The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (101 page)

This does not address what may be a far more serious problem for the two rival superpowers over the next twenty years and beyond: that of nuclear proliferation into countries in the more volatile parts of the world—the Near East, the Indian subcontinent, South Africa, possibly Latin America.
¹⁸⁰
Since the states concerned are not part of the Great Power system, the awful possibility of their resorting to nuclear weapons in some regional clash is not considered here: on the whole it seems fair to conclude that the United States and the USSR have a shared interest in halting nuclear proliferation, since it makes global politics more complicated than ever before. If anything, the trend toward proliferation may cause the superpowers to appreciate what they have in common.

In a quite different league—from Moscow’s viewpoint, certainly—are the fast-expanding nuclear armories of China, Britain, and France. Until a few years ago, it was commonly assumed that all three of those nations were merely marginal factors in the nuclear balance, and that their nuclear strategy was not at all “credible,” since they could only inflict (in all three cases) limited damage upon the USSR in exchange for their own atomic obliteration. But the indications are that that assumption may soon require modification. The most alarming tendency—again, from Moscow’s viewpoint—is the increasing nuclear capacity
of the People’s Republic of China, about which it has been concerned for the past twenty-five years.
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If the PRC can develop not only a more sophisticated land-based ICBM system but also—as seems its intention—a long-range, submarine-based ballistic-missile system, and if Sino-Soviet disputes are not settled to mutual satisfaction, then the USSR faces the possibility of a future armed clash along the borders which might escalate into a nuclear interchange with its Chinese neighbor. As things are at present, the devastation of the PRC would be immense; but Moscow cannot exclude the possibility that at least a certain number (and, the 1990s, a larger number) of Chinese nuclear missiles would hit the Soviet Union.

More worrying technically, although perhaps less alarming politically, is the buildup of the British and French nuclear delivery and warhead capacities. Until recently, the “deterrent” effect of both of these Powers’ strategic weapon systems appeared dubious. In the rather implausible event of their being involved in a nuclear interchange with the USSR, and with the United States neutral (which is, after all, the justification for the British and French systems), it was difficult to see them risking national suicide when they could only inflict partial damage upon Russia from their own modest delivery systems. In the next few years, however, the devastation which each of those midsized Powers could do to the USSR will be multiplied many times, because of the vast enhancement of their submarine-launched ballistic-missile systems. For example, Britain’s acquisition of submarines carrying the Trident II missile system—derided by
The Economist
as “the Rolls Royce of nuclear missiles”
¹⁸²
because of its high cost and excessive striking power—will give that country a nearly invulnerable deterrent force which could destroy more than 350 Soviet targets, instead of the present sixteen-plus targets. In rather the same way, France’s new submarine
L’Inflexible
, with the longer-range, multiwar-head M-4 missile, is probably capable of attacking ninety-six Soviet targets—“more than all of France’s five earlier nuclear submarines combined”
¹⁸³
—and when the other boats have been reequipped with the same M-4 missile, France’s strategic warheads will have increased
fivefold
, allowing it also to be theoretically capable of hitting hundreds of Russian targets from thousands of miles away.

What this means in real terms it is, of course, impossible to forecast. In Britain itself many prominent figures have found the idea that their country would
independently
use its nuclear weapons against Russia to be, literally, “incredible”;
¹⁸⁴
and such critics are unlikely to be swayed by the counterargument that the country’s own suicide would at least be attended by inflicting much heavier damage upon the USSR than was possible hitherto. In France, too, public opinion—and some strategic commentators—find its declared deterrent policy to be scarcely credible.
¹⁸⁵
On the other hand, it seems fair to assume that
Russian military planners, who take nuclear-war-fighting possibilities very seriously indeed, must find these recent developments disturbing. Not only will they face
four
countries—instead of the United States alone—with the potential to inflict heavy (perhaps extraordinarily heavy) damage upon the Soviet heartland, but they must consider what the
subsequent
world military balances would look like if Russia was involved in a nuclear interchange with one of these Powers (say, China) while the others were neutral observers of such mutually inflicted devastation. Hence the Soviets’ repeated insistence that in any overall Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the United States the Anglo-French systems have to be taken into account,
and
that the USSR must have a certain margin of nuclear force to take care of China. All this, it seems reasonable to suggest, makes nuclear weapons an ever more dubious instrument of
rational
military policy from the Kremlin’s viewpoint.

