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Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Opinion: How to Look at the Soviet-American Balance Author(s): Les Aspin Source: Foreign Policy, No. 22 (Spring, 1976), pp. 96-106 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148071 . Accessed: 16/06/2014 19:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Policy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 194.29.185.109 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:02:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Opinion: How to Look at the Soviet-American Balance

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Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC

Opinion: How to Look at the Soviet-American BalanceAuthor(s): Les AspinSource: Foreign Policy, No. 22 (Spring, 1976), pp. 96-106Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148071 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 19:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Foreign Policy.

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Opinion

HOW TO LOOK AT THE SOVIET-AMERICAN BALANCE by Les Aspin

The Soviet Union, we hear these days from the Pentagon, is now outspending the United States on defense. Yesterday's missile gap is today's dollar gap.

It is legitimate to ask two questions about the figures being bandied about. First, do the statistics fairly reflect reality? As Disraeli remarked, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Second, if there has been an increase in the Soviet defense budget, is it really something we have to worry about? After all, the U.S. military could add a billion dollars to its subsidies for commissaries or its budget for uniforms without generating any worries in the Soviet equivalent of the Pentagon.

When James Schlesinger was defense secretary, he said, "If one strips away pensions and other such considerations, the Soviets may at this point, in terms of the American dollar, be outspending us by 50 per cent. They are outspending us, even including pensions, by approximately 30 per cent." This has been echoed by others, inside and outside Defense.

The key phrase is "in terms of the American dollar." The Soviets, of course, do not spend dollars. But somehow, Soviet expenditures must be translated into figures comparable to American expenditures. The Pentagon does this by putting both defense budgets into dollars. Starting from observed Soviet defense activity (manpower, equipment, construction, and operations), analysts calculate the cost of procuring a

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similar force in this country. They ask, "What would it cost to buy the Soviet defense establishment in the United States at U.S. prices?" Based on preliminary figures, this calculation shows that last year the Soviets spent $107 billion on defense while the United States spent $79 billion, both in 1974 dollars.

A Trap Door

This method of calculation seems fair on the surface. But there's a trap door. Soviet wages are generally much lower than American wages. But by computing Soviet manpower costs at U.S. rates, one discovers a huge Soviet defense manpower "budget" of over $50 billion that exists

only in American documents. Using this methodology, the largest

single reason that Soviet defense spending exceeds our own has been the American decision to switch to an all-volunteer Army and to pay its servicemen civilian-level wages. The absurdity of this calculation then becomes clear: If the United States were to shave its military pay scales, Soviet defense "spending" would fall.

To be sure, calculating the cost of Soviet defenses in American dollars is one way of getting a perspective on the size of their effort. But it is not the only way. An alternative is to compute U.S. and Soviet defense expenditures in roubles.

This method is admittedly much more difficult. For example, we have no good way to estimate what it would cost the Soviets to produce the whole range of American equipment. We cannot turn a new tank over to a Soviet manufacturer and ask him what it would cost to produce it.

Nevertheless, a meaningful rouble

comparison can still be made. The result is the reverse of the dollar comparison. Whereas the dollar comparison is weighted by the fact that it prices the manpower- intensive Soviet forces in terms of high U.S. personnel costs, the rouble comparison is weighted by the fact that it prices the

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technology-intensive U.S. forces in terms of the high costs of Soviet technology. When the calculations are done with roubles, the United States is the bigger spender.1

Actually, the rouble comparison under- states the American lead in spending. Many of the more sophisticated items in the U.S. arsenal are beyond Soviet production capabilities: computers and other advanced electronics are prime examples. The stan- dard estimate counts the cost in roubles of the closest item the Soviets can actually make. Since we alone have a TV homing, steerable bomb, for example, in roubles it would be priced as an ordinary bomb.

So the answer to the question, "'who is spending more on defense," depends on the price system used.

A Question of Trends

Beyond the absolute levels of defense spending, there is the question of trends. It is impossible to ascertain with any relevant measure if the Soviets are out- spending the United States in any given year, but the trends in spending over sev- eral years are not so ambiguous.2

According to the best estimates available, real Soviet defense spending has increased an average of 2.7 per cent a year over the decade 1964 to 1974.s U.S. defense

1 The results differ because the relative costs of manpower and equipment in the countries differ. Where relative costs vary, using a single monetary unit from either one of the two countries to make the comparison produces a bias-what economists call the "index number" problem.

