ABSTRACT
Like virtually all new military concepts, radioelectronic combat (REC)--as Marx might have phrased it--was born out of a synthesis of ideas that preceded it. The two decades between 1920 and 1940 are generally considered dry years in the development of electronic warfare in any of its national manifestations. Although seemingly preoccupied with other military matters in the 60's, the Soviets nevertheless were keeping a watchful eye on US electronic warfare advances during the Vietnam War. The definitions of electronic warfare-related terms in the 1965 Dictionary of Basic Military Terms seem to reflect the basic Soviet ambivalence when looking to the West. On the one hand the hierarchy in the U.S.S.R. respects Western technological achievements, but on the other hand it desperately wants to remain Soviet. True to the dictates of democratic centralism, all controversy surrounding REC seems to have abated about the time Paliy published his 1974 edition of REC.
