| Publication |
2007.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article was first written in 1976 as a classified RAND Corporation input into a major study that was commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger to develop a comprehensive, all-source classified history of the Soviet-American strategic arms competition from 1945 to 1972. The intent of the original document was to outline the key internal and external factors that shaped the strategic policy choices of the Brezhnev regime, address the broad strategic objectives that guided those choices, consider the characteristics and deployment rationales of the third-generation ICBM programs that most visibly dominated them, and highlight the principal features of the force development style that they seemed to represent. The document was recently declassified by the Department of Defense and approved for public release in response to a request submitted to the Department under the Freedom of Information Act. It is being published now as it originally appeared, with only cursory editing for style and flow, in order to place the now-declassified document into the public domain as a retrospective account of an important chapter in the history of the cold war based on the best information that was available at the time it was written. Because any value it may have today as a contribution to knowledge about Soviet strategic activities during the cold war stems solely from the perspective that it offered at the time it was originally written, no attempt has been made to amplify or improve on its observations based on information and insights that have subsequently become available.
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