ABSTRACT
The formidable growth of Soviet military power since Vietnam, both absolutely and in comparison to US military power, impinges on every aspect of limited-war strategy. The Soviet Union not only has attained parity in strategic nuclear striking power but, contrary to the prevailing official and private expectations of the early 1960s, seems determined to achieve more than parity in order to be sure of achieving the most favorable war outcomes. Despite the latent impact of the Vietnam experience on US foreign policy and therefore on US military strategy, the initial elaborations of limited-war strategy displayed more continuity than change. Soviet conventional forces, many fear, could launch a blitzkrieg without mobilizing and with only a few days' warning instead of the twenty-three- to thirty-day mobilization posited in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) plans. Greater strategic implications may follow from NATO's prospective adoption of long-range cruise missiles with optional conventional or nuclear warheads.
