ABSTRACT
Civil-military tensions may occur when the political mood changes and this may lead to concrete and visible budgetary measures and affect the military institution and its professional status itself. The actual state of civil-military relations is both reflected in and part of the power relationship between the political and military leaders. Soviet military doctrine links political and military issues and considerations. To extent it regulates political-military relations and prescribes the hierarchical order of questions regarding political leadership and the military institution. Soviet military doctrine reflects a design of civil-military relations that is aimed at assuring both a strong consensual power base and professional autonomy. The role of the Soviet Union is to represent and to prove the superiority of the system. In Soviet society, the military institution fulfils a number of tasks that are most useful for the political regime, and “institutional congruence” at the level.
