4th & 5th edition of Soviet Military Power, a Public Diplomacy publication of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which provided an estimate of the military strategy and capabilities of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War.

Soviet Military Power was a Public Diplomacy publication of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which provided an estimate of the military strategy and capabilities of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War, ostensibly to alert the U.S. public to the significant military capabilities of the Soviet Armed Forces. First published in early October, 1981, it became an annual publication from 1983 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

 

(Source : amazon.com)

 

 

 

SOVIET MILITARY POWER 1985 (4th edition)

 

Excerpt from the preface : 

A valuable starting point from which to measure the current and projected strength, trends, and global military capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, as well as the forces of its Warsaw Pact allies, is the following assessment presented in the introduction to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 1984 official publication, NATO and the Warsaw Pact-Force Comparisons:

The Warsaw Pact maintains large-scale strategic nuclear forces, intermediate- and short-range nuclear forces, and massive conventional forces. Moreover, Warsaw Pact military strategy as shown by its literature and military exercises calls for large-scale penetration into enemy territory in order to secure strategic objectives; it continues to emphasize the element of surprise and the necessity of rapid offensive operations.

The forces of the USSR and its allies continue to expand, modernize, and deploy with increasingly capable weapons systems designed for the entire spectrum of strategic, theater-nuclear, and conventional conflict. The Soviet Union has made no secret of certain of these advances. For example, in the autumn of 1984, the Soviet Defense Ministry announced that the USSR was beginning to deploy a new generation of nuclear-armed, air-launched and sea-launched cruise missiles. The Soviets also revealed that nuclear-armed, short-range ballistic missiles had been forward-deployed from the USSR to operational sites in Eastern Europe and that additional ballistic missile submarines were on patrol in the Atlantic and the Pacific. In a speech before the Politburo, General Secretary Chernenko said that further actions would be taken to strengthen the Soviet Union’s military capability. 

 

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- CASPAR W. WEINBERGER, Secretary of Defense

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOVIET MILITARY POWER 1986 (5th edition)

 

Excerpt from the preface : 

 

With its introduction in 1981, Soviet Military Power gained immediate public attention and was recognized as a detailed, frank, and authoritative report on devel- opments within the military forces of the USSR. It provided information not made available by the Soviets themselves. Subsequent editions have detailed ongoing So- viet military developments in keeping with the belief that informed and free people everywhere can best judge the merits of the policies and programs their governments have designed to meet the Soviet challenge a challenge faced by all free nations. Unlike citizens of the Soviet Union, peoples of democratic nations can exercise their right to question the decisions made by their governments. Decisionmaking within the USSR, however, is not subject to public scrutiny or debate. The So- viet leadership can devote a large percentage of the national income to defense programs a cost no Western nation is willing to pay nor need incur in times of peace. The benefits that accrue to the Soviet military cannot be overlooked or ig- nored, and they must be examined in the light of their implications for the security of the Free World. In order to make possible a full and precise assessment of the Soviet challenge, both now and during the next several years, this edition of Soviet Military Power provides information on trends in the Soviet military.

With the initial deployment of mobile SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missiles to operational ICBM regiments in 1985, the Soviet Union confronted the world with further proof of its intensive drive for offensive military weapons capable of under- writing its political objectives against the West. Deployment of the SS-25 violates SALT II and the manner in which it has been based violates SALT I.

 

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- CASPAR W. WEINBERGER, Secretary of Defense