry with its firearms, independently on state of the art technology of the arms used by the armies. Beside the armed forces, the firearms are used by special and antiterrorist services, police, border and coastal guards, and also by the structures dedicated for fighting the drugs trafficking.

SOVIET TANK INDUSTRY OF PERIOD OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR: TECHNICAL-TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS OF ACTIVITY AND FIGHTING FOR THEIR OVERCOMING

2018 ◽  
pp. 298-310
Author(s):  
Vasiliy V. Zapary
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Automobile Industry ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Machine Building ◽  
Performance Technology ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
The Military

Introduction. The paper considers the effect of key issues of the development of the military industry of the USSR in the pre-war and military period, which had a determining effect on the quality of tanks being created in the country. The main trends in the development of tank building in the context of industrial modernization in the 1930s-1940s are revealed. Materials and Methods. The work was carried out on the basis of a wide range of sources, mostly of a monographic nature, reflecting modern historiographic approaches to the topic under study. As the main methodological treatment is the modernization theory in combination with the system approach. Results. The author argues that the result of the accelerated modernization of the Soviet Union in the 1930s became the creation of a qualitatively heterogeneous industrial potential. Implementation of high-performance technologies of the flow-conveyor production of the “Fordist” type in the tractor building and automobile industry made it possible to use labor of low-skilled labor everywhere. The complex of these restrictions had a decisive influence on the choice of approaches to the design and production of tanks by Soviet constructors and production managers. Discussion. The work provides a brief retrospective review of the main trends in the development of the Soviet tank industry in the pre-war period, in the context of the overall social and technological modernization of the country. The significance of the factor of international cooperation and trade ties with the capitalist countries in the formation of the scientific and technical potential of the tank-building industry in the pre-war period is revealed. The factors of uneven development and qualitative potential of the Soviet machine building, created during the first five-year plans, are revealed. Conclusions. Before the Great Patriotic War, the secular tank industry could not fully solve the problem of the quality of its products. The outbreak of the war led to the evacuation, a partial loss of valuable stuff and equipment. In the eastern regions of the USSR, the military-political leadership of the country managed to recreate the tank industry through rigid mobilization methods of managing and concentrating evacuated resources. The lack of specialists forced the wide use of high-performance technology of flow-conveyor assembly in combination with the maximum simplification of the design of tanks. But this dramatically worsened their combat potential. The limited combat capabilities of such tanks had to be compensated for by their massive use.

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