Remarks by Carl Jacobsen

Abstract

With respect to my subject, Soviet perspectives on European Security, the first point to be made concerns the Soviet concept of strategy. It is far more explicitly comprehensive than most Western conceptions. It stresses the interrelations and interdependencies of military, economic, ideological, cultural and other factors, and sees politics as the umbrella composite of these factors. Furthermore, the composite is not only comprehensive in nature it is equally comprehensive in extent. Thus the Soviet view does not allow for any isolated consideration of, for example, Central Europe, whatever the character of the concern at hand. The topic of local military assymetry, which is related to the discussions on multiple and balanced forced reductions (MBFR), may serve as an example. The USSR stresses not only the more complex nature of the problem in Central Europe, but also insists that it must be viewed in a wider continental, and even global, context. Europe is not seen in isolation.