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 Theory of Military Art Needs Review Colonel-General A. Gestilovich We all adnit that nuclear weapons and missiles change the cooditions of war, but having said "a", e are afraid to say "b". Dropping curtsies in the direction of missiles and introducing soa minor corrcctiono in the theory of military Art, we still hold in practice to the old poitions existing at the ena of Warid Wr II. Past experience, $raditiqns, and habits, taught to us for. decades, tcnciouoly hold us'back and prevent the same kind of revolution in military art which nuclear weapons and missiles created in the . sphere of armament. . tHW strive unsuccessfully to squeeze missile/nuclear weapons into the t'raorwork of the old habitual postulates of our military doctrines only slicily "modernizing" the latter, and we forget that this doctrine was founded on the basis of using weapons of military combat . fundar.ntally different from contemporary ones and. not comparable with them. Speaking of past world wars ir a report to the Session of the " Suprers Soviet in January 1960, N.S. Ehrushchev noted that they formrrly began on the borders of the warring countries, where the troops wore concentrated. Concerning contemporary conditions he said: "%o:adays, if war, starts, military actions will develop differcntly, since countries will have at their disposal the means of delivering weapons over thousands of kilometers. War will start firat of a1 in the depths, of the warring countries, and every single capital, every sing1e large industrial or administrative center, every - - sin3le strategic ares, will be subject to attack not just during the first days, but during the first minutes of the war. In this manner, war will both begin differently, if it is begun,and develop differently." In another part of his report $.S. Khrushchev said:! "I once more czihasize, that we already have so any nuclear weapons -- atcic and thcrmonuclcar, and appropriate missiles for delivery of these weapons to the territory of a possible aggressor, that if some madman - should grder an attack against our country, 3 or k words missing then we would be able to wipe such a country, or countries, completely from the race of the earth." * I *1" I, * I Defining this thought concretely, )arshal of the Soviet Union B. X linovskiy, in his speech at the game Session, said: "About ------ _.... i. a)(4
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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.