The Soviets and Strategic Arms: Toward an Evaluation of the Record
Analyses of Soviet behavior in the nuclear arms competition are no less varied than the general range of approaches to the analysis of Soviet conduct. Several distinct images of Soviet policy may be discerned in recent Western analysis. In one image, stress is placed upon the ideological roots of Soviet behavior, and it is assumed that the worldview inherent to communism leads Moscow to view nuclear competition in the context of a grand historical struggle between capitalist and socialist states. Those who accept this image view Moscow as driven to seek a position of dominance in the nuclear competition in order to advance communism or the global power of the Soviet Union. They also suggest that the leaders in the Kremlin view the arms control process as no more than a tactical means to restrain the Western defense effort.1 A second image credits Moscow with an uncontrollable impulse to seek ever higher levels of strategic power. Moscow's drive to higher levels of armaments is seen, not as the result of the commitment of the leadership to achieve military superiority, but as the result of the domination of military and defense interests and the unrestrained momentum of weapons technology in the Soviet system. Moscow's interest in arms control in this view is circumscribed by institutional pressure to arm.2