nnm BDM Pedera l Inc 1501 BDM Way Mclean VA 22102 SOVIET INTENTIONS 1965-1985 Volume II Soviet Post-Cold War Testimonial Evidence AUTiiORS John G Hines Senior Author Ellis M Mishulovich JohnF ShuU BDM FEDERAL INC September 22 1995 CONTRACT #MDA903-92-C-0147 OSD-NET ASSESSMENT ' I 'l TABLE OF CONTENTS -1 J '1 J n j Co nts on Interview Process i Marshal Sergei F Akhromeev o o 3 Mu-shal Sergei F Akhromee v - 5 Gen -Lt Gelii Vik torovich Batenin 7 Sergei Blagovolin - 11 Harold Brown 13 Zbigtrlew Brzezinski o - o o 16 Dmitrii S Chereshkin 18 Gen -Col Ret AndrianA Danilevich 19 Gen -Col Ret AndrianA Danilevich 20 Gen -Col Ret AndrianA Danilevich 27 I Gen -Col Ret Andrian A Danilevich - 38 Gen -Col Ret Andrian A Danilcvich o 58 Gen -Col Ret AndrianA Danilevicb 54 Gen -Col Ret AndrianA Danilevich 66 Gen -Maj Vladimir Zinovicvich Dvorkin 70 J Gen Makhmut A Garecv 72 cl Gen Makbmut A Garcev 74 Fred c Ikle 77 Gen -Col Igor' V IDarionov 79 Gen -Cot Igor' V lllarionov - oo - - o o 83 A S Kalashnikov 86 A S Kalasbnikov - 94 J Vitalii Leonidovicb Kataev o 99 J J J Vitalii Leonidovich Kataev 96 Gen -Maj Ret Iurii A Kirsbin _ 102 Gen -Maj Ret Iurii A Kirsbin 104 Robert W Komer 105 Gen -Col Ret Varfolomei Vladimirovich Korobushin 106 Gen -Lt Ret Nikolai Vasil'cvich Kravets _ 109 Gen -Col Gregorii Fedorovich Krivosbeev 111 Colonel Petr M Lapunov 115 1 l -1 1 0 n 1 I J '1 J Andrew W Marshall 118 Rod McDaniel 120 Iu A Mozzhorin 122 Iu A Mozzhorin 125 Vladimir Rubanov 127 JaJlleS R Schlesinger 128 Vitalii V Shlykov ' 131 Boris Aleksandrovich Strogonov 132 Viktor M Surikov o 134 Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygicbko - 136 Dr Vitalii Nik olacvich Tsygicbk o 142 Dr Vitalii Nik olaevich Tsygichko - 144 Dr Vitalii Nikoiaevich Tsygichko 146 Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko 148 Dr Vitalii Nik ola evich Tsygichko 150 Gen Col Dmitrii Volkogonov 158 APPENDIX A Partial List of Decision Makers and Analysts 159 APPENDIX B Research Questions for Soviet Interview Respondents 161 APPENDIX C Research Questions for U S Interview Respondents 165 APPENDIX D List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 166 APPENDIX E Tsygicbk o's Kommentarii k interv'iu v 1990-1991 godu o 168 Index 178 m m j J J J J l -l Interviews and Discussio118 with Cold-War Er4 Pla nnen 4nd Analysts This volume contains much of the aw material on which this study is based All items in this collection represent the testimony in some form of Soviet and American strategic planners and analysts whose professional careers were largely dominated by the need to understand and respond effectively to the military threat from their Cold War opponents 0 Most of the items are structured as records or sillnmaries of interviews conducted n on the basis of a specific list of questions In follow-up interviews or interviews with difficult subjects the questions served only as a general guide to research Long narrative responses also often did not address questions in the same format and sequence in which the questions were presented 1 I J J 0 For many reasons items do not follow precisely the sequence and contents of the interview questions Soviet interview subjects often were uncomfortable with the interview situation the questions or the implications of the research the Cold War was over and the West had won As a result the nature of the record of interview or discussion varies from interview to interview Transcripts of taped interviews are the record of choice of course followed by records based on notes and fmally summaries based on the memory of the interviewer prepared shortly after the interview Many Soviet interview subjects were uncomfortable with tape J J J J J J recorders especially early in the project 1989-1990 when several were far from convinced that the Cold War was indeed over Likewise several of the questions caused discomfort which forced rephrasing and special prompting provocative statements or allusions to other information on the part of the interviewer Some interview subjects responded with almost a stream-of-consciousness flow of information that moved from association to association through an entire series of related issues Stopping such a response to adhere precisely to our questions could result in the loss of valuable insights and information not anticipated by the questioner 'l Cold War Interviews l This resulted in incomplete coverage of some questions requiring when possible subsequent supplementary interviews focused on specific issues To compensate when - 1 possible we revisited some of the most knowledgeable interview subjects several times over the course of 3 or 4 years 'l We tried when possible to isolate the interview subject from his colleagues during questioning to avoid mutual intimidation collegial responses and contamination 1 of data and observations We were generally successful in meeting this objective but were sometimes forced by those who helped arrange a given interview to involve them in J c 1 I l ' the process When possible we would subsequently isolate the interview subject and revisit one or two key questions to validate the original response The record that follows therefore inconsistent in level of detail and comprehensiveness despite the planning and good intentions of the researchers Imperfect as they are they nevertheless represent a unique record of information and beliefs of Cold War participants who were able to trust their former enemies sufficiently to share their thoughts and beliefs in some detail before they themselves passed into history For the convenience of the reader a list of acronyms and abbreviations appears in the appendices as well as a selective list of decision makers and analysts cited or referred to in the interview record 1w J J J J J is ii SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW Subject Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNllSl Academy of Sciences USSR Director Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Room 716 VNIISI Building 9 Prospekt 6Q let Oktiabria Moscow Interviewer John G Hines Date l'ime December 13 1990 11 00 a m Duration l I '' J _I J a J J J J l 1 5 hours Language Russian Prepared by John G Hines based on notes Purpose of Interview - To review with Dr Tsygicbko his views on the product and process of Soviet military assessments in the 1970s and 1980s Of special interest was the Soviets' thinking about military competition assessments of Western capabilities and intentions relative to their own and expectations of the nature of war should it occur The role and expected efforts of strategic and theater weapons of mass destruction was of central concern as was conventional war Gen ral Vitalii Tsygicbko is a former artillery colonel who johled the SoViet General Staff in 1964 where he was involved in some of the early efforts to subject force structure and operations to systematic analysis using mathematically based methodologies and models Between 1967 and 1977 he was head of the Theater Force Modeling Department within the Scientific Research Institute Nauchno-Issledovatel'skii lnstitut Number 6 Nll-6 of the Mmn Intelligence Directorate GRU that provided quantitative analytical support to the Ministry of Defense There are five such purely military institutes that support the Ministry of Defense in various areas He left the institute and the Army in 1977 because be felt that the best work of his division was being suppressed or ignored He becam e a senior analyst at VNITSI of the Soviet Academy of Sciences at that time His reputation as an analyst and an officer is very positive among both former and serving General Staff generals and officers who seem eager to associate themselves with him and his work One senior General Staff colonel Kabysh who continues to work as a General Staff analyst knew of Tsygichko by reputation identifying him as one of the principal architects of the General Staffs approach to quantitative analysis of force operations General-Major Luzianin a department head within the Center for Operational Strategic