* Trend calculations were worked from the dollar costs of Soviet spending. Although dollar figures give a misleading view of the absolute level of Soviet outlays, if applied consistently, they are valid in describing changes and trends.

3 Former Secretary Schlesinger has put the long-term Soviet growth at between 3 and 5 per cent per year. Deputy Defense Secretary William Clements has claimed that the Soviet military budget "in real terms is increasing about 5 per cent a year ... (Defense Space Business Daily, May 31, 1975). Actually, the rate of growth has fluctuated between I and 5 per cent annually. And, in the 1964- 1974 period, the annual rate of growth averaged 2.7 per cent, which corresponds to a 3 per cent slope in the long-term trend line.

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spending, on the other hand, increased from 1964 to 1968, because of Vietnam, but has declined in real (not inflated dollar) terms since. The curve results in an annual net decline of I per cent per year.

Former Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird believes the Soviet increase is evidence that "othe Soviet Union has engaged in a relentless effort to attain military suprem- acy."4 For him and others, d'tente is a smoke screen behind which the Soviets are hiding while still trying to surpass the United States in all dimensions of military power.

But there are two other possible explanations for Soviet behavior-expla- nations that are not so cataclysmic. The first is the timing of budget decisions. Right now the driving force behind rising Soviet expenditures is the new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). These systems have a long gestation period, and were being developed before the 1972 SALT agreements ushered in the era of detente.

This means that we cannot automatically assume that recent budget growth is a reflection of the current attitudes of the Soviet leaders. If the attitudes have changed, we may see a change in defense expenditures in late 1976 or 1977 when the current ICBM deployment nears completion.

The second possibility is that the growth in Soviet defense expenditures is a function of internal, bureaucratic/political factors in the Kremlin. Brezhnev, trying to keep a majority for detente in the politburo, cannot afford to alienate the armed forces. Using increased defense expenditures to keep the military on board for political purposes is not unknown in this country and may also be an accepted ploy in the Soviet Union.

But whatever the reason, the trends are there. To quote Schlesinger again:

SMelvin R. Laird, "Is This Detente?" Reader's Digest, July 1975, p. 57.

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"By most of the available measures, American power is declining and Soviet power is rising. No one can say precisely where the peril points lie as this process unfolds. But if real expenditures by the United States remain constant or continue to fall, while real Soviet outlays continue to rise, the peril points will occur in the relatively near future." 5

However, the crucial issue is what the Soviets are spending their extra roubles on. If the increases are in forces that threaten the United States and its NATO allies, that is one thing. If the increases are for more troops on the Chinese border, that is something else. The accompanying table, based on previously unavailable data, shows what proportions of the total growth in Soviet defense spending have been devoted to each military mission.

Identifying the Increases

Not all increases directly threaten U.S. interests. These include higher spending on four missions that comprise 36 per cent of the increase in Soviet spending in the 19 64-1974 decade:

1. Since the Sino-Soviet split, the Soviet Union has boosted the number of troops and amount of equipment stationed along the Chinese border. (This accounts for 16 per cent of the budget increase.)

2. In response to the 1968 uprising in Czechoslovakia, the Soviets stationed fioe divisions there in order to restore con- trol. They remain there. (This accounts for 5 per cent of the increase.)

3. In the 1964-1974 period, the Soviet Union significantly augmented the border

troops of the KGB (Committee of State

Security) and the security troops of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs). These forces are "essentially paramilitary forma- tions whose principal functions are to police Soviet borders [and] cannot

5 Letter to Senator John L. McClellan, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, October 23, 1975, p. 5.

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Distribution of Changes in Soviet Defense Spending

1964-1974 (as a percentage of the total increase)

Mission % Change Research and development +18 Intercontinental range offense +26 Intermediate range offense - 8 Strategic defense + 7 Navy, general purpose forces + 3 Tactical air forces + 2 Chinese border + 16 Eastern Europe

(minus Czechoslovakia) +10 Czechoslovakia + 5 Internal security + 8 Other changes

(unidentifiable by mission) +13

+100

Note: All changes in the missions listed in the table are cumulative (cumulative change equals the sum of the differences between spending in 1964 and in each of the succeeding years) and are expressed as percentages of the cumulative increase in total spending for the 1964-1974 period. Outlays for command and general support were allocated to various mission categories based primarily on those categories' proportions of the total budget in any given year. Research and development costs are not included in any mission categories apart from that entitled "research and development."

