Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present:

Chapter 9: Latest Trends in the Development on Nonnuclear Weaponry, theForms and Methods of Conventional Combat and their Impact on StrategicStabilityIn the 1980s, experts from the Soviet Union, the United States and member states of the WarsawPact Organization and NATO actively discussed the aspects of securing strategic stability withrespect to conventional weapons and conventional armed forces in Europe. 77 An important rolein those discussions was played not just by the U.S. and Soviet experts, but also by experts fromGermany, the Netherlands, Poland and Hungary. By no means unimportant were the discussionsregarding various formulas of “non-offensive defense” and “non-provocative defense.” Suchdiscussions resulted in the development of formulas of limitation and reduction of conventionalarms, as well as new doctrinal tenets.The issues of limitation of the sides’ offensive capabilities and limitation of the types of peacetimemilitary activities that increase the capability of large-scale warfare with the use of generalpurposemeans and forces and conventional arms remain quite topical today. 78 Certainly, in thisrespect it is necessary to take full account of the latest trends in development of the art of war thatare taking shape as a result of what is called the “revolution in the military arts.” 79 In addition, itis necessary to take into account the sharply increased role of information and communicationstechnologies, network-centric warfare, new electronic warfare capabilities, and robotization ofstriking and auxiliary assets (the growing roles of unmanned reconnaissance-strike complexes, aswell as strategic, operational and tactical-mobility assets, are all shining examples). 80A more and more important role in ensuring efficient warfare is played by supercomputers, definedas computers that have a processing speed of more than 1 teraflop, which means they canperform more than 1 trillion floating-point operations per second. In this same category are thenetworks of such computers; the warfare models that are simulated using such computers; and thegeneration of logistic and decision-making models (including those developed with the use of artificialintelligence technologies), both at the operational strategic and political-military levels. Allthese means serve as a powerful multiplier of combat capabilities. (Within the next 3 to 5 years,the command and control systems of the most developed countries will be equipped with 1-petaflopsupercomputers that can perform 1 thousand-trillion floating-point operations per second.)We have witnessed the transformation of electronic warfare from an auxiliary, supporting capacityto one of the principal combat tools (unfortunately, the Russian Armed Forces have yet to fullyrealize this fact). Moreover, electronic warfare no longer means just electronic countermeasures(ECM); it is becoming a more sophisticated confrontation instrument, both in peacetime and intime of war, which requires high intellect and professionalism. 81The in-depth study of the medium-term, long-term and very-long-term trends in the developmentof the military arts shows that strategic, operational, and tactical mobility is becoming aprevailing principle of warfare. Mobility in the real actions of the armed forces of different countriesis a more important factor than any concentration of military power at the main point ofattack; in a number of instances, it even substitutes for the latter.Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 41