Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum of 18 December 1961, sent to the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, encloses a verbatim translation of a Soviet article from the top secret 1960 first issue of the special collection of Military Thought. In the article, Colonel-General A. Gastilovich argues that nuclear missiles call for revising Soviet military doctrine. He favors short blitz operations, smaller ground forces and new rescue troops. It mentions "flying saucers" only as ground effect machines for army aviation.
“The Advance”5 pages
are convenient for him and, conseguently, cluster his battle array and oporational forration. In this connoction an irportant role i.n dcifense is played by broad utilization of obotacles and terrains proocnting natural obstructions for slowing the tempo of the ene~ advanco. However, the fate of nodern defense is decided in the final analysis by the r.ineuver of miociles, chiefly the shifting of their trajectories, and the availability of nuclear vwaracadS, in conjunction with counterattacks and counterbl.ows of the reserves. It appears to us that under conterporary conditions defense, in -. the past -:.aning of this term, can take place only on a tactical scale. -Arry and front operational dofense, deliborately subordinated to the - interoots of offensive operations in other directions or dictated by a sharp chanZo in the situation in the enet~'s favor, will, of course, also have its place. Eut it nust be based on the same methods of operation as izi offensive opecrations, i.e., on heated meeting battles and enrac::nt&. For this, the amy and front nsy have a number of largo units and a scale of zones of action equal to those of anl army and front carrying out offensive operations. The difference will be -in the presence of a smaller quantity of nuelear warheads, which will necessitate loss of a part "of the forces and territory in order to win time,. oafensive operations of the front and army, differin from ofonaive operations in aims of action and quantity of nuclear wcapons, will resemble the latter in methods of lar~ge unit tactical II-n operationalain .iCi ocoto niotn oei - n defensive operations, certain armies of the front and certain "arco units of armies, taking advantage of a convenient local situation tr~c ha aen the avaresult of itatoo nuclear srikes wo~ucill frequently carry out an oufenive with limited goals, In a conterorary operational defense, the forition of defonsive zonca is not advisable because they d'o not justify their designation.- Any larso unit dofending itself in place will be an naiated bys - nuclcar otribes of the ene:: or ainply bypasoeod.. On the operational scale, the tern "estable defonse" should be releiated to the archives because under modern. conditions it can be neither solid nor stable. Ssloain the tepo of the advancing enocy by sans of defense is based - aon counterattacks and counterotrios carried out from different S _adirections, on skilful and swift dice oagementsfrom the encny, and on broad use of barricades and utilization of natural terrain obstacles * until the tim a possibility presents itself to destroy the enety with a nuclear strike. tip. .
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 23 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.