President Reagan receiving the first copy of Soviet Military Power, a Defense Intelligence Agency publication

''Soviet Military Power'' was a

public diplomacy In international relations, public diplomacy or people's diplomacy, broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influen ...

publication of the US

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...

(DIA), which provided an estimate of the military strategy and capabilities of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

during the final years of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, ostensibly to alert the US public to the significant military capabilities of the

Soviet Armed Forces The Soviet Armed Forces, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union and as the Red Army (, Вооружённые Силы Советского Союза), were the armed forces of the Russian SFSR (1917–1922), the Soviet Union (1922–1991), and th ...

. First published in early October 1981, it became an annual publication from 1983 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Already in draft as the Soviet Union collapsed, the 1991 version was retitled "Military Forces in Transition". In addition to the majority English version, ''Soviet Military Power'' was translated, printed, and disseminated in a variety of languages, including German, French, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish.

Overview

The report was produced annually by intelligence analysts and subject matter experts at DIA, incorporating all sources of intelligence from across the US Intelligence Community. By direction, draft inputs were written at a classified level prior to being edited or downgraded by senior intelligence officers with the proper authorities. To illustrate the publication without revealing classified US satellite imagery and sensor capabilities, DIA artists prepared approximately 150 detailed paintings of Soviet military hardware and installations specifically for the publication. Some of this original artwork is on display in the 4th floor museