ABSTRACT
Since the end of the Second World War, Soviet military strategy has been conditioned by "experiences of the war and the new distribution of military-political forces in the world". The major thrust of Soviet military strategy was to possess a conventional military force whose offensive capabilities could check Western nuclear and conventional military power. In the military realm, Stalin maintained, reorganized and reequipped a large and formidable ground force capable of deterring potential United States use of atomic weapons by holding central and western Europe hostage to Soviet ground power. Faint glimpses of Soviet postwar war planning offer a contradictory picture regarding the relative degree of offensiveness of Soviet military strategy. During the late 1950s internal change within the Soviet Union accelerated and created conditions for continued de-Stalinization. The Soviet Union emerged as a fully qualified superpower capable of challenging the United States politically and technologically.
