ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1970s, there has been a heightened attention and discussion of laws of war and laws of armed combat in the Soviet Union. Soviet laws of war, and the laws of armed combat and principles of military art derived from such laws, form the basis for many aspects of Soviet foreign policy and the expansion of Soviet military power. The laws are based on a Marxist-Leninist interpretation of the world. The Soviet laws of war developed and articulated in the late 1950s, and restated and reinterpreted since that time, initially appeared as an outgrowth and a response to Stalin’s “permanently operating factors.” There has been a school of thought in the United States that the Cuban Missile Crisis brought about a change in Soviet military concepts. According to Marxist-Leninist teachings on war and army, the course and outcome in combat is determined primarily by the balance of combat might between the armies of the belligerent states.
