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~ -
implications for Conventional Forces
Paul M. Doty
In my many excursions from the
roles of chemist or biochemist, ~ have dealt mostly with nuclear
problems, as has CTSAC itself; but with the advent of the possible
elimination of long-range and shorter-range nuclear weapons in
Europe, one must ask how this affects the conventional force situation
in Europe. That question, in turn, causes one to ask what that
situation is and how much it can be and should be changed in
response to these changes in nuclear deployments.
~ wish the answer were simple so that I couicl be brief, but the
situation is extremely complex, as Dr. Kelleher has pointed out. It
is a much more complex situation than the strategic one because
there are many more factors involved.
The categories of conventional weapons, such as main battle tanks,
do not have the same consistent meaning as do missiles of a given
size ant! range. The interdependence of the factors the roles of
lea(lership, readiness, location, and logistics; the maintenance of the
equipment; the supply of ammunition; the motivation of the troops;
the involvement with civilians; the state of communications, com-
46
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47
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
mend, and control all of these form a complex, interacting scene
that is unfathomable if one is looking for a simple answer.
The problem that we really face, then, is to understand! the
inexactitude of the conventional situation and ask whether that
uncertainty is so great that the proposed changes on the nuclear
deployments are small in comparison, or whether the opposite
applies.
Indeed, to speak of the balance of forces propels us into the sin
that Winston Churchill caller! "terminological inexactitucles" because
a balance of forces implies a rather simple weighing of objects on
two pans of a balance. What we have instead is literally dozens of
factors of different weight, the weight of each one depencling on
how it interacts with the other. Difficult though it may be, such
complexity must be addressecI.
At this point, it may be wise to supplement somewhat Dr.
Kelleher's discussion of the situation in Europe. We formed NATO
in 1949; the Warsaw Pact organization was former! a year later. In
the 1950s the decision was made to rearm West Germany but only
with conventional arms West Germany was not to have nuclear
weapons. In the early 1960s, under the influence of Charles de
Gaulle, France withdrew from military coordination with NATO.
an action that continues to be a loss to NATO's effectiveness. Indeed,
in those early years many issues were decided that are still with us
today.
Perhaps the most important one was the fact of that time that
nuclear weaponry was an easy and cheap substitute for manpower.
Thus, with the introduction of tactical battlefield weapons in Europe
in the late 1950s, there was a ready acceptance in all quarters of the
proposition that one did not need the massive armies in the millions
that had characterized World War lI. That proposition is now
questioned in many ways, but it is still a historical fact that casts its
shallow over all that we say.
What are the goals of NATO? Very simply, its goals are to
discourage a Warsaw Pact attack and to buy time after one occurs
with which to wrestle with the nuclear clecision. We are happily
aware that for more than 40 years war in Europe has been deterred.
Most people think the existence of nuclear weapons has been the
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~8
REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND
major deterrent to war, ant! that probably does rank first; but there
are two other possibilities.
One is that the conventional forces deterred attack, and the other
is the related possibility that the Soviets die} not find it in their
interest~to attack. The theology of deterrence has gone through
many loops, and none is more clear than the one that faces us today
with the possibility of the withdrawal of the 1,700 or so missiles in
Europe of intermediate range.
The arguments that went into the decision to deploy missiles on
the NATO side in 1978 and 1979 were of two principal types. One
stated that the missiles were the counter to the large number of SS-
20 missiles that the Soviets had been deploying during the 1970s;
the other was that the missiles were needed for coupling the American
strategic forces to the defense of the continent.
This dilemma is with us today, ant! it is being argued in The
O O
Washington Post between Paul Nitze and Brent Scowcroft as well as
in op-ed pieces and in many other arenas.
The Soviet offer to accept the original U.S. proposal of 1981 to
have zero missiles of this size on both sides has reinvigorated the
arms control negotiations. To follow that offer with the proposal
that they withdraw their 130 weapons of shorter rangy whereas
we have none has compounded our surprise: The Soviet proposal
was quite unexpected, and there has been a great nervousness in
NATO circles as to how to respond to this seeming largess. The
question seems to be this: Would "double zero," which is the code
word for going to zero in both shorter- and intermediate-range
missiles, mean changes in conventional forces, or do we need such
changes anyway and does arms control have an important role to
play here?