Source: Estimates provided in the table were derived from the following sources: The Military Balance, various years, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies; U.S., Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China, 1974 and 1975; and the best available intelligence community estimates as of January 1976.

credibly be included in the Soviet land order of battle." 6 (This accounts for 8 per cent of the increase.)

4. The Soviet Union has traditionally been extremely sensitive about its vulnera- bility to attack and has made enormous investments in surface-to-air missiles and fighter-interceptor aircraft, even as the limited effectiveness of air defense led the Pentagon to trim outlays in that area drastically. (This accounts for 7 per cent of the increase.)

Other increases in Soviet defense spending 6

Jeffrey Record, Sizing Up the Soviet Army (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1975).

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directly threaten U.S. interests, at least in part.

Intercontinental-range offensive forces, composed of ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers, are generally considered the most threatening and account for 26 per cent of the increase. However, this increase was offset somewhat by a decline in spending for shorter-range strategic forces, such as medium- and intermediate-range missiles, which can threaten NATO.

Many of the Soviet allocations for research and development (R&D) can pose a potential threat to the United States and its allies. Spending for military R&D accounted for 18 per cent of the total growth in Moscow's defense budgets, although the proportion that went for programs affecting U.S. interests is uncertain. Furthermore, Soviet R&D efforts are less efficient. One estimate suggests that Soviet R&D outlays are only 40 per cent as productive as U.S. R&D outlays.

An estimated 100,000 additional Soviet troops were moved into the Eastern European satellites, excluding Czechoslo- vakia, during the decade. (This accounts for 10 per cent of the increase.) It should be noted, however, that the Soviets weren't the only ones to expand their force in the area; West Germany increased its army by 80,000 men in the 1964-1974 period and, as Schlesinger told Congress, ". .. the

capacity of our [NATO] allies has improved substantially in the last decade." 7

A moderate amount of the increase, 5 per cent, has gone into the navy (excluding ballistic missile submarines) and the tactical air forces-a portion of which went for

squadrons assigned to the Far East for

possible use against China. In sum, about 36 per cent of the

expansion in Soviet defense spending

7 U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on The Department of Defense, Department of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1976, Hearings, 94th Cong., Ist sess., 1975, Part 1, p. 27.

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falls into categories that are not directly threatening and 51 per cent into areas that might threaten us. The 51 per cent, however, should be reduced somewhat because, as we have seen, it contains some built-in exag- gerations of the threat to the United States.

There is a danger here of drawing this argument too finely and getting too absorbed in the statistics. It is impossi- ble to neatly categorize every defense dollar (or rouble) as nonthreatening or threaten- ing. Forces can be shifted from a non- threatening front to a threatening one. Still, in the event of a European war, it is unlikely that the Soviets would uncover their Chinese flank by removing forces from the Far East. With regard to Czechoslovakia, the Soviet occupation forces there would have to contend with the possibility of an uprising in the event of general war in Europe. With these qualifications in mind, we can say that only about half of the Soviet growth in military spending of 2.7 per cent per year is threatening to America.

A Look at Throw-Weight

Three specific areas of Soviet spending are often pointed to with alarm-the Soviet strategic forces, navy, and ground forces.

In the strategic weapons area, the Soviets have indeed expanded rapidly, especially considering the fact that much of the R&D

increase is for strategic weapons. About a third of the additional spending has gone here. As a result, the Soviets have moved from inferiority to rough parity in the missile area-a shift the Nixon administra- tion publicly accepted on taking offlice. But still, some people fear that the Soviets have spent themselves into superiority. For them, "throw-weight" is now in vogue.8

Paul Nitze, for example, recently tried to show a Soviet advantage in throw-weight." But the simple fact is that the 8

Throw-weight is the maximum useful weight that can be carried to a target by a missile.

9 Paul H. Nitze, "Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Detente," Foreign Affairs, January 1976.

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United States has a commanding lead of 27 million pounds to 12 million pounds when total missile throw-weight and maximum bomber payload are combined.

