Soviet Airlift Doctrine & Capabilities -- An Outsider's View in 1990

Abstract

As peace continues to break out all over Europe and force reductions rapidly follow, the need to change military thinking and paradigms becomes an imperative. To date, Soviet forces have been asked to leave Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) talks should further reduce the number of US/Soviet forces facing each other over the East- West borders. Force projection will become an even bigger issue for the USSR when their troops are not forward deployed and a crisis develops internationally. The purpose of this paper is to show that even with restructuring and new thinking, the Soviets have a very real and credible combat force projection capability. With their modernized military transports and large airborne forces, they have a formidable potential to influence events from their borders, a fact we in the West cannot ignore. Keywords: Foreign military forces; Military force levels; Military doctrine; Airlift operations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 02, 1990
Accession Number
ADA223975

Entities

People

  • Steven D. Acuff

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Cargo Aircraft
  • Combat Forces
  • Combat Readiness
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Employment
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • Military Training
  • Self Propelled Guns
  • Tanker Aircraft
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Strategic Security Studies