Studies TsOSI of the General Staff and a colleague of Tsygicbko's on the General Staff in the 1970s called Dr Tsygichko to the General Staff 136 Cold War Interviews -l ' ' 'l J J 1 I 1 J J n J J l J Tsygichko on December 10 1990 to offer him a contract to support the center's analysis Dr Tsygicbko accepted and will be providing support over the next several months I learned indirectly from Andrei Kokoshin who is fairly well connected to parts of the General Staff that much of the work done in TsOSI is designed to meet the needs of General Ladygin's General Staff Directorate for gal and Treaty Affairs Some of Dr Tsygicbko's colleagues who had been present at an interview given by Minister of Defense lazov to deputies of the RSFSR on November 5 1990 reported that Tsygicbko's name was brought up by lazov during the discussion Specifically Marshal Iazov was complaining that self-described civilian defense analysts were demonstrating their incompetence whenever they attempted to deal with military analytical or operation questions He specifically cited the work of Vitalii Tsygichko and his center as an exception to this general rule stating that the center was doing very good work ' This is one of a series of interviews that I have conducted with Dr Tsygichko There is some duplication among interviews because I have revisited some themes to clarify points from previous discussions and I have tried to provide enough information to establish the context for his answers This particular interview brings out the differences in understanding and attitudes about theater nuclear use among three groups of officers the General Staff analysts and general officers routinely exposed to serious analysis of the operational and collateral effects of nuclear use the army generals those field generals who commanded armies Fronts military districts and High Commands of Forces in TVDs 86 and the top military leadership the Ministry of Defense the Chief of the General Staff and his deputies all of whom were exposed to the product of the analysis being done within the General Staff but whose attitudes were shaped by other than purely military analytical considerations ''Three Views on Nuclear Warfare General Staff officers in the 1970s were very knowledgeable about the tremendous difficulties and uncertainties that would be involved in use of nuclear weapons at the strategic operational and tactical levels In the 1960s and 1970s many of the best and brightest minds in the Soviet scientific community were working in uniform within the General Staff in the areas of analysis and planning Several models had been developed and applied to test the operational and general collateral effects of nuclear use at various levels and on various scales of employment some of these models are discussed below as well as in other interviews The conclusions of the General Staff analysts and other officers involved was essentially that nuclear use was operationally counter-productive and generally self-destructive Even these officers to include Tsygicbko carried out their work without any systematic consideration of the social or economic implications of their fmdings As a result they were unable to gauge the importance of their research in any but a purely military context Senior General Staff generals were routinely exposed to this analytical work and understood the consequences of nuclear use Thus Marshals Grechko and Kulikov Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff respectively in the early to mid1970s knew understood and believed that nuclear use at any level by either side would be catastrophic for the Soviet Armed Forces and the Soviet state they were required to protect These senior Minister of Defense and General Staff generals nevertheless formally rejected the analysis to which they were exposed and typically suppressed it by 86 TVD - Teatr voennykh tkistvii- Theater of Strategic Military Action for ex le Cen from Ukraine to the western shore of Ireland 137 Tsygichko Cold War Interviews assigning to the analytical products extremely high classifications and by denying further dissemination and discussion The reasons for such denial and willful adherence to nuclear thinking iadernoe myshlenie were ideological bureancratic and economic -I c 0 Dr Tsygichko asserted that the Brezhnev Politburo delegated all military matters to the Ministry of Defense to include all force procurement decisions Threat defmition was also a military function carried out within the General Staff by the Main Political Directorate There was essentially no political oversight over the force building process and no serious challenge from the Politburo to what was clearly a decision situation in which there were serious conflicts of interest This hands-off' attitude of the Brezhnev Politburo and the mindless nuclear force-building that resulted was strongly confmned by General-Colonel Danilevich To officially acknowledge that nuclear use was senseless and basically catastrophic would require several changes in the entire Soviet political-military-economic system that were completely unacceptable to the senior officers who were the products and beneficiaries of that system These changes would include - Acknowledgment that victory would be impossible in nuclear war-a violation of basic Marxist-Leninist dogma 1 - Deep reductions in military spending R J - The nuclear weapons and weapons delivery missiles aircraft submarines industry was massive and important to the already very distorted economy The logic of the General Staff analysis would undermine directly the program of quantitative competition with the U S that was being pushed by the senior military leadership and military industrialists at that time J - Conventional a Imaments production was expanding as was the size of the Anned Forces based on expectations of high but somehow acceptable losses of conventional forces in the event of nuclear war '1 The implications of deep reductions in nuclear and perhaps conventional forces and formal acknowledgment by the Soviet leadership that they were deterred by the prospect of an unwinnable nuclear war would have affected profoundly Soviet society in general and the military role in that system in particular J -J J - The Soviet economy would be forced to undergo radical adjustments which few were able or willing to contemplate - Forty percent of the Soviet GDP was being spent on the military The MoD was spending 20 billion rubles per year on personnel costs alone An impressive number considering that the Soviet Armed Forces were comprised of very-low-paid conscripts - The role of the military in general probably would be diminished J - The dominant position of the military as an institution would be threatened Reducti on in the size of nuclear and conventional forces would eliminate l OOOs of officer and general officer positions J armeiskie generaly could not according to Tsygichko imagine war without nuclear 138 The third group to which Dr Tsygichko frequently refers as the army generals Tsygichko weapons Unlike the General Staff generals however who understood the c onsequences of nuclear use the Ground Forces operational commanders and CINCs were basically uninformed and generally did not know or understand what would happen in the event of nuclear use They routinely used expressions such as the need to be prepared ''to attack to the thunder of nuclear strikes While it was clear that Tsygichko held them in low regard because of their ignorance and misplaced macho enthusiasm for self-destructive behavior it is clear that these officers were kept in ignorance by the senior General Staff generals for the reasons cited above As will be clear when some of the models are discussed the real findings on nuc1ear effects and contamination never made it to the field in the 1970s leaving the army generals with exercise scenarios that reinforced their impression that nuclear use in theater would be somehow manageable General Staff Modeling of Nuclear War in Europe of a I 1 Between 1972 and 1979 tremendous amount work was done in Tsygichko's institute and elsewhere in the General Staff's analytical support apparatus to analyze possible war in Europe including nuclear war In the course of doing this analysis the General Staff constructed several different models designed to test various outcomes and effects The overall purpose of the analysis was to determine what war might be like and in particular to determine the effects of losses on the conduct of operations and on the continuity of the availability of reserves and rear services Some of the modeling work accomplished in this period and the manner in which the findings were received by the General Staff leadership are discussed below Modeling ofAtmospheric and Other Effects from a Nuclear Exchange in Europe and on a Global Scale In 1971 and 1972 the General Staff studied the cliinatic and contamination effects from a global exchange and concluded that there would be serious negative consequences for the USSR and for the northern hemisphere in general J r Tsygichko wanted to point out that nuclear winter'' was not discovered by Aleksandrov or Sagan in 1987 sic 87 The General Staff did not use the expression ''nuclear winter but the analysts considered many of the effects that received so much public attention almost 20 years later These findings were summarized in a memo to the MoD and e Central Committee and were ignored because of the implications discussed earlier J J J In 1972 and 1973 Dr Tsygichko' s institute did a great deal of work modeling nuclear war in Europe In this work which included the development of a model the institute studied the operational effects of the expected high loss levels and disruption of the rear discussed in detail in an earlier interview but also calculated nuclear contamination given prevailing eastward wind patte s in Europe The study found that in executing even the basic plan to place a nuclear strike on every NATO airfield the Soviet side would create extremely high levels of contamination in Europe The worst effects would be upon Warsaw Pact forces and upon the Pact's strategic military rear in Eastern Europe and the European USSR Within a relatively short period of time contamination would have a severely negative effect on the Warsaw Pact's ability to 87 Ameiican scientist Carl Sagan together with his colleagues popularized the notion duri g the early 1980s th t a global nuclear war would induce an artificial winter across the northern hemisphere Aleksandrov conducted similar work in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s Authors were not able to identify Aleksandrov's first name and position 139 o' Cold War Interviews Tsygichko - continue the war and would have mid- to long-term health consequences for the civilian populations of all members of the Pact This study was of sufficient importance that the institute and the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff devoted an additional 6 months to an independent validation of the model and its findings The validation process resulted in the considered confirmation of the analytical results achieved by the institute 1 J n l I J J J J J J 'J Dr Tsygichko briefed the findings of the model to Marshal Kulikov the Chief of the General Staff in 1973 Kulikov ordered Tsygichko then a lieutenant colonel to modify the conclusions or face forced retirement Tsygicbko said he felt sufficiently secure to refuse since be already had his doctorate The director of his institute met with Tsygichko later on the same day he had his confrontation with Kulikov and asked him to be more flexible Tsygicbko refused The findings were suppressed by means of overclassification and severe restrictions on dissemination Tsygichko was not forced to retire Tsygichko pointed out that one of the consequences of this suppression was that the findings were never incorporated into routine Soviet exercises As a consequence exercise maps typically depicted neat manageable balloon-shaped contamination patterns that could be circumvented easily by army commanders Hence the exercise nuclear effects did not seriously affect operations much less impose severe disruptions on the strategic rear and populations of the Warsaw Pact Vitalii Tsygichko stressed that in his confrontation with Kulikov and his generals it was clear to him that they all understood the correctness of his fmdings but were unwilling to accept and disseminate them because of what those fmdings implied for the General Staff in the areas of force development doctrine military investment etc The Competence of General Staff Modelers and Quantitative Analysts'' Dr Tsygichko had cotnmented earlier on the unfavorable impression he had of serving General Staff modelers and analysts when he participated by invitation in a General-Staff hosted analytical seminar in June 1990 In earlier conversations he made it clear that he was commenting specifically on the work of the analysts from the TsOSI when he said that the quality of the modeling work had reverted to what it had been 20 years ago before major advances in sophistication had been made In a conversation we bad on December 12 1990 he clarified and expanded on his earlier comment The June 1990 seminar included participants from TsOSI but also analysts from the Main Directorate for Organization and Mobilization headed by General-Colonel Krivosheev and the Main Operations Directorate headed by General Omelichev Dr Tsygichko made it clear that Krivosheev's people were equivalent in their low level of competence to the TsOSI analysts He added that the only real analysts that appear to be left on the General Staff are working for General Omelichev in the Main Operations Directorate which is concerned with doing the assessments of the correlation of forces globally and by region and which support directly General Staff decisions on force deployments and changes in readiness status This must be considered in the context of the steady oobrain drain of top analysts who have left the General Staff and supporting analytical institutes for the Soviet Academy of Sciences since the mid-1970s 140 1 Cold War Interviews Tsygichko General-Major Medvedev Deputy Director for Science of the TsOSI confinned to me in Germany in November 1990 that this trend is continuing He volunteered that they have over 60 slots in the General Staff institutes for civilian analysts and that few if any were filled o l l Tsygichko's contments suggest that the remaining qualified analysts are being pulled out of the more theoretical or rums-control sup_ port positions to keep alive the operational core of the General Staff the Main Operations Directorate which is much more concerned with applications and exploitation of mathematical models than with their development or improvement -l j 0 1 I J L J J J ' J J 141 - l l J 0 n I l j J J J J J SUMMARY OF I RVIEW Subject Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNUSI Academy of Sciences USSR Director Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Moscow Interviewer John G Hines Date December 17 1990 Prepared by John G Hines based on notes Brezhnev and the Politburo left military doctrine to the professionals and gave the military great reign in determining resource allocation and threat definition General Staff officers understood that nuclear use would be operationally counterproductive but Front and TVD commanders anneiskie generaly expected to fight with nuclear weapons Models showed that global nuclear war would have drastic effects on climate and that nuclear strikes against all NATO airfields would contaminate the atmosphere in Eastern Europe and the USSR Memos about this were sent to MoD and the Central Committee but were ignored In the early 1970s modeling predicted that use at the Front level of 15- 20% of nuclear arsenals on both sides would cause enough destruction to end war at this level Moreover models were used to conduct sensitivity analysis on nuclear use at Front level to determine at what percentage of use the nuclear arsenal available to both sides would the operational