    If, however, this leaves conventional weapons as the chief measure of Soviet military power—and the chief tool for securing the political aims of the Soviet state—it is difficult to believe that Russian planners can feel much more assured at the present state of the international military balance. This may seem a bold statement to make in view of the very extensive publicity which has been given to the far larger totals of Soviet aircraft, tanks, artillery, and infantry divisions in assessments of the U.S.-USSR “military balance”—not to mention the frequent assertion that NATO forces, unable to hold their own in a large-scale conventional war in Europe, would be compelled to “go nuclear” within a matter of days. Yet an increasing number of the most recent academic studies of the “balance” are now suggesting that that is precisely what exists—namely, a situation in which “there still appears to be insufficient overall strength on
either
side to guarantee victory.”
¹⁸⁶
To reach this conclusion involves both very detailed comparative analyses (e.g., of the composition of the U.S. as opposed to Russian tank divisions) and considerations of certain larger and intangible factors (e.g., the role of China, the reliability of the Warsaw Pact), and only a summary of these arguments can be provided here. If, however, this evidence is even roughly correct, it also cannot be very comforting to Soviet planners.

The first and most obvious point to be made is that any analysis of the
conventional
balance of forces needs to measure the rival alliances as a whole, especially in their European context. As soon as that is done, it becomes evident that the non-American parts of NATO are much more significant than the non-Russian parts of the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, as the 1985 British Defence White Paper made pains to point out, “European countries were providing the major part of the ready [NATO] forces stationed in Europe: 90 percent of the manpower, 85
percent of the tanks, 95 percent of the artillery and 80 percent of the combat aircraft; and over 70 percent of the major warships in Atlantic and European waters.… The full mobilized strength of European forces was nearly 7 million men as against 3.5 million for the United States.”
¹⁸⁷
It is, of course, also true that the United States has deployed 250,000 men
in situ
in Germany, that the army divisions and air squadrons which it plans to pour across the Atlantic in the event of a European war would be critical reinforcements, and that NATO as a whole depends upon the American nuclear deterrent and upon American sea power. But the point is that the North Atlantic Alliance is much more evenly balanced between, as it were, the twin pillars of the “arch,” than is the Warsaw Pact, which is top-heavy and skewed toward Moscow. It is also worth noting that America’s NATO allies spend six times more on defense than Russia’s Warsaw Pact allies; indeed, Britain, France, and West Germany
each
spend more than the non-Russian Warsaw Pact countries together.
¹⁸⁸

If, then, the strength of the two alliances is measured as a whole, and without the curious omissions and provisos which have characterized some of the more alarmist western assessments,
*
a picture emerges of strategical parity in most respects; and even where the Warsaw Pact has the edge in numbers, that does not look decisive. For example, each alliance appears to have roughly similar “total ground forces in Europe”; they also have similar “total ground forces” and “total ground force reserves.”
¹⁸⁹
In the
roundest
sense of all, the Warsaw Pact’s 13.9 million men (6.4 million “main forces” and 7.5 million reserves) is not vastly greater than NATO’s 11.9 million men (5 million “main forces” and 6.8 million reserves), the more especially since a large proportion of the Warsaw Pact total consists of Category III units and reserve forces of the Red Army. Even on the critically important Central Front, where NATO forces are most seriously outnumbered by the masses of Russian armored and motor-rifle divisions, the Warsaw Pact’s advantage is not a very comforting one—especially when it is recalled how difficult it would be to conduct fast, offensive, “maneuver warfare” in the crowded terrain of northern Germany and when it is realized how many of Russia’s 52,000 “main battle tanks” are the obsolescent T-54s—which would simply clog up the roads. Provided NATO has sufficient reserves of ammunition, fuel, replacement weaponry, etc., it certainly seems to be in a much better position to blunt a Soviet conventional offensive than it was in the 1950s.
¹⁹⁰

