I am by no means of the belief that they furnish the basis for a binding explanation of the Soviet Union's interest in the talks or for the kind of strategic relationship with the United States that it has been seeking over the past five years.

With regard to the future, which is perhaps more relevant to this inquiry, it seems to me that the economic burden of arms competition with two rivals the size of the United States and China during the decade of the seventies will pose serious problems for the Soviet leadership, but again I would doubt that this factor alone will prove to be the prime determinant of Soviet strategic policy. The Soviet leaders have indicated upon occasion that they will not let themselves be "intimidated" by those who feel that the Soviet economy cannot stand the strain of further arms competition, and I am inclined to take them at their word in this instance. Although I believe they would be very reluctant to allow Soviet military allocations to increase faster than the economic growth rate for any extended period, I should think that the Soviet leaders are quite prepared to tolerate an annual military-spending increase in the neighborhood of 4 to 5 percent, that is, within an anticipated GNP growth rate of around 5 percent-provided that they consider such a military effort necessary to support Soviet interests.

Now, this amounts to saying, of course, that within the economic parameters suggested here, the relative weight of many salient issues outside the realm of economics can be expected to count heavily in the shaping of Soviet strategic policy. To identify and examine such issues in depth lies beyond the scope of this paper, although I shall venture some passing comment on a few of them in a moment. Before doing so, however, let me turn briefly to the field of science and technology-an area in which, like that of economic performance, the situation facing the Soviet Union has sometimes been described as "far from satisfactory from the standpoint of the needs of a modern, advanced society." 25

The Technological Dilemma and Its Implications

Despite some impressive Soviet achievements in weapons and space technology, it has become widely recognized in the past few years that the Soviet Union is encountering many difficulties in adapting its industrial system to the scientific and technological revolution of the modern era. Testimony to lagging assimilation of new technology in the Soviet Union, outside of the defense sector, comes not only from Western analyses,26 but from Soviet authorities themselves. Since early 1968, for example, when Kosygin warned that the Soviet Union could "be left behind" in the scientific and technological competition unless it found ways to match the innovative practices of the advanced Western countries, there have been numerous expressions of official concern over how to improve the introduction of the methods of findings of science into the Soviet economy.

See, for example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Soviet Past and Future," Encounter, March 1970, p. 9.

For a well-documented Western Study, see E. Zaleski, J. P. Kozlowski, H. Wienert, R. W. Davies, M. J. Berry, R. Amann, Science Policy in the USSR, published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, 1969. See also R. V. Burks, Technological Innovation and Political Change in Communist Europe, RM-6051-PR, The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., August 1969.

27

Speech by Premier A. N. Kosygin in Minsk, February 14, 1968, Sovetskaia Belo-Russia, February 15, 1968.

The emergence of a technological gap between the Soviet Union and the West is not to be explained by unawareness in Moscow of the stakes involved. As proclaimed on several occasions by Brezhnev and other Communist leaders, the scientific-technological revolution "has become one of the main sectors of the historic competition between capitalism and socialism", entailing a "long and difficult struggle", in which it would be unwise "to underrate the forces of those with whom we have to compete in the scientific and technological sphere" 28 Nor has there been a lack of effort in this sphere by the Soviet Union. Expenditures on research and development under the BrezhnevKosygin regime have more than doubled,29 approaching in 1969 the amount spent in the United States,30 and the pool of Soviet scientific manpower has been steadily expanded.31

Evidently, the barriers to more rapid introduction of new technology in the Soviet Union have lain in a cumbersome bureaucracy and in quantitative production criteria which neither the economic reforms initiated in October 1965 nor an overhaul of the research and development establishment decreed in October 1968 32 have managed to correct. In particular, Soviet authorities have complained that scientific discoveries made by research institutes are often obsolescent by the time they are adopted by industry because insufficient attention has been given to development facilities in relevant industries.33 The rather high proportion of over-all Soviet R&D activities devoted to military purposes, as well as the segregation of secret military research from the rest of the economy, also may help to account for the slow diffusion of industrial technology.

31

But whatever the reasons may be for the disparity in technological advance between the nondefense and the defense-related sectors of the Soviet economy, the question of interest here is how this situation may affect the Soviet approach to the SALT talks. As with regard to the uneven performance of the Soviet economy in general, there are differing views of the impact of the technological dilemma upon Soviet policy. On the one hand, it can be argued that the Soviet leaders have a further important incentive to seek a breathing spell in the arms competition in order to give their attention to closing the non

28 See, in particular, speech of June 7, 1969, by L. I. Brezhnev at the International Conference of Communist Parties in Moscow, Pravda, June 8, 1969, and the basic document adopted by the conference on June 17, ibid., June 18, 1969.