Finally, T think we must always bear in mind in these considerations
that nuclear weapons, of whatever size and number, are not the only
deterrent against Soviet attack in Eurone. What is more important
.. . . . ..
-
1 1 ~ r ~ . 1 ~
~ - 7
particularly in coupling the cletense ot Europe to tne Amencan
strategic arsenal, is the presence of 330,000 American troops there.
This is so well known, such a commonplace, that it is almost
forgotten, but it is these U.S. troops that are the heart of the
deterrent. One cannot imagine that a country would give up that
many of its youth without a retaliatory act of some kind.
1
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49
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
Let us consider, then, the conventional force situation in Europe.
One might call this exercise "bean counts and scenarios" because
there are two general approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of
conventional military forces. One is to count whatever there is to
count and see how it adds up. The other is to say that, even if you
do that well, it is not enough, by any means, because what really
counts is how these forces would behave under typical, imaginable
conditions of confrontation and war. In this latter case, one goes on
to identify the most likely scenarios of conflict and how the forces
on both sides would interact under those conditions.
First, however, let us go back to the bean counting. The unit of
conventional forces is divisions. Divisions are themselves quite
inexact, but on the Western side they number about 15,000 troops
plus some civilian support. On both sides they are in varying states
of readiness, which are designatecl as category I, category 2, or
category 3.
Categories 2 and 3 are not filled out with respect to manpower.
Most of their weapons are stored. These troops do not exercise very
much, they often do other jobs, and they cannot be in any sense
counted as category I, which means forces that are pretty well
prepared to do battle. ("Pretty well prepared" can be defined as
ready to move to a clesignated location following a very short period
of mobilization and practice, maybe only a few days.)
-
Tf we look only at the category ~ divisions, then, on the Warsaw
Pact side there are roughly 50, and on the NATO side there are
roughly 36, including 10 French divisions, 7 of which are in territorial
France. Thus, our numbers are 50 against 36. That seems a little
uneven, but it becomes more balanced when one recognizes that
divisions in the Warsaw Pact are considerably smaller than they are
in the NATO countries and one is not far oh to assume that the
NATO divisions are 50 percent larger.
If one corrects for that, then the 36 becomes 52, and the numbers
of equivalent category ~ divisions across the 500-mile inter-German
border are about equal in size. Many people would argue that the
quality, reliability, ant! state of readiness of the Allied divisions is
greater and that the Warsaw Pact forces are ahead in numbers of
weapons and ease of resupply. Other factors come in as well, but T
think that that is a general judgment.
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50
REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND
The category 2 and category 3 divisions, which are, for the most
part, farther back (even as far as the continental United States and
beyond the Urals in the USSR), are much more numerous on the
Warsaw Pact side. If they were brought up to the strength, readiness,
and equipment that category 1 divisions have, they would make the
unevenness much greater.
The ultimate deployment of all three of these types of divisions
total about 110 in the Warsaw Pact and 49 for NATO. A consequence
of this is that the balance is not bad for the first days or even weeks
of a war; in the first few months after that, however, the more
numerous category 2 and 3 divisions of the Warsaw Pact conic! be
brought up to strength. The odds, then, are very much against the
West in a conventional war.
Many other factors enter into the evaluation of these numbers. I
mention only one (perhaps the most important ant! the most
neglected), and that is the long-held, traditional military judgment
that defense requires less manpower than offense. The existence of
prepared positions for defense, the knowledge of the territory, all
of that introduces factors that are never known but are often judged
collectively to favor the defense by as much as three to one, or at
least two to one. In military terms this is a substantial factor that
weighs quite favorably on the NATO side.
If we turn now from manpower to equipment, the situation is
more favorable in the bean count to the Warsaw Pact side. For main
battle tanks, the most common element of military equipment, there
are about 2.3 times as many on the Warsaw Pact side as in NATO;
artillery, 2.7 times as many; armec! helicopters, 3 times as many;
and antiaircraft guns, about even. Thus, if one goes through the
equipment inventory, there is no doubt that, in terms of numbers,
there is more on their side than on ours in most categories. However,
the Warsaw Pact equipment is, on the whole, older, less well
maintained, and less transportable, and gives rise to a lower rate of
fire. The imbalance in military equipment, then, is a factor, but it
may not be a decisive one.
