26 
against the U.S.S.R.’s need to divide its strength between the West 
and the East to meet potential threats from both directions. (West 
Europe’s main problem is political: the will to unite to meet a common 
challenge. ) 
With regard to projecting its power beyond the Eurasian continent, 
the Soviet Union is again handicapped by its geopolitical situation. 
Its direct and easy naval and maritime access to the global oceans 
and seas is impeded in key areas by geography: its ships have to 
pass through narrow straits, e.g., in the Black and the Baltic Seas; 
but these passages are controlled by others and can serve as easy 
targets for “bottling up” Soviet ships. 
THE TWO-FRONT THREAT 
The geopolitical context described above suggests the magnitude 
and complexities of the strategic problems facing the Soviet Union 
which have been evoked by its expansive foreign policy and which 
are likely to serve as constraints on Soviet freedom of action abroad. 
As a first problem, it faces a two-front challenge on its Eastern and 
Western flanks. The two-front threat is deeply imbedded in Russian 
and Soviet psyche by past and recent history. This includes invasions 
from the East and West which date as far back as the 13th Century 
when the Mongol hordes and Teuton knights devastated Russian soil. 
The incursions by the Japanese and the Germans in the 1930’s and 
1940’s were the modern versions of this threat to Russia.°® 
In the current context the challenge is posed by West Germany 
and China. With regard to Germany, a traditional continental rival, 
the Soviets assume that West Germany, due to its size and strategic 
location, will dominate any future alliance arrangements in West Eu- 
rope, particularly if the United States should reduce its role in Europe. 
(Germany is already the dominant European member of NATO.) 
The Soviets also believe that Germany is likely to enhance its 
strength in the future by direct access to nuclear weapons and missles. 
Even if there is no objective basis for assuming that it will acquire 
its own nuclear-missile capabilities, the Soviets perceive this will or 
may occur. They already consider the current U.S.-West German dual 
arrangements as giving the Germans a finger on the nuclear trigger. 
Moreover, the U.S.S.R. is convinced that the Germans even now 
are capable of independently producing missle weapons but are con- 
strained at present only by political expediency.’ In the Soviet view, 
this constraint is susceptible to erosion, and will change. But, even 
in the worst case of national acquisition of nuclear-missle armaments, 
West Germany would offer relatively little concern to the Soviets 
‘The two-front threat is so ingrained in the thinking of Soviet strategists that even seemingly unre- 
lated activities are put in context of that classic threat to Russian security. Thus, as a young naval of- 
ficer, Admiral Isakov, the one-time Soviet deputy naval chief, did a study on the WWI attack by 
Japan on German-held Tsindao in China while the Germans were preoccupied in the West. His biog- 
rapher indicates that Isakov later examined the lessons of that situation for its application, under 
comparable circumstances, to a U.S.S.R. simultaneously threatened from the East and the West. (See 
V. Rudny, ““‘Dolgoye, Dolgoye, Plavanie” (Long, Long Cruise), Moscow, 1974, pp. 102-3.) 
7As far back as 1964, the Soviets interpreted West Germany’s manufacturing of missiles for me- 
terological use by non-German consumers as masking capabilities for producing combat missiles. 
(The Soviet protest on this score is contained in Pravda, Feb. 4, 1964.) By implication, the Soviets 
suggested a parallel with German manufacturing of weapons in the interwar period in violation of the 
Versailles Treaty. They conveniently omitted, however, the fact that in the twenty’s they gave the 
Germans a big start by allowing the Reichswehr to manufacture tanks, aircraft, and other weapons on 
Soviet soil. 