The announced Soviet budgetary outlays for science (including research and development) rose from 5.2 billion rubles in 1964 to more than 11 billion rubles in 1970. 20 Conversion of the announced Soviet scientific budget into real terms for comparative purposes presents problems similar to those posed by the military budget. According to Brzezinski (Encounter, March 1970, p. 9), Soviet spending for research and development in real terms was by 1969 "approximately as much" as that in the United States. This would put the comparative figure somewhere in the neighborhood of $26 billion. In my own opinion, the Soviet effort probably came to somewhere between twothirds and three-fourths of the U.S. outlay.

St According to the OECD study. Science Policy in the USSR, pp. 532-34, the Soviet manpower pool engaged in R&D during the mid-sixties at an annual rate of about 100.090 to 130.000, reaching an estimated total of between 1.8 and 2.4 million in November 1966. 3 See the joint recommendation of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, "On Measures to Raise the Efficiency of the Work of Scientific Organizations and to Accelerate the Utilization of Scientific and Technical Achievements in the National Economy." Pravda, Oct. 23, 1988.

33 See, for example. V. Trapeznikov, "Time Lost and Saved: How Much Does It Cost?" Pravda, July 24, 1969; E. Grishaev, "The Strategy of Scientific-Technical Progress." Sotsialisticheskaia industriia, Nov. 29, 1969. For discussion of the imbalance between research and development phases, see also Science Policy in the USSR, pp. 398-402.

See Brzezinski in Encounter, March 1970, p. 9. How much of the total Soviet R&D outlay goes to military purposes is not known, since no breakdown of the budget figure is published. Past Western estimates have ranged from 25 to 75 percent. My own guess would be that defense-related R&D probably accounts for about two-thirds of the total outlay.

defense technological gap. An agreement to stabilize the strategic arms balance would, in this view, also help to create conditions favorable for borrowing Western technology-a means of catching up with the West already evident in deals to import auto factories and systems-management techniques.

On the other hand, there seem to be limits on how far the Soviet leadership may find it feasible to borrow from the West. One of these is the ideological need to preserve the image of the Soviet system as an exemplary model better suited than the capitalist system to realize the potential of the scientific-technological revolution. Having proclaimed the decisive political importance of competition with the West in this sphere, the Soviet leaders would be inviting invidious comparison if they were to acknowledge too freely their dependence on Western prescriptions for technological progress. Concern that East European admiration for Western technological achievements might be exploited to the political disadvantage of the Soviet Union is another possible brake on Soviet readiness to embrace far-reaching reforms modeled on the Western example.35

Within the Soviet governing establishment itself, resistance to major changes in technological organization and priorities might well stem also from those opposed to any transfer of key R&D resources to nondefense uses. Such groups could be expected to argue against tampering with the country's security by diverting Soviet technology from the very field in which it has competed most successfully with the West. With regard to the SALT talks, if this conception of the Soviet interest were to prevail in Moscow, an immediate objective of Soviet policy presumably would be to steer clear of agreements which could have the effect of terminating Soviet efforts to overtake the United States in areas of military technology where the USSR still lags behind, such as MIRV, certain fields of electronics, data handling, and so on.

Again, there is something to be said for both of these ways of interpreting the implications of the technological issue for the SALT talks; certainly, it seems to me, a categorical definition of the Soviet attitude in one set of terms or the other does not appear warranted. Rather, I would suppose that on the technological issue, as on many others which bear on the Soviet strategic relationship with the United States, no solid consensus prevails within the Soviet leadership. Upon this note, I would like to turn briefly to several other considerations which, along with economic and technological matters, may merit

some comment.

Strategic Policy Considerations

First, let me say a few words about the motivation behind the Soviet strategic buildup of the past five years. This is, of course, an exceedingly complex question, and at best I can only hope here to touch upon some of its facets. In my view, the Soviet leaders probably

36

Some Soviet leaders have voiced such concern; for example, in his speech on the November 1968 anniversary of the revolution, K. T. Mazurov warned that the U.S. was pursuing nefarious ends by "trying to perpetuate the so-called technological gap" between the West and the Communist countries, Pravda, November 7, 1968. Other leaders, however, including Kosygin, have taken a different tack, stating that: "It would be shortsighted of us not to make use of the latest foreign scientific and technical achievements." See his Minsk speech, Sovietskaia Belo-Russia, Feb. 15, 1968.

A fuller examination of this question may be found in Chapter XVIII of my forthcoming book, Soviet Power and Europe: 1945-1970, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 1970.

embarked on the buildup without a fixed blueprint for the future and without having settled among themselves precisely what sort of strategic posture vis-à-vis the United States would prove satisfactory to Soviet policy needs during the next decade. Some segments of the leadership, for example, may have preferred to seek a stable and lowcest strategic relationship with the United States in order to channel more resources to domestic purposes; others perhaps favored parity pegged at a high level in order to keep third parties like Germany and China in their place and to sustain a duopoly of Soviet-American power in international politics; still others may have set their sights on attaining general strategic superiority over the United States in the belief that only thus could military and political freedom of action requisite to Soviet needs be assured.

