ABSTRACT
Western analysts have argued that the relationship between the Soviet military and its suppliers in the defense industrial ministries was unique within the Soviet economic system. By the end of the 1960s, the Soviet military had a new doctrine that justified extensive acquisition of new hardware. Mikhail Gorbachev presumably learned from Leonid Brezhnev’s experience, and realized that the key was first to revise Soviet military doctrine. Sufficiency has been used to justify the reduction of some military acquisition and the conversion of some military production to civilian. In late 1964, Brezhnev replaced Nikita Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party, starting what Gorbachev has referred to as the “era of stagnation.” Military influence in the acquisition process declines once a contract has been signed. Some criticisms of the general economic mechanism for developing and acquiring military hardware appeared in the second half of the 1980s.