Nitze appears to worry most that if the Soviets strike first and hit U.S. missile silos, they could, by his calculations, improve their throw-weight advantage, hold American cities hostage, and therefore " win" a nuclear war. He neglects one point: The superpower with the postattack advan- tage is the superpower that strikes first. If Washington were to launch a first strike against Soviet missile fields, we would end up with an absolutely enormous throw- weight advantage because much more Soviet throw-weight is carried on their vulnerable land-based missiles.

So it looks as if both superpowers face a throw-weight gap. But does it matter? Even if the Soviets successfully carried out a devastating attack on our forces,'0 the United States would still have about 3,100 surviving warheads--and that is 10 per cent more than the Soviet arsenal has now, before an attack. Even if the Soviets attacked first, the United States would still have enough surviving warheads to drop 13 on every Soviet city of more than 100,000 people. Is the politburo really going to sniff at the possibility of warheads raining down on the Kremlin by arguing, "We have more throw-weight than the Americans"? If they are really that irrational, then they aren't smart enough to under- stand the concept of throw-weight advantage in the first place. In the last analysis, both countries enjoy a surfeit of missilery. In light of that, the significance of any throw-weight advantage is nil.

In the other two areas-the navy and ground forces-the spending growth, as shown in the table above, was modest for those missions and locales that threaten the United States and its NATO allies.

1o One that eliminated 50 per cent of our SLBMs, 90 per cent of our ICBMs, and 80 per cent of our B-52s.

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Only 3 per cent of the growth in Soviet defense spending went to navy conventional forces (excluding strategic missile submarines that are covered in the strategic forces category). The Soviet navy has grown, but it has been able to do this within relatively level budgets because few ships were retired during the decade and it enjoyed a large budget growth prior to the base year 1964, used in the table. The Soviets have built more ships than the United States, but every year we produce more tons of ships; U.S. Navy warships are larger, more capable, and have greater firepower. The Soviet navy has grown, but according to many specialists, it is still largely designed for defensive purposes."

The latest rage among those who view the Soviet military budget with alarm is the spending on ground forces. The numbers being published about Soviet production of tanks, trucks, cannon, and other equipment as well as figures on Soviet military manpower are impressive.

But is the equipment and manpower being sent where it is theatening to U.S. interests? And what kind of quality are they buying with their roubles?

Roughly one-third of Soviet ground forces and equipment are deployed to the Far East, another third faces NATO, while the remaining third is elsewhere. Thus, a sizable fraction does not endanger U.S. security interests. Moreover, as the table indicates, most of the increased spending on Soviet ground forces has gone for men and arms along the Chinese border and in Czechoslovakia, not Eastern Europe.

Tanks, artillery, and other equipment are ground out in quantity but don't measure up to the quality of American weaponry. For example, Soviet tanks have a lower rate of fire, are less accurate at long range, and do not have as much armor protection. The crew space is also cramped, making it difflicult for Soviet tankers to work as

" See Michael T. Klare, "Superpower Rivalry at Sea," FOREIGN POLICY 21.

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effectively as their American counterparts. The issue of quality also applies to

manpower. The Soviets have added one million men in the last decade and now have twice as many in uniform as the United States. But Soviet troops are em- ployed in agricultural and construction pro- jects, and large numbers of Soviet officers are really party functionaries. Furthermore, the Soviet enlisted man is not as experienced as the American volunteer who serves longer tours in the U.S. Army. As Lieutenant General Daniel Graham, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified, "Every six months they replace a quarter of their draftees, and the Soviet army's enlisted strength is almost all draftee." 12 Because of this turnover, many of the men assigned to combat units are still undergoing training.

This is not to say that superior numbers are irrelevant. But part of the reason the United States trails in quantities of equipment is that the U.S. armed forces have decided they want their armories filled with high-quality and sophisticated items. If the services feel that quantity should now be the primary concern, then they can tell their designers to take that into account.

Numerical comparisons are important in any assessment of the military balance. But this dogs not mean that any simple statistic showing the Soviets ahead of the United States is cause for hand wringing.

I do not mean to suggest that Soviet defense spending should be ignored. Some of the increase in spending is certainly threatening. Additional spending in threat-

ening areas can mount up over the years and this warrants our close attention. But a lot of statistics are abused when we talk of the Soviet military. We must put those numbers in perspective and not jump to the conclusion that the Soviet bear is 10 feet tall.

12 In testimony before the U.S., Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government, Allocation of Resources in the Soviet Union and China, 1975, p. 125.

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