In addition, there is the incalculable element of the integrity and cohesion of the respective military alliances. That NATO has many weaknesses is undeniable: from the frequent transatlantic disputes
over “burden sharing” to the tricky issue of intergovernmental consultation in the event of pressure to launch nuclear missiles. Neutralist and anti-NATO sentiment, detectable in left-of-center parties from West Germany and Britain to Spain and Greece, is also a cause of periodic concern.
¹⁹¹
And if there were to be, at some future time, a “Finlandization” of any of the states lying along the Warsaw Pact’s western boundary (especially, of course, West Germany itself), then that would be a massive strategical gain to the USSR as well as providing economic relief. Yet even if such a scenario is possible
in theory
, that can hardly compare with the worries which Moscow must presently entertain about the reliability of its “empire” in eastern Europe. The broad-based popularity of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the evident East German wishes to improve relations with Bonn, the “creeping capitalism” of the Hungarians, the economic woes which are affecting not merely Poland and Rumania but all of eastern Europe, pose extraordinarily difficult problems for the Soviet leadership. They are not issues which can be readily solved by the use of the Red Army; nor, however, does it appear that fresh doses of “scientific socialism” would provide an answer satisfactory to the eastern Europeans. Despite the Kremlin’s recent rhetoric about the modernization and reexamination of Marxist economic and social policies, it is difficult to see Russia relinquishing its many controls over eastern Europe. Yet these varied signs of political discontent and economic distress must call ever more into question the reliability of the
non-Russian
armies in the Warsaw Pact.
¹⁹²
The Polish armed forces, for example, can hardly be reckoned as an addition to the pact’s strength; if anything, the reverse is true, since they—and the critically important Polish road and rail lines—would need close Red Army supervision in wartime.
¹⁹³
Similarly, it is difficult to imagine the Czech and Hungarian armies enthusiastically rushing forward to assault NATO positions upon Moscow’s orders. Even the attitudes of East German forces, probably the most effective and modernized of Russia’s allies, may be affected by the order to attack westward. It is true that the great bulk (four-fifths) of the Warsaw Pact’s forces are Russians, and that Soviet divisions would be the real spearhead in any conventional war with the West; but it will be a considerable task for Red Army commanders both to conduct such a war and to keep an eye upon the million or more eastern European soldiers, most of them not very efficient and some of them not very reliable.
¹⁹⁴
The possibility (however remote) that NATO may even seek to respond to a Warsaw Pact offensive by mounting its own counteroffensive, into, say, Czechoslovakia,
¹⁹⁵
can only increase an unease which is probably as much political as it is military.

Since the early 1960s, moreover, Russian planners have had to juggle with an even more horrifying problem: the possibility that they might be involved in a large-scale conflict with NATO
and
with China.
If this occurred at the same time, then the prospects of switching reinforcements from one front or to another would be severely limited, if not impossible; but even if the war was being fought only on one front, the Kremlin might well fear to redeploy divisions from a region which, while technically neutral, had large armed forces of a potential foe arrayed along the border. As it is, the USSR is compelled to keep about fifty divisions and 13,000 tanks ready for the eventuality of a Sino-Soviet clash; and although the Russian forces are more modern and mobile than the Chinese, it is hard to envisage how they could ensure a total victory—not to mention a prolonged occupation—against an army four times as large.
¹⁹⁶
All this necessarily assumes that the war would remain a conventional one (which, given some Russian hints about how they would crush China, may be a totally flawed assumption); but if there
is
a Russo-Chinese nuclear exchange, Soviet planners would then have to wonder whether their country might be left in a position of inferiority vis-à-vis the still neutral, yet very critical, West. In the same way, a Soviet Union badly hurt by either nuclear or large-scale conventional fighting against NATO must worry about how to handle Chinese pressures if it had been reduced to a “broken-backed” status.
¹⁹⁷