ABSTRACT
After Khrushchev’s fall from power, a lengthy debate began over Soviet military policy and doctrine. It culminated in significant changes by the early 1970s. The Soviets reassessed Khrushchev’s single-option war-fighting strategy and reached a consensus that conventional war was possible. Theorists initially treated techniques for conducting conventional war within a nuclear context. By the 1970s, however, that context had eroded, so theorists wrote about nuclear and conventional war, often as separate topics. Historical and theoretical military writings showed such a shift in emphasis and seemed to indicate a basic change in the Soviet view of war. 1 The Soviets still considered nuclear war a real possibility, but they increasingly indicated an acceptance of, and perhaps a desire for, a nonnuclear initial phase of operations if war occurred. They concluded that the existence of a strategic and tactical nuclear balance (or superiority for the Soviets) could generate reluctance on both sides to use nuclear weapons, a form of mutual deterrence that increased the likelihood that initial conventional operations would remain conventional. At a minimum, the Soviets prepared themselves to fight either a nuclear war or a conventional war in a ‘nuclear-scared’ posture. This Soviet version of ‘flexible response’ emphasized the necessity for expanding and perfecting combined-arms strategic, operational, and tactical concepts.