William Kaufmann, now at Harvard, has estimates! Warsaw Pact
effectiveness, under various assumptions, in an engagement on the
central front. Under a conservative set of assumptions, including
current capabilities, he concluded that the probability of a break-
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51
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
through after a Pact attack is about 50 percent in the first 10 days
and rises to 75 percent in subsequent weeks and months. This case,
however, includes the assumption that the non-Soviet Pact forces,
which make up about one-third of the Warsaw Pact forces, operate
at peak effectiveness. If the opposite assumption is made, that they
contribute only negligibly, then the probability of a breakthrough
diminishes to about 22 percent in the first 10 days but rises to 53
percent in 2 weeks and to 65 percent in 3 months. Again, if there is
time for the entire Soviet military to concentrate and move against
Western Europe, the chance of a breakthrough increases above 50
percent. Although such estimates are sensitive to many assumptions,
they do convey the central point: the present balance is such that
the Warsaw Pact could not realistically plan on success at least in
a few weeks if it initiated war.
Finally, if we consider what NATO needs to be more effective
militarily, there is a well-examined list of items, none of which
involve adding more divisions. For example, "tactical air" is the
term used to define the close air support to ground troops. Many
people argue that our air superiority is canceled by the dense air
defenses in the Warsaw Pact countries and the large number of
Soviet interceptors. Others would argue, however, that the superi-
ority of our individual planes and the better readiness of our pilots
would more than compensate for this and that, indeed, one can
expect, in an engagement, air superiority to belong to the West.
The problem is that perhaps too many of the NATO aircraft are
devotee! to Tong-distance interdiction and fighting over the skies of
Eastern Europe and not enough to helping the troops on the ground.
One rather common proposal to improve NATO effectiveness is to
provide more air support- planes that are coupled to the combat on
the ground.
An equally large item is "smart munitions," which are entering
into their second generation now and are increasingly spectacular in
their demonstrations. The large numbers of tanks that we have so
feared are becoming increasingly vulnerable to antitank weapons of
growing sophistication. Our command and control has also improved
greatly, but it would always be highly vulnerable if the war turned
nuclear.
Other high-tech systems are on the verge of being deployed
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52
REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND
that is, if we wish to pay the bill. Perhaps the most spectacular is
called J-STARS, in which planes of the 707 type, carrying enormous
amounts of racier, fly north anc! south some miles inside West
Germany, from which one can "see" 200 miles into East Germany
and even the edges of Poland. From there, the system can detect,
for example, the difference between a tank and a truck, follow their
movements, predict their speecI, choose what system should attack
them, give the orders, and guide them there.
There are more items on this NATO improvement list, but I will
mention only one more, an item whose time may come although it
has been intensely resisted by the West Germans. This plan is simply
to erect an effective barrier (which could be forests, ravines, or other
places for the ready emplacement of mines) against tanks and other
conventional forces along the western side of the inter-German
border. One could, at relatively small expense, create an extremely
efficient barrier there, greatly improving the effectiveness of all of
the other parts of the forces at very low cost and with nrnctirall~r
no affect manpower.
~ present these options in this much detail merely to pose the
notion that if one wishes to invest further in NATO forces, it is not
obvious that arching divisions (in order to correct the numerical
balance among the forces) is the right thing to do. There are many
quite intelligent chances to he marl`> that Burp not AWAY ~~ ^1~;~
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c .lvlslons.
V ~ ~~ ~ $~ ~ I—All L ~11 tilt
What, then, are the conclusions on the conventional military
balance? These are mostly a matter of judgment, and other people
will probably give other answers than mine. Nevertheless, I would
list them as the fact that the unfavorable ratios on equipment may
not be decisive and that our ability to go the high-tech route earlier,
faster, anc! more effectively than the Warsaw Pact decreases the need
for aciclitional weaponry. On the average, a smart weapon is 20
times as efficient as a "dumb" one an-, therefore, the counting in
the future has to take that into account. More divisions for NATO,
then, are not necessarily its greatest neecI.
