This report extends, through 1983, estimates of the economic costs of the Soviet empire that were published in a previous RAND study (R-3073/1-NA) covering the period 1971 to 1980. Its objectives are (1) to determine the extent to which the Soviet Union allocates resources for its broad international security interests; (2) to evaluate the burden that the empire imposes on the Soviet economy, and how this burden has changed in recent years; (3) to identify gaps in the estimates as a guide to needed improvements in future data collection; (4) to evaluate the political, military, and other benefits that the Soviet leadership attributes to the empire; and (5) to consider the extent to which economic stringencies within the Soviet Union, as well as other possible explanations, account for the marked changes that occurred in empire costs between 1981 and 1983. The study finds that Soviet empire costs declined appreciably during the early 1980s, but remained substantial in both absolute and relative terms.

This study develops and applies a comprehensive framework for estimating all of the economic costs incurred by the Soviet Union in acquiring, maintaining, and expanding its empire. The bulk of the study is devoted to estimating the total and component costs of the Soviet empire (CSE) for the period from 1971 through 1980. The principal components include implicit trade subsidies; export credits; military aid deliveries; economic aid deliveries; incremental costs of Soviet military operations in Afghanistan; and costs of Soviet covert and related activities that can be reasonably imputed to the empire, rather than to maintenance of the Soviet system at home. These costs are expressed in current and constant dollars and rubles, and scaled in relation to Soviet GNP and military spending. After considering total costs and their changes over the 1970s, the cost of each component is examined separately. Finally, the question of whether CSE will be higher or lower in the 1980s than in the 1970s is considered, as well as several policy issues relating to the burden imposed by CSE on the Soviet economy, the relative size of comparable U.S. costs, and the desirability and feasibility of U.S. policies for raising CSE.

During the Cold War, when the United States' intelligence efforts were focused on the Soviet Union, one of the primary tasks of the Central Intelligence Agency was to estimate Soviet defense spending. In Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990, Noel E. Firth and James H. Noren, who spent much of their long CIA careers estimating and studying Soviet defense spending, provide a closer look at those estimates and consider how and why they were made. In the process, the authors chronicle the development of a significant intelligence analytic capability. Firth and Noren also explain what the CIA has learned since the collapse of the Soviet Union about the USSR's actual military spending during the Cold War.

This study analyzes the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-Soviet decade. Without overlooking the USSR's repressive character, the author treats it as a "normal" system that employed socialist and nationalist ideologies.

The purpose of this book is not to assert that there are limits to Soviet power but, through an examination of selected aspects of Soviet foreign and domestic policy, to understand what limits there are and to assess their significance and severity. The authors have assumed that the vast size of the Soviets' nuclear arsenal and considerable energy reserves, and that their vigorous and communicative new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, their record of forceful interventions in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and Africa, and other indicators of ability to exert influence and control in world affairs were recognizable to most Americans.

This book, first published in 1990, examines the nature and causes of the changes to Soviet national security policy under Gorbachev. Changes in leadership and institutional arrangements, economic policy, ideology and military involvement all fostered new patterns of cooperation and competition. Authors look at the historical, economic and cultural contexts of change and proceed to a discussion of change agents, such as modernization, technology and domestic politics. Specific components of foreign and military policy, such as arms control and relations with Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact and the Third World, are also examined.

Introduction by Mary Kaldor.

Analyzing the modern status of military bases and the diplomacy that defines their location and access, this book explores the global basing networks of the world's major military powers--their type, location, and the politics and economics of their acquisition. It provides data on armaments, intelligence, communications, research, and space facilities; tables and maps that display U.S. and Soviet global networks; and the various military roles and nuclear deterrence capabilities for global power projection and support of client states in the Third World. Harkavy also discusses emerging political and technological developments that could alter basing diplomacy.