ABSTRACT
The explanatory utility of the national leadership decision-making perspective can be established in a series of case studies of particular Soviet strategic arms programs. Confronted with a choice, analysts inclined to either the rational strategic actor or pluralistic interpretation of Soviet decision making might end up burlesquing the Soviet political system in defending their point of view against the other. An American president or a Soviet general secretary cannot be counted on simply to exclude all but strategic considerations when faced with the need to decide on a strategic arms program—considerations that might be proximate to the strategic concern or more tangential. Implicit in the very assumptions of the rational strategic actor approach is the contention that Soviet defense decision making and civilian considerations are rigidly separated. The national leadership approach is clearly as deficient in offering a description of how and why Soviet strategic arms decisions occur as the other approaches.