There is another general conclusion that ~ hope is implicit in what
have presented; that is, the uncertainties in estimating NATO
capabilities are far greater than the effects, for example, of changing
the total of Soviet nuclear weapons that coulcI be targeted on Western
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53
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
Europe by less than 10 percent, which is what would be done under
an TNF treaty. T think the same follows for the 50 percent cuts in
strategic forces. Thus we have a situation here that, as Dr. Kelleher
pointed out, is not at all satisfactory from many points of view but
is almost invariant to changes of the kind that are being discussed
in nuclear arms control.
The Institute for Strategic Studies in London has the longest
history of consistent examination of this problem, and its most
recent conclusion is that the balance is still such as to make general
military aggression a highly risky undertaking for either side. The
initial advantage to an attacker is not sufficient to guarantee victory;
also the consequences for an attacker would still be quite unpredict-
able, and the risks, particularly of nuclear escalation, remain incal-
culable.
If this could be put in quasi-percentage numbers, we might say
that the Europeans would like to have at least a 90 percent certainty
that the United States would use nuclear weapons in their defense.
They feel that the likelihood is much less than that, maybe actually
around 40 or 50 percent. Yet T believe the Soviets would not dare
risk testing this situation, even if the likelihood were as low as 5
percent.
Against this admittedly selective examination of conventional
forces, what is the outlook and possible role of arms control? There
have been under way, unknown to most people, ~ think, two
substantial attempts at arms control in the conventional force area.
The first might be called a structural approach because it deals with
the structure of the forces (manpower, units, and equipment).
The prime example of this approach has been the Mutual and
Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) negotiations in Vienna that have
been going on since 1973 without a product. The aim in this case
has been to use manpower as the important variable and to find
ways of reducing that. It has failed largely because it has not been
possible for the two sides, the two blocs, to agree on the existing
manpower count, and the difference is a large number more than
100,000 troops.
Part of this problem is due to the fact that troops are defined
differently on the two sides. For example, there are construction
crews associated with the Soviet armed forces that mostly do
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54
REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND
construction and work of that kind, but it has prover! to be an
insoluble problem with respect to a common definition.
One may think of these 15 years as being wasted, but in point of
fact, many subsidiary and important problems have been worker!
out during this period. Nevertheless, the negotiations have no
product, and interest in this area was revived only by a speech of
General Secretary Gorbachev's a year ago, in which he called for
substantial reductions in all components of land forces and tactical
air forces from the AtIantic to the Urals.
Such a proposal certainly woke everyone up because if he meant
what he said, substantial reductions, much greater than the numbers
being bandied about in Vienna, are negotiable. In a(lclition, enlarging
the area affected from the Atlantic to the Urals brought in the whole
western Soviet Union, thereby reducing the logistical advantage of
the Warsaw Pact.
General Secretary Gorbachev added that tactical nuclear weapons
should be removed at the same rate as conventional weapons ant!
that onsite inspection should be allowed where it was needed. Two
months later, in Budapest, the Warsaw Pact group met and refined
these proposals; they further proposed that the initial reductions be
150,000 personnel and that these reductions be followed with others
to a total of a half-million on each side. This would mean a reduction
of a million troops at the end of 5 years.
NATO was given these proposals 10 months ago and is still
working on them. How the work is going, I do not know. If there
is a future for this particular kind of arms control, I think that it
cannot depend entirely on manpower counts because of (differences
over counting rules.
Perhaps a more promising path would be to use divisions and to
work out rules by which a division can be given a certain weight,
taking into account all the factors that give it its strength or lack of
strength (not only manpower but equipment, location, readiness,
fraction of slots fi~lecI, and so forth.)
Another possibility, although perhaps not as attractive, would be
to admit at the outset that each country views its own land forces
in such a way that there will never be any common feeling developed
between them, and, therefore, all that could be done would be that
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55
IMPLICA TIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
one side could propose a specific set of reductions ant! ask the other
sicle what it would give for it. One cannot be either optimistic or
pessimistic about this possibility, although there is a growing
accumulation of background work and many of the problems are
well clefined. One could imagine that these efforts would proceed!
and that the NATO response to the Budapest initiative will start
movement on that path.