impact be acceptable That is how much of the arsenal could each side absorb and have losses sufficiently low to allow the Soviet Front to continue military operations The analysis was begun at 20% of the arsenals available to both sides and the exercise was halted when the modelers had exercised strikes comprised of 2% of the arsenal The losses even at an exchange of 2% were so great that all operations and movement ceased for 2 days while surviving commanders and staff assessed the potential for regrouping and resuming operations Even then resumption of Front operations was problematical depending upon assumption about losses of key command and control personnel and facilities o The main Operations Directorate spent 6 months to validate the model o Gareev challenged the findings Gareev' s work on the correlation of orces predicted losses from nuclear strikes that were small enough to pennit the continuation of operations after each phase o Kulikov understood that the findings were true but suppressed them because their implications for defense spending were unacceptable J l 142 Cold War Interviews Tsygichko o In exercises Soviet troops continued simply to move around areas contaminated by nuclear use ' azov in Red Star Krasnaia zvezda praised the work of Tsygichko's institute In the 1960s and 1970s excellent analysts worked in General Staff planning and analysis but they had no serious reality reference they did not know bow to measure the social or economic value of their work l -J i' D 1 J g J J J J 143 SUMMARYOFllflERVffiW ' l fl n n J u Subject Dr Vitalli Nikolaevich TsygiChko Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNTISI Academy of Sciences USSR Direc or Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Room 716 VNTISI Building 9 Prospekt 60-Iet Oktiabria Moscow Interviewer John G Hines Date l'ime December 20 1990 11 00 am Duration 1 hour Language Russian Prepared by John G Hines based on notes ''Purpose of Interview'' - To review with Dr Tsygichko his views on the product and process of Soviet military assessments in the 1970s and 1980s Of special interest was the Soviets' thinking about military competition assessments of Western capabilities and intentions relative to their own and expectations of the nature of war should it occur The role and expected efforts of strategic and theater weapons of mass destruction was of central concern as was the Soviet perceptions of the effect of qualitative improvements on the nature of conventional war This is one of a series of interviews that I have conducted with Dr Tsygichko There is some duplication among interviews because I have revisited some themes to clarify points from previous discussions and I have tried to provide enough information to establish the context for his answers This interview expands on issues raised in the interview of December 13 1990 ''Thinking About Nuclear War- Issues of Polley Theory and Practice J J J Until 1980 Soviet policy on nuclear retaliation as expressed in the General Staff Academy lectures called for a full nuclear response against the homeland of any state launching even tactical battlefield nuclear strikes on the territory of the Warsaw Pact of any member not only the USSR This Dr Tsygichko identified as the political approach to military doctrine in this area In practice no real planning was done for a massive nuclear response to the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a less than massive scale on the territory of a member of the Warsaw Pact Tsygichko volunteered that he believed personally that the USSR would definitely lose the war if Soviet forces did not respond quickly to initial NATO nuclear use with all available nuclear capabilities This is a statement from someone who personally believed that victory in such a war would be meaningless J J 144 l l J J L n j d ' J J Cold War Interviews Tsygichko We revisited the question of who in the General Staff fully understood the consequences of a nuclear exchange He responded that the effects were really well understood ooat the Danilevich level When asked he added that in the mid- to late 1970s General Danilevich served as Deputy Director of the Main Operations Directorate The Chief of the General Staff had some idea of the consequences but Ustinov the Minister of Defense did not really comprehend the level of destruction involved According to Marxist-Leninist theory victory was possible even in nuclear war In practice the General Staff did not have any real working definition of victory in a nuclear war and the operation simply was not discussed in those tenns It was well understood on the General Staff that the Soviet Union would not come out of such a war in anywhere near the same state in which it began the war The general hope was that some undestroyed pocket of civilization would survive perhaps in Siberia that might form the basis for rebuilding the state Dr Tsygichko explained that General Staff thinking did not focus on the consequences of a nuclear exchange for the Soviet Union but concentrated instead on the amount of destruction the USSR could impose on the enemy Soviet published military doctrine called for continuous operations in a theater of strategic military action TVD regardless of whether or not nuclear weapons were used as if such use would do little to change the battlefield environment In practice the General Staff did no actual planning beyond the initial exchange of nuclear weapons on a tactical or operational scale Soviet declaratory policy at the Politburo level rejected deterrence as a fallacious and even immoral concept In fact according to Dr Tsygichko the Politburo accepted deterrence in 1965 when the USSR first acquired ICBMs This acceptance was evident in some speeches and in the lectures at the General Staff Academy I raised with Tsygichko the distinction made in Soviet political discussions between sdenhivanie restraint or morally correct Soviet deterrence and ustrashenie terrorizing or immoral Western deterrence He replied that even on a theoretical level the distinction was meaningless The concept adopted by the Politburo and hence by the General Staff was that war would not be initiated by either side because both sides were held at risk of highly destructive retaliation even after initial surprise use of nuclear weapons Deterrence was based on mutual fear or terror Rejection of ustrashenie in the press was propaganda Tsygichko offered the opinion that even in the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet political leadership would have supported negotiations to prevent the initiation of nuclear war The General Staff he believes would have supported this approach This is consistent with General Danilevich' s assessment of Brezhnev' s visceral fear of nuclear use Finally Dr Tsygichko explained that he and several others in the General Staff viewed the U S policy of arms racing as an indirect attempt to undermine and bleed white the Soviet economy He acknowledged that the strategy worked because the Soviet leadership did not know how to deal with it effectively He indicated that the effects of such economic warfare are evident today J J J J 145 S YOFunERVffiW Subject Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygicbko Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNIISI Academy of Sciences USSR Director Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Washington D C Interviewer John G Hines Datelfime March 21 1991 1 00 p m Language Russian Prepared by John G Hines based on notes In 1974 Gen Shabanov asked Tsygicbko's Institute NU-6 88 at the General Staff to use modeling to analyze the benefits of various kinds of technologies and weapons Shabanov wanted an analytical basis for placing orders for different types of weapons in various quantities The models included weapons with various theoretical sets of technical characteristics precision range destructiveness and possibly control Tsygichko reprogrammed existing models which were designed primarily to test operational concepts in order to build fictional