ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the broad impact of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika program on Soviet military personnel. A major goal of perestroika is to invigorate the Soviet economy. The Soviet perestroika program is effecting tumultuous changes within the Soviet Armed Forces under Gorbachev. The generals hope that at the end of Goibachev’s perestroika rainbow lies a “meaner but leaner” fighting force. Perestroika in the Armed Forces is affecting Soviet military personnel in several ways, from troop reductions and the conversion of defense industries to a renewed emphasis on officer training and education, a growing apathy among draft-aged Soviet youth, and a debate over whether to end or radically modify conscription. If the military seems supportive of perestroika thus far, it is largely because it recognizes that there is little alternative: the USSR must reform in order to maintain qualitative parity in the technological arms race with the West.
