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Soviet Images of the U.S. as Nuclear Adversary 1969–1979

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

William D. Jackson
William D. Jackson
Affiliation:
Political Science at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
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Abstract

Images of the United States as nuclear adversary presented in official Soviet commentary provide useful clues in the analyses of Soviet strategic policy. Hard, high-threat images stressing the continuing danger of nuclear war are functionally associated with conservative policies emphasizing the need for efforts to improve war-fighting capabilities. Less militant adversary images appear associated with more moderate defense policies. In the 1970s, sharp divergences in adversary images appeared in official Soviet commentaries, indicative of disagreement within the Soviet Union on the defense policy implications of SALT. The policy implications of shifts in adversary images and the location of the political leadership in terms of conflicting moderate and conservative images are examined for the period 1969–1979.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , July 1981 , pp. 614 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1981

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References

1 Good discussions of the linkage of adversary images and policy advocacy may be found in Kolkowicz, Roman, “Strategic Parity and Beyond: Soviet Perspectives,” World Politics, XXIII (April 1971), 431–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Zimmerman, William, Soviet Perspectives on International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. See also Wolfe, T. W., Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Pravda, February 23, 1969. Translations from Russian-language publications are by the author.

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14 Pravda, October 16, 1967. Brezhnev had moved to encourage less militant images of the Western powers in late 1966, declaring, “to perceive promptly . . . the concrete political tendencies of various countries, even those from which we are divided by social barriers, is as important as watching the intrigues of aggressive forces and seeing the dangers they are creating” (Pravda, November 2, 1966).

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