forces that were changed in different runs of the model and thus to establish criteria for selecting and investing in weapons systems The cost of weapons was also a serious consideration The objective was to get the most combat effectiveness for the smallest investment Tsygichko and his colleagues made the models prepared a set of recoinm endations and briefed Shabanov Shabanov found the recommendations sound and scientifically based but could not use them because they would seriously run afoul of the prerogatives of the Services and the VPK military-industrial complex in this case leaders responsible for production of armaments missiles and air defense systems Based upon his positive impression ofTsygichko's work in l976 Shabanov formed his own institute Institut Shabanova out of some of Tsygichko's best people for the specific purpose of doing force-development analysis Dr Tsygichko continued to work with his former subordinates in Shabanov' s institute Although the Directorate for Armaments was not created until the late 1970s Shabanov was responsible for annaments in MoD since the late 1960s Shabanov had the authority to work on general criteria for weapons development The Union of VPK military-industrial complex Directors of Heavy Industry Soiuz Direktorov VPKa Krupnykh Predpriiatiz was organized to lobby the USSR Supreme Soviet to liberalize export constraints on products from the heavy industry sector As of March 1991 trade in finished technical products was still constrained by concerns about military secrecy but firms were already carrying out a fairly large 88 Nll- Nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut- Scientific Research Institute 146 Cold War Interviews Tsygichko business in exchanging half-finished products and raw materials for hard currency Much of the hard currency earnings were stored overseas '1 l 0 1 I l ' j j 147 SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW l l n I J Subject Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNllSI Academy of Sciences USSR Director Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Washington D C Interviewer John G Hines Date March 30 1991 Language Russian Prepared by John G Hines based on notes After he formally retired from th General Staff in 1977 and moved to the AllUnion Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNIISI Tsygichko continued to work part-time until 1982 for the General Staff Institute of Operations Research and kept his high-level clearances because people at the Institute did not know enough about the models Tsygichko had developed to keep them working The General Staff prepared a report on Russian and British imperial experiences in Afghanistan The report concluded that an invasion was a very bad idea in terms of fulfilling possible strategic objectives getting bogged down and being compromised by involvement in the region Ogarkov strongly endorsed the findings and forwarded them through the MoD to the Central Committee 0 After Ustinov became Defense Minister the influence of the General Staffs analysis on future forces development weakened appreciably over time relative to the Services working with the VPK 89 @ The main coilsilmer of the General Staffs Institute for Operations Research NIT 6 90 was the General Staffs Main Operations Directorate and within it the Subdirectorate for Operational Planning Napravlenie Strategicheskogo Planirovaniia J J J J J o Col Oleg Ponomarev later General-Colonel who retired in 1987 Director for Operational Planning until1987 supported modeling as an approach to decision making o Capt Volosatov who was assigned to Ponomarev by Tsygichko really wrote the two articles published in 1976 and 1977 respectively that were signed by Ponomarev o Gen -Col Kozlov and others also supported the modeling effort o Col Terekhov an analyst at the Frunze Academy took part in the 1987-89 debate on a new role for modeling His models were designed to run in real time in order to 89 VPK- Voennaia Prom yshlenaia Kommissiia- Military Industrial Commission 90 Nil- Nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut- Scientific Research Institute 148 '1 l l l J 0 n I l Cold War Interviews Tsygichko validate or invalidate tactical-level decisions by captains through colonels platoon to regiment levels as those decisions were being made during training and exercises Terekhov' s work addressed a different level of problem solving from that which was the subject of the work of Tsygichko and the General Staff Institute of Operations Research Terekhov created tactical models Tsygichko theater strategic and Front-level models o Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov - When asked about the issues that might have led to the removal of Marshal Ogarkov as Chief of the General Staff in September 1984 Tsygichko volunteered that Marshal Ogarkov authorized a study on the structure of the Anned Forces that was highly critical of their organization as well as manning practices The study circulated in the summer of 1984 among senior MoD military leaders as well as senior analysts advocated among other changes the following measures - Deep reductions in the size of the Armed Forces as much as 50% - Professionalization of the Armed Forces The paper cited among other justifications the high maintenance costs associated with abuse of sophisticated weapons and equipment by inexperienced conscripts The central control radar for an SA-2 surface-to-air missile system for example historically required capital repair after only 2 years of operations by a conscript crew The same system would operate for 6 years before capital repair when crewed by professional soldiers - Reassignment of Air Defense Forces Command assets to other commandsPVO air assets to the Air Forces SAMs and AAA to the Ground Forces In general the paper took the position that the Armed Forces required more rapid modernization to be competitive and that modem forces required relatively fewer personnel with much better skills J J J J J l 149 J J SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW Subject l n n I Position Senior Analyst All-Union Scientific-Technical Institute For Systems Studies VNIISI Academy of Sciences USSR Director Center for National Security and Strategic Stability Studies Location Washington D C Interviewer John G Hines Date Time December 21 1991 8 00p m and December 23 1991 11 00 a m Duration 3 hours Dr Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko o Language Russian Subjects discussed ICBM Silo Vulnerabi1ity Vulnerability of Personnel to Blast Overpressure Modeling Comparisons of Soviet with Western Economies the Role and Power of the Military Department of the Central Committee vis-a-vis the General Staff Central Committee Independent Assessment of the Chinese Threat Mobilization Modeling Effect of Medical Support on Rate of Advance in Theater Operations Stopping the War for 2 Weeks to Resupply Persian Gulf Mobilization Modeling Applications for U S Review of Weapons Programs by the General Staff Remarks on Previous Interviews Prepared by John G Hines based on notes ICBM Silo Vulnerability J J J In the context of a discussion about modeiing strategic nuclear warfare Dr Vitalii Tsygichk o explained that he was personally involved in a series of tests carried out by the General Staff on an annual basis between 1964 and 1966 to test the vulnerability of silo-based ICBMs to ground-burst attack The tests were conducted at Semipalatinsk Each test in the series required months of preparation including engineer preparation of an overhead screen perhaps as large as one square kilometer to conceal the test activities from U S satellite observation Missiles identical to those in operation were put in silos designed to actual operational specifications Charges were placed in the ground at various distances from 20 meters to over 1 kilometer from the silos and the effects of the blasts were measured The charges used did not exceed the blast energy effect of a 500 kiloton nuclear warhead The tests took geological conditions into