557 



cess. Indeed, demobilization was apparently quietly resumed after 

 1961, as noted by Xikita Khrushchev in 1963 at the Party Plenum; by 

 1965 his original target of 2.4 million in military manpower reduc- 

 tion was reached. 150 Soviet military leaders probably did not favor the 

 reduced term of service in the 1967 draft reform, but they were over- 

 ridden by the Brezhnev-Kosygin leadership. With the China border 

 crisis and the Czech invasion, the strength is apparently again above 

 the 1961 level of about 3 million, possibly as high as 3.6 million (in- 

 cluding the border guards and internal security forces). ni The logic for 

 reduction in the size of the military force might now again be based 

 on improved economic performance, especially if Soviet leaders decide 

 to reduce substantially the number of Soviet forces in Eastern Europe. 

 However, the Sino-Soviet border situation would seem to preclude a 

 massive cutback in military manpower. 



Thus, three options for economic change open to the Soviet leader- 

 ship are, in order of probability: (1) a reduction of the priority for 

 new strategic weapons systems; (2) a cutback in military manpower; 

 and (3) a withdrawal of Party control and involvement in the economy 

 so as to permit improved efficiency through economic reform. All are 

 issues which will be influenced by both the international situation and 

 domestic political considerations. A downward revision in the priority 

 for further military weapons buildup, for example, is likely only if the 

 economic rationale is persuasive and the domestic political and inter- 

 national climate are favorable. 



The Moscow Summit agreements, the Vietnam settlement, and prog- 

 ress in solving other political problems in East -West relations should 

 help to provide the basis for a change in Soviet domestic economic 

 priorities. Increasing Soviet interest in technologically oriented trade 

 may be evidence that the Soviet leadership is indeed committed to a 

 reordering of priorities. The linkage of moderation in the strategic 

 arms race and settlement in Vietnam to a mutually beneficial trade 

 agreement, as described by Dr. Kissinger, may be a valid intercon- 

 nection, especially in the minds of Leonid Brezhnev and Richard 

 Nixon. 



U.S. -Soviet Technology Transfers 



Secretary Peterson remarked on his return .from the first meeting of 

 the Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Commercial Commission in August 1972 

 that the United States had let the other industrial countries steal a 

 march on trade with the Soviet Union, and that U.S. businessmen are 

 now anxious to get "a piece of the action." This "action" includes tech- 

 nological transfers and industrial cooperation that was characteris- 

 tic of Soviet-U.S. relations before but not after World War II. The 

 prospect of resuming the pre-World War II relationship raises im- 

 portant questions. What contribution will U.S. technology make to 

 Soviet economic and military development? In the past, U.S. export 

 control legislation was enacted under the assumption that controls 

 would retard Soviet development bv limiting transfers of U.S. tech- 

 nology to Soviet industry. Soviet achievements in military technology 



"" Confirmed in an interview of Marshal Sokolovskv. See Neiv York Times, Feb. 18, 

 19R5. d. 6. 



91 Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1970-1971, London, 1972, p. 6. 