Underlying these divergent strategic policy preferences, I suspect, one might find some significant differences in outlook within the Soviet leadership on such fundamental issues as the mutuality of SovietU.S. interests. The more pragmatic elements among the leadership may have tended to recognize a growing range of mutual interests beyond avoidance of nuclear war, including the desirability of cultivating a stable Soviet-American relationship in order to contain the ambitions of Maoist China. On the other hand, within the top leadership echelons there were doubtless many men still dedicated to a cohesive doctrine of international "class struggle" which left little room for common cause with the United States. Despite Soviet difficulties with China, leaders of the latter persuasion were probably not disposed to think in terms of reconciling profound conflicts of interest with the United States, nor to favor a permanent political and strategic standoff with their principal capitalist adversary.

Although it seems likely to me that no single strategic policy line enjoyed uncontested sanction within the Soviet leadership, I would imagine that general agreement could be found on a number of points among all leadership circles from low-cost stabilizers to superiority advocates. For example, however burdensome the strategic buildup may have appeared, the leadership probably felt that it would open a range of political opportunities to the Soviet Union, important among these being the possibility of decoupling U.S. strategic power from regional alliances, especially in Europe, where doubts about the future reliability of U.S. commitments could impair NATO unity, lead to the isolation of West Germany, and leave the Soviet Union the main arbiter of European security. On the whole, the leadership also evidently shared the belief that the Soviet strategic buildup was needed to bolster deterrence, although there may have been considerable doubt in some minds about the feasibility of implementing a strategic doctrine that also called for a military posture adequate to wage war successfully if deterrence should fail. Another relatively noncontentious point, in all probability, was that Soviet policy should try to inhibit a new U.S. takeoff in strategic technology and force levels as a response to the Soviet buildup. Finally, all elements of the leadership appear to have agreed that nothing less than SovietAmerican strategic equality would be tolerable any longer.

This last proposition, as I see it, was the pertinent factor which served to reconcile differing internal preferences with regard to strategic policy while the buildup proceeded. So long as the immediate

objective was to catch up with the United States, the political leadership could leave the details of catching up largely in the hands of the military-industrial bureaucracy and defer coming to grips with competing policy choices. However, whether one is prone to believe that the Soviet buildup grew out of a well-meshed strategic plan or a somewhat more haphazard series of developments, once it had brought the Soviet Union virtually abreast of the United States in strategic forces, the Kremlin leaders faced a new and potentially divisive question: where do we go from here?

As I have previously noted, some analysts would argue that the Soviet leaders had already answered this question to their satisfaction when they entered the SALT talks-either to halt the buildup at parity or to pursue it further in search of superiority. I tend to believe, however, that no consensus on alternative strategic policy courses actually prevailed. If this were the case, then the Soviet attitude toward the talks themselves might be expected to reflect a certain ambivalence, and there would probably be a disposition to proceed conservatively so as to keep the negotiations from aggravating internal Soviet policy differences. Although the talks thus far have been conducted in relative secrecy, making it unwise to jump to conclusions, it seems to me that the available record tends to support this surmise.

The Soviet Stance Toward SALT

A complete review of the Soviet stance toward SALT would, of course, take us well beyond the compass of this paper, but perhaps a brief glance at the record is appropriate. First, it may be recalled, there was a delay of about 18 months before the initial Soviet decision to enter the talks was made known on June 27, 1968, which in itself suggested that the Soviet approach to strategic arms negotiations was a discordant issue within the Brezhnev-Kosygin regime." The invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 introduced a new postponement of the talks, but signs of internal Soviet controversy over the issue continued.

One form in which an ambivalent attitude toward the talks showed up was editorial tampering with official statements on arms control policy. For example, the military newspaper Krasnaia zvezda of October 4, 1968, in reporting Foreign Minister Gromyko's UN address the day before, deleted his remarks on strategic arms negotiations, even though it mentioned other arms control proposals. Likewise, the Soviet press omitted reference to the same subject in a UN speech of November 13, by Iakov Malik, the Soviet UN representative. The November 6, 1968, anniversary speech of Politburo member K. T. Mazurov also received press treatment differing from the live version, the effect of which was to censor out a statement expressing Soviet readiness to negotiate on "the whole complex" of questions involved in the strategic arms issue.

In his speech to the Supreme Soviet on June 27, 1968, in which the Soviet government's readiness for "an exchange of opinion on the subject" was first announced, Foreign Minister A. A. Gromyko also said: "To the good-for-nothing theoreticians who try to tell ... that disarmament is an illusion, we reply: By taking such a stand you fall into step with the most dyed-in-the-wool imperialist reaction, weaken the front of struggle against it." Although he left unnamed those theoreticians whose advice he was rejecting, Gromyko here was apparently attempting to rebut internal objectors to the strategic arms talks. Pravda, June 28, 1968.

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