account and tried to approximate the impact of an actual U S nuclear attack on Soviet ICBM silos The measure of effectiveness MOE for a missile kill was the post-strike ability of the entire missile system to be reliably launched in the prescribed time measured in hours at that time and to effectively destroy its target A jammed silo door a ruptured fuel system a disoriented missile guidance system or disruption of the launch control system would constitute a missile kill The damage was normally much more extensive 150 Tsygichko Cold War Interviews l l l and required days weeks and even months to repair In general the test data showed that ground bursts were extremely effective in destroying silo-based ICBM systems As a minimum even with distant strikes silo doors often jammed Under certain geological conditions a ground wave from a strike as far away as 1 km was powerful enough to drive the entire silo 3 m out of the ground rendering completely inoperable the missile system inside Any ground burst closer than 1 km away was highly likely to kill a silobased missile system If two silos were less than 2 km apart typically both would be disabled by one incoming strike Dr Tsygichko was given the task of creating models to compare the effects of ground bursts and air bursts He used the masses of data collected in 1963 and earlier before implementation of the nuclear test ban treaty from tests at Semipalatinsk on the impact of nuclear explosions on structures and silos According to analysis performed with the help of his models an air burst 80 plus meters above ground was 15 - 25% as effective in killing an ICBM as a ground burst of the same yield going off at an equal distance from the target91 l J J 9 GBPJ J J J In 1966 Dr Tsygichko took part in briefing the General Staff on the tests and modeling of silo vulnerability Because Soviet silo-based systems were shown to be extremely vulnerable to ground-burst strikes in empirical testing the Soviet military leadership took a series of decisions to deal with the direct and indirect implications of the findings First they initiated a major program to rebuild silos when feasible at distances of greater than 2 km from each other Second they initiated a program for the development and deployment of mobile ICBMs Third scientists assumed that U S analysts were not stupid and had conducted similar experiments and reached similar conclusions regarding the relative effectiveness of ground bursts and air bursts On the basis of satellite photography Soviet planners observed that U S missiles were not very well protected by overhead cover and were grouped relatively close to each other as well as to the launch control center These observations convinced the General Staff that U S land-based ICBMs were not intended to ride out an attack but instead were first-strike weapons vooruzheniia pervogo udara and were routinely referred to as such by Soviet military planners in all subsequent discussions and internal writings Based on these conclusions the Soviets took two initiatives one operational and the other programmatic First they adopted a lanncb-under-attack doctrine that is to launch when it was clear that U S missiles bad been launched The doctrine could not be effectively executed however because Soviet missiles required a considerable time to lanncb The Soviet Union's programmatic response was the initiation of a large-scale program in Ministry of General Machine Building to develop both solid- and liquid-fueled missile systems that could be launched within 5 minutes of a launch order To describe the expected scenario the USSR defined a new kind of strike a retaliatory-meeting strike otvetno-vstrechnyi udar whereby Soviet missiles were expected to pass American missiles in mid-air on the way to targets on U S territory Dr Tsygicbk o explained that to his knowledge Soviet missiles were to strike at military targets other than silos and at U S infrastructure because of the assumption that U S silos would be empty under all launch scenarios 92 91 This was the first comprehensive application of mathematical modeling to a m jor area of Soviet military planning The success of the modeling of silo-vulnerability and of strategic exchanges in general created considerable enthusiasm in the General Staff for application of modeling to other problems sucb as analysis of outcomes of theater war According to Dr Tsygichko experience with modeling of strategic warfare and silo-wlnerability were of little or no help in modeling theater warfare but it did build considerable credibility for modeling as an Walytical tool 92 Some U S analysts regard the SS-18 as too powetful for employment against infrastructure and soft military targetS Likewise suspected Soviet missile-reload capability would be of1ittle use in launching a retaliatory strike if all Soviet silos were expected to be destroyed under all considered scenarios The strategic forces directorate within the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff at a decision level perhaps not accessible to Dr Tsygichko might have targeted U S silos with the most capable highest yield part of the ll1'liCI18l and might have planned for the possibility of 151 J Cold War Interviews Tsygichko Vulnerability of Personnel to Blast Overpressure or Tsygichko was aware of tests conducted in the late 1950s and early 1960s on the effects on animals of overpressure from both conventional and nuclear weapons Based upon exploitation of pre-1946 German data and other testing Soviet scientists concluded that a dog's response to was closest to that of humans Based on that Modeling Comparisons of Soviet with Western Economies Around 1978 an American economist published a book93 assessing the intersectorbalance mezhduotrasloi balans within the Soviet economy and comparing the U S and Soviet economies The book forecast a bleak future for the Soviet economy because of significant distortions maldistribution of investment and excessive nonproductive expenditures such as those devoted to defense A Soviet policy or economics expert Dr Tsygichko believes must have brought the book to the Politburo's attention In 1979 General Chervov then head of the Information Directorate upravlenie with the Maino Intelligence Directorate GRU asked Dr Tsygichko to determine whether the book's analysis was based upon open sources or on intelligence Dr Tsygichko examined the documentation over several weeks and concluded that the book was based upon openlyavailable sources J 0 The Central Committee then commissioned a study in 1979 to test the book's conclusions Dr Tsygichko is absolutely convinced the work was inspired by at least one influential member of the Politburo itself The study went on at least until 1984 It was run by the Director of the Institute of Economics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and carried out by several experts from several institutes to include the Institute of Economics the Institute of Mathematics and Physics and the VNTISI the all-Union Institute for Systems Research to which Dr Tsygichko was assigned The project commanded support from the Main Intelligence Directorate GRU of the General Staff to include large amounts of data on Soviet military production despite the fact that the military was suspicious of and even hostile to the effort Dr Tsygichko played the role of systemnik in the effort which means that he helped to structure the analysis and models to conduct the analysis The study began with an assessment of the intersector balance within the Soviet economy and then compared the Soviet economy to the advanced industrial economies of the U S Japan and Western Europe The findings essentially confirmed the conclusions of the American economist The Soviet GNP was estimated to be at around 40% the size of U S GNP and the gap between U S and Soviet l Politburo authorization to launch early enough to limit damage to the USSR Other interviews with Marshal of the Soviet Union Akhromeev and Marshal Ogarltov's special assistant General Colonel Danilevicb strongly suggest however that General Staff planners asstimed that they would not get authorization to launch in time to limit damage Other interview subjects such as Vitalii Kataev of the Soviet Central Committee and General IDarionov seemed to believe that Minister of Defense Grecbko and others in the senior military leadership showed little interest in reducing the vulnerability of Soviet missiles because they expected to strike preemptively against U S launch preparation 93 Subsequent research did not serve to funher identify the book in question 152 J Tsygichko Cold War Interviews l output was widening at a nonlinear rate Dr Tsygichko was unaware of exactly what impact if any the study might have had on Soviet policy 94 The Role and Power of the Military Department of the Central Committee vis-a-vis the General Staff - 1 f1 J J a J l J J Dr Tsygichko believes that U S analysts generally overestimated the General Staff's influence on military planning and force development and grossly underestimated the importance of the Central Committee CC and its Military Department voennyi otdelj At least 60% of the membership of the Central Committee's Military Department were defense industrialists both ministers responsible for arms production and chief designers glavnye konstruktory and the remaining 40% were political officers fpoliticheskie ofitsery who were very much the party's officers within the military The officers within the Military Department of the CC wielded influence that far transcended their military rank The Defense Minister and all chief designers who virtually controlled military production were members of the Central CollliD ttee and its Military Department The Chief of the General Staff and the service chiefs were not members and therefore held a fraction of the authority and influence enjoyed by the Military Department of the CC especially in the areas of military policy voennaia politika and force development voennoe stroitel'stvo As Dr Tsygichko explained it the Military Department of the CC functioned as the de facto sitting Defense Council setting military policy voennaia politika which governed military doctrine and force development and suppOrted the formal Defense Council comprised of the General Secretary and MoD the chiefs of the KGB and MVD internal troops the Minister of Foreign Affairs and several major military industrialists Central Committee Independent Assessment of the Chinese Threat In late 1979 the Central Committee initiated an independent evaluation of the General Staff's assessment of the Chinese threat Colonel Malashenko then a member of the Central Committee's Military Department 95 placed Dr Tsygichko in charge of a major reevaluation and forecast of China's military potential and even tried unsuccessfully to convince Dr Tsygichko to return to active duty to run the study Dr Tsygichko then a senior analyst at VNTISI ran the study out of the Institute of the Main Intelligence Directorate GRU or Nll-6 a GRU Operations Research Institute that primarily supported the Main Operations Directorate-GOD Backed by the authority of the Central Committee's Military Department Dr Tsygichko was able to collect all the information he needed from the military and to enlist analysts from the entire Academy of Sciences At the GRU Institute 20 analysts-mostly from VNITSI the GRU and the General Staff-worked on the project directly under Tsygichko's supervision Dr Tsygichko said that the General Staff and GRU supported the work at Central Committee direction despite the essentially hostile purpose of the study Another 39 analysts from various institutes of the Academy of Sciences participated in the study and contributed data and analytical support at Dr Tsygichko's direction Dr Tsygichko and his colleagues were excited by their power to command resources for the study and his enthusiasm was evident even as he discussed the effort in the interview Work began in early 1980 and went on for 5 years There was substantial high-level interest in the study 94 The nature and results of this work were probably known to Oorbachev and his supporters in the mid-1980s and could have provided scientifically developed analytical support to bolster Gorbachev's push against Party conservatives for radical change 95 Later a special assistant to President Gorbacbev until the end of the latter's presidency 153 I l l J n In I I J IJ 0 1 J J Tsygichko Cold War Interviews Dr Tsygichko conducted yearly briefmgs to senior officials of the Defense Ministry and the Military Department of the Central Committee He recalled that 1983 was the fJrSt year in which the work was sufficiently well developed to provide a coherent story to the leadership The study resulted in the development of four separate models that analyzed China's economic mobilization and deployment transportation and TVD-scale warfare capabilities Nuclear weapons were excluded from the study and might have been considered separately by other analysts The models indicated that China did not pose a serious threat Over the 15-year period projected by the analysis China was found to lack the military-industrial capacity and the infrastructure to threaten the USSR For example China would need weeks to move its forces because of a lack of transportation networks Moreover Dr Tsygichko and his colleagues did not detect any Chinese intention to attack the Soviet Far East The General Staff and the GRU whose assessments of China tended to be alarmist did not support the findings of Dr Tsygichko's study Despite these disagreements the Chief of the GRU and the General Staff signed off with approval on the study's findings without written reservations because of the authority of the Central Committee Mobilization Modeling In analyticai work they did in the 1970s at the General Staff's Nll-6 Dr Tsygichko and his colleagues made a distinction between logistics support including resupply and attrition fills during the course of combat operations on the one hand and strategic nationwide mobilization and deployment on the other The model for war in the TVD encompassed a module to assess the second echelon and reserve commitments and logistics support A separate model analyzed strategic mobilization and deployment strategicheskoe razvertyvanie in the USSR preceding and more often following the outbreak of war The strategic mobilization and deployment model estimated the time needed to make divisions combat-ready and to move them to the front lines A number of factors were considered the level of a given division's readiness at the moment that the mobilization order is issued the time required to assign people to divisions to get divisions up to strength to prepare the equipment and to train troops and make them combat-ready this consisted of individual and sm lll-unit training as well as combined training slozhnaia uckeba at the division level and the time spent transporting through points of embarkation and disembarkation and deploying troops The model accounted for the delays expected in moving supplies through transshipment points such as those at the Soviet-Polish border and it assumed destruction of transshipment and disembarkation points as well as damage or destruction to downloading facilities on a wide scale that varied in detail in modeled scenarios depending upon when and where the war began In the model a division was not deployed until it was fully trained up to the division level and rated combat-ready boesposobnaia Dr Tsygichko expressed the conviction that deployment of noncombat-ready units as defmed was not considered to make sense and was not seriously considered in the planning he was aware of j J J 154 l ln I J l J Cold War Interviews Tsygichko Effect of Medical Support on Rate of Advance in Theater Operations The TVD model showed that high levels of losses would quickly decrease combat readiness Medical studies from the 1970s predicted substantial numbers of casualties in a war in Central Europe which would require extensive mobile medical support The TVD model using the medical data exposed a serious deficiency in Soviet mobilehospital capabilities including grossly inadequate numbers of doctors and medical technicians and thus anticipated very high serious injury and fatality rates Units whose losses exceeded 50% in a matter of hours were rated noncombat-ready and withdrawn Their replacement by new units put a severe strain on a transport network already under attack The declining combat readiness of first-echelon divisions due to unreplaced losses combined with the time spent replacing first-echelon divisions with operational reserves and the shrinking availability of large-scale replacements in a war of high attrition was expected to slow the Soviet advance dramatically Dr Tsygichko said that the work of medical services analysts and even the modeling applications of their findings did not influence the General Staff to correct deficiencies in field medical support because ultimately it was not as interesting as investment in military hardware He sensed a reluctance on the part of senior General Staff generals to really deal with the reality of warfare and its consequences and the inattention of the generals to the critical shortcoming in medical support was indicative of their indifference Stopping the War for 2 Weeks To Resupply According to Dr Tsygicbko's modeling an initial operation would last 9 to 12 days this might put them at the French border in some locations and at the Rhine River in others and then come to a complete halt for 10-14 days to permit resupply and troop replacement The pause would be an unavoidable constraint on the offensive because the resupply would be too slow to maintain the momentum of the first echelon beyond the advance expected in the initial TVD operation When asked about the concept that second-echelon Fronts would simply pick up the offensive from exhausted first-echelon Fronts at the end of the initial operation Tsygichko explained that there were basic real-world physical constraints and to a lesser extent organizational constraints that would make the second-echelon Front solution impossible to execute The commitment of second-echelon Fronts was actually an assumption of command by second-echelon Fronts Qf first-echelon armies and divisions already in place supplemented by some fresh divisions and perhaps armies The functioning of the logistics support system in the TVD was in most respects insensitive to the identity of the Front or Fronts to which the logistics command structure was subordinated In other words fuel ammunition and food supplies were or were not available and transportable regardless of the identity of the command superstructure Moreover General Staff modeling and analy sis conducted by Dr Tsygichko's department indicated that basic supplies would not be available to sustain operations beyond approximately 2 weeks because of expected high losses and protracted transport times exacerbated by extensive destruction of the transportation infrastruc ture Under these conditions the number of Fronts did not mattero J 155 I l 1 J n f f I J J J ID 'l J J Cold War Interviews Tsygichko Persian Gulf Mobllization Modeling Applications In 1984 the General Staff asked Dr Tsygichko to estimate how rapidly the United States could deploy 500 000 troops to the Persian Gulf The General Staff had assumed that a half-million U S troops could reach the Gulf and be prepared to fight in 1 month In contrast Dr Tsygicbko's modeling indicated that the U S would need at least 4-1 2 months to carry out such a deployment The U S would be constrained primarily by the transportation networks inside the U S and by the number of bottoms and aircraft available to carry the forces fotward and to bring in the requisite logistics support Combat readiness of U S units was rated fairly high at the unit and division levels when mobiliza on began Renew of Weapons Programs by the General Staff In the late 1960s and early 1970s Dr Tsygichko participated in an analytical support role in two separate weapons system program review board meetings The purp ose of such meetings was to develop a final recommendation on production nonproduction or modification on a weapons system that was presented by its sponsoring design bureau as ready for series production All participants were expected to have reviewed and evaluated all relevant materials and to have developed organizational positions before attending the decision meeting Such meetings usually were chaired by a three-star general from the General Staff often from the prestigious Main Operations Directorate GOU and attended by representatives of the buying service the General Staff and the military industrial coiDIDlssion The meetings Tsygichko attended were chaired by the Deputy Director of the General Staff's Main Operations Directorate One system review meeting easily devel ped a consensus to support series production of the weapons system imder review The other just as clearly disapproved series production In the second instance the meeting chairman himself presented volumes of documentary evidence to establish the inability of the weapons system to meet operational requirements His view reflected the consensus which recommended against production Remarks on Previous Interviews Dr Tsygicbko commented further on a paper he had prepared earlier Kommentarii k interv'iu V N Tsygichko v 1990-1991 godu 97 In the 1960s and 1970s Vitalii Tsygicbko explained the Soviet Union had a comprehensive plan for retaliation against nuclear attack The plan which was updated every 6 months called for a Soviet launch- J J On the basis of his experience at th meetings Dr Tsygichko expected the supported system to be produced and the negatively evaluated system to be canceled In fact both systems went into production on schedule leading Tsygichko to conclude that the review board meetings were an empty formality designed to mollify the General Staff and other players outside the military industrial commission VPK 96 but which had no real effect on program development 96 VPK- Voennaia Promyshlenaia Kommissiia- Militaly Industrial Commission 97 Remarks in Russian on the Interviews ojV N Tygichko given in 1990-1991 are in Appendix E of this volume 156 l l l I Tsygichko Cold War Interviews under-attack98 otvetno-vstrechnyi udar using all Soviet silo-based systems This annibilating retaliatory nuclear strike unichtozhaiushchii otvetno-iademyi udar would be djrected not against U S silos which Soviet planners assumed would be empty but rather agaiust military targets such as airfields ports and C3 facilities and agaiust the U S political and economic infrastructure including transportation grids and fuel supply lines Soviet doctrine relied on the threat of a massive response as t J e best way to prevent nuclear use Soviet analysis and modeling demonstrated that escalation to nuclear exchanges at the theater level was extremely disruptive to conventional defensive and certainly offensive operations the war stopped for 2 days and strategic operations had to be replanned and further escalation to global use was highly probable and counterproductive Soviet planning assumed NATO initiation of nuclear use so to control escalation the General Staff began to examine limited optious Nevertheless the General Staff never planned in any detail actual extended combat on a nuclear battlefield The Soviet build of theater nuclear forces in Europe was intended in large part to reduce the prob of NATO's first use and thereby to keep the war conventional where outcomes were relatively more predictable and where the USSR might enjoy a relative advantage Dr Tsygichko as not aware of any Soviet notional employment of chemical weapons in military exercises after 1964 He attributes the existence of Soviet CW stockpiles to the VPK's interest in keeping the chemical industry healthy ' 1 J J J 98 An analogous U S usage of the term in discussions is launch on tactical warning Launch under attack refers t when missiles have been fired by the enemy 157 This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu