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From: al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Soviet Conventional Offensive Capability, an unConventional view
Message-ID: <1173@ames.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 22:10:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1173
Posted: Mon Sep 30 22:10:28 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 05:39:56 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 58

THESIS: Soviet conventional offensive capability is very small

DATA:

1. After six years of failure the Soviets have not significantly increased
their force in Afganistan from about 100,000.

2. When the Wermacht invaded the USSR on 22 June 1941 the Red Army was
vastly superior in numbers of men, tanks, and aircraft.  The Germans
went through the Red Army like a hot knife through butter.

3. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, the vast majority
of Russia's military budget is spent on defense.  Interestingly, the
same article stated that only 3% of DOD's budget is spent on defense
of the US.

4. There is some evidence that Russia did not invade Poland because mobilization
of the reserves failed.  So many soldier went AWOL that the regime was
unable to punish them or put an invasion together.  Note that this occured
(assuming it did in fact happen) while Soviet forces were engaged in
Afganistan.

5.  The Soviet Navy is divided by geography into four separate forces
that cannot support each other.  This allowed a smaller Japanese Navy
to sink most of the Russian fleet around the turn of the century.

RESONING:

We are all familiar with the enormous physical resources of the Red Army.
As data point 2 above indicates, this does not necessarily imply a strong
military.  

This brings us to data point 1.  Why doesn't Russia simply
send a couple million soldier into Afganstan and win?  Perhaps they
are not capable of such an effort.  They must keep large forces on the
Chinese boarder and more forces in Eastern Europe to protect against NATO.
Please don't give me a rap about NATO never attacking.  Russia has
suffered three major invasions from Western Europe in the last two centuries,
Napoleon once and Germany twice.  To leave that boarder weakly defended
would be idiotic.  

Data point 4 suggests that, with the Afgan invasion
in progress, even Poland could not be subdued.  

Data point 3 suggests that the Soviet military is primarily defensive.

Data point 5 indicates that, if push came to shove, the shiny new
Russian Navy is mostly an expensive mass grave.

This evidence and logic suggests that the USSR has about 100,000 men 
available for offensive operations; alternately, they can only supply
that many beyond their boarders.  Contrast this to the half million we
supported in Vietnam.

If this data and logic are correct, the bogeyman of Soviet conventional
might DOD has used to get billions out of our pockets doesn't seem
quite so scary.  Their ICBM fleet can, of course, kill us all.  Sweet
dreams.


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