Finally, there is the alternative approach to arms control in the
conventional fielcl, the operational approach, which means regulating
military activities. To the surprise of many people, this alternative
bore its first fruits in Stockholm last summer, where, after 3 years,
and again with the intercession of Gorbachev and his sending his
chief of military staff there to carry out the negotiations, there was
a set of agreements reached that are extremely promising.
These agreements provide for prior notification of many important
military activities; also, observations of exercises that involve more
than 17,000 troops will be required. There will be an annual calendar
provided by a certain date that will contain all of the maneuvers
planned for the next 2 years involving more than 40,000 troops.
Three onsite inspections will be allowed per year. Each of these
agreements is modified and limited in certain ways that one may
not like, but it is still a substantial improvement.
Attempts to extend these proposals are currently going on in
Vienna and they are expected to continue for another 6 months.
Here, again, however, one might find ways of limiting military
activities so as to recluce the possibility of a rapid mobilization, a
surprise attack, and ultimately to thin out the troop concentration
around the inter-German border by moving troops back from it.
What conclusions should be drawn from all of this? To put it very
briefly, there is a possibility of substantial conventional force arms
control and troop reductions, but it is probably going to be a fairly
long process. It may be pushed by the fact that some countries have
demographic problems that will make the value of young men
working in the factories and elsewhere much more important than
being unproductive in military units. The possibility that these
negotiations will bear fruit, I think, is much more likely now than
it has been in the past.
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56
REYKJA VIK AND BEYOND
It remains, then, to discuss how possible reductions would relate
to things that are in the air today. I think my main point is clear:
the uncertainty of evaluating the military effectiveness of conven-
tional forces is so great that one cannot imagine that the elimination
of intermediate-range missiles in Europe is going to call for any
substantial change in the conventional forces beyond quickening the
pace of the improvements now under way.
With the 50 percent reduction in strategic forces, ~ think one
comes to the same conclusion because, although 50 percent seems
like half, it really is not because the effects of using nuclear weapons
are not a linear function of the number. One reaches overkill sooner
or later fairly soon so that the last 50 percent of weapons could
never have the military effect that the first 50 percent used would
have.
It is for that reason that things do not change a great deal, even
at 50 percent reductions. Later on, they would, but we are not, in
either of these cases, able to go back to the situation that existed in
the early 1950s, when we thought of nuclear weapons as a substitute
for manpower.
The presence and function of manpower in conventional forces
in Europe exists in its own right ant! is a partner with nuclear
weapons in the deterrent; there is very little trade-off between nuclear
weapons and troop levels possible at the levels of nuclear reductions
in Europe we are now talking about.
All of this contradicts what many experts are saying recently.
Representative Les Aspin, Senator Sam Nunn, former National
Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor
Henry Kissinger, and former President Richard Nixon have all come
out opposing in some degree or other the agreement to eliminate to
zero the intermediate-range missiles 1,650 on the Soviet side and
316 on our side a deal that one could hardly have dreamt would
be possible before. Yet these individuals oppose it, and their
. .
opposition stems trom two sources.
One is that some are sufficiently unhappy about the state of the
conventional balance that they want to use this opportunity to
improve it. In most cases, they suggest either a decrease in the
number of Soviet divisions or an increase in the number of Western
(livisions. My argument has been, however, that the military
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57
IMPLICATIONS FOR CONVENTIONAL FORCES
efficiency of those forces is so uncertain and depends on so many
other factors that to solve it in terms of divisions is not very
satisfactory.
Therefore, I must disagree with their conclusions. Instead, I
believe we should grasp the new opportunities that seem to lie before
us, the beginnings of a new route in conventional arms control. Yet,
the complexity of the issues involved are so substantial that one can
probably expect only slow progress. But even with some progress
in structural and operational arms control, conventional forces will
remain largely invariant with respect to the state of nuclear weaponry
ant! changes therein because the level of nuclear reductions that are
in prospect today do not really affect the separate and important
mission of the conventional forces in Europe.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
conventional forces
