Soviet Policy Statements and Military Deployments in Northeast Asia

This paper focuses on evidence which supports the argument that Moscow will likely seek to avert developing long-range threats to Soviet security in North-east Asia by following a policy geared toward finding a common ground for conciliation and cooperation with each of the major powers in the area. The paper also demonstrates that such a policy logically derives from the fact that disadvantageous geographic factors would frustrate effective Soviet force employment in the Pacific theater in a major conflict with neighboring powers, who themselves possessed modern military capabilities or could rely on the United States to enter into the conflict as their ally. The paper relies on both Soviet and Western sources. It describes Soviet views on security in Northeast Asia as they have been presented in Soviet research analyses and commentary, published during the 1970s. Information on Soviet military deployments was compiled from Western sources. Research on the paper was concluded in May 1978.