3-GORBACHEV+Reindl,+Viktoria

Military:


 * What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?
 * Brezhnev was in charge before Gorbachev’s policies. He tried to improve the USSR's position by reviving Khrushchev's policy of detente with the United States.This policy was formed in the 1970s, when Nixon was President. During this period of "detente," the Soviet Union greatly expanded its armed forces including its navy.
 * During the SALT era, the Soviets sought to lull the West rather than to intimidate it.
 * During the Brezhnev era, there was an effort to step up the recruitment and training of officers of non-Russian nationalities. The process of de-ideologization in Soviet domestic and foreign policy have called into question the predominance of military claims on a strained economy. The rising ethno-nationalism in Soviet society carried over into the armed forces, complicating the challenges and tensions within the military provoking the existing military system from a variety of national movements.
 * There were rising pressures for changes in military structures and practices that would bring the armed forces under greater control by public authorities. Major cutbacks in the size of the Soviet armed forces were carried out m for the pressures to shift from a conscript to a professional military.
 * How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it?
 * There was evidence that senior military officers were very reluctant to pay the price in procurement, in investment for military research and development and in institutional size and structure that Gorbachev evidently believed his agenda required. This was because Gorbachev had to mount a challenge to the military’s prerogatives and institutional status.
 * Some participants argued that the Soviet leadership would not want to take the risk of withdrawing from Eastern Europe, but that, it would not welcome wholesale American withdrawal from the continent either.
 * The Soviet military was not only skeptical about the continuing relevance of the USSR’s approach to defense posture but was also worried about the future military viability of the Warsaw Pact.
 * The difficulties and worries that the military faced was a by product of glasnost and perestroika.
 * Gorbachev actions also undermined the military’s prestige during the Rust aggiar. it subjected the military to public humiliation. The leadership of the ministry of Defense was accused of accused of incompetence and the military was for the first time subjected to criticisms as an institution.


 * How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects?
 * Gorbachev removed marshals and generals and replaced with with other men to conduct his own arms control policies. Mathias Rust’s flight made glasnost possible in military affairs by allowing Soviet civilian to criticize the military. Soviet military also began to emerge openly on several issues. yet, glasnost in the military lagged far behind the open reporting of economic, political and historical issues. Gorbachev counted on his political reforms to help forces the military to respond to his new policies.
 * Perestroika- there were reduction in armed forces and assets. In 1987 the INF treaty called for the destruction of missiles the maintenance, replacement and modernization where spending was necessary.
 * Perestroika- He restructured the Soviet army with decentralization of decision making to lower levels. under perestroika reform-minded Soviet commanders were accessible to leadership and self motivated. Gorbachev’s military establishment favored perestroika because it recognized the potential benefit of making the Soviet soldier more effective on the technologically complex modern battlefield. Yet, his policy was not easily accepted by military bureaucrats with vested interest in the old system. The senior officers were felt threatened by a more open military where their performance was subject to greater judgment.
 * There was a right to criticize command decision granted to the lower ranks. this provoked angry complaints from older officers that perestroika was eroding the sacred unity of command.
 * Glasnost: It was designed to occasion an exchange of opinions and ideas which was in the best interests of the leadership. By casting the activities, Soviet military reforms believed that public openness would assist in correcting some of the army’s discipline and morale problems.
 * The Soviet military could tailor glasnost to promote perestroika to improve training methodologies and the quality of the manpower on an individual basis.


 * What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution?
 * There were signs that Gorbachev saw a deep interconnection between his program of economic restructuring and the need to restructure military policy. Since he came to power he made a number of important changes in the military-security area that had important results for civil-military relations in the U.S.S.R. and for broader East-West relations.
 * Gorbachev’s concept of reasonable sufficiency on the nuclear level fully accord with mainstream military acknowledgement of the declining military use of nuclear weapons.
 * The Restructuring measure were largely stable with enhanced military effectiveness,
 * Perestroika in the economy had the long-term effect of creating the infrastructure required to wide-scale incorporation of ACMs.
 * The Soviet Military agreed that the conventional high tech battlefield dedicated a forces structure of reduced size but enhanced mobility, effectiveness among other things. It elevated quality over quantity.
 * The changes he made indicated that he had given high priority on the soviet foreign policy agenda to improved relations with the United States and the West in general and to political solutions for military problems in the Third World. When he displayed his disillusionment with the role of military power, it marked the first time that any Soviet leader had indicated that Moscow had a plan for a pullout of Soviet forces.
 * Soviet naval activity in support of the far away mission had decreased in tempo since he addressed the party congress in 1986.
 * He controlled military expenditures and broadened political oversight over the military
 * He had an impact of reducing the presence of the Soviet military in the Third World, by lowering the public appearance and status of the military.
 * He politicized the arms control agenda and begun a series of deployment retreats from Central Europe and the Sino-Soviet border. He announced reduction in defense expenditures and military procurement as well.
 * Gorbachev and his political allies had constructed a powerful political challenge to the military’s traditional prerogatives and preferences
 * The military’s status began to decline in the mid-1970s but the process increased after Gorbachev assumed power.
 * The result was a political struggle over control of military deployment policy and military-industrial decision making
 * All his policies lead to the political and economics costs of maintaining the USSR’s current huge force structures. The military payoffs resulted from Soviet force reductions, defense budget cuts and restructuring.

Works Cited:

[|Gross, Natalie A. . //Perestroika and Glasnost in the Soviet Armed Forces//. n.a.: Natalie A Gross, 1988. Print.]

[|"Gorbachev's New Thinking." //Global//. Version n.a.. Council of Foreign Relations, 1 Jan. 1988. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. .]

[|Hewett, Edward A., and Victor H. Winston.//Milestones in glasnost and perestroyka//. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991. Print.]

[|Alexiev, Alex, and Robert Nurick. //The Soviet military under Gorbachev: report on a RAND workshop//. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1990. Print.]