ABSTRACT
The Soviets' potential for "lightning strikes" and surprise on the southern flank may enable them to engage North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in a limited campaign, thereby avoiding escalation and a wider theater of conflict that would include central Europe. Afghanistan was viewed as "out-of-area," whereas presumably a Soviet transgression against a NATO member would be treated as a more serious incursion. For more than three decades NATO's southern region has been a subsidiary consideration of Western strategy, which has concentrated its resources and political investment in the central region. The security of the center is directly tied to that of the southern flank. The southern flank provides a frontline of defense. The Mediterranean will remain an area of major concern for the Soviets. Their greatest vulnerability is from the south, where the principal Soviet industrial regions are potentially vulnerable to attack from theater air forces.
