ABSTRACT
In an earlier article about US-Soviet strategic competition, based on data through the end of 1978, Ward (1984) argued that superpower competition focused not on military budgets but rather on military stockpiles. Decision makers in deciding upon the budget look carefully at competitive weapon stockpiles rather than focusing exclusively on competitive spending levels, a point made convincingly in McCubbins (1983). In finding empirical support for this argument it was argued that the ‘USSR is racing to catch up to the United States’ and that ‘the dynamics governing arms competition between the United States and the USSR appear to be undergoing marked change’ (Ward 1984:297). In concluding that earlier study it was noted:
With the benefit of some hindsight, the above conclusion seems in some respects to be especially informative. The decade of the 1980s ended with a ‘geo-political’ earthquake of enormous proportions, the epicenter of which appears to be in Central Europe. If the first one-half of the 1980s was characterized by increasing US-Soviet tension as the Federation of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of their hypothetical doomsday clock ever closer to midnight-the second half was marked by an enormous relaxation in US-Soviet military and strategic tension. So much so that during the last months of 1988, the Soviet Union
began withdrawing military forces in sizable numbers from Eastern Europe as part of unilateral disarmament moves aimed at adopting a ‘more defensive’ Soviet military posture in Europe. Soviet forward nuclear war fighting capabilities were withdrawn at the end of the 1980s from the coasts of the US. Indeed, by one estimate Soviet military power was assessed to have been reduced by about 20 percent by the end of the decade (E.L.Warner testifying at the House Armed Services Committee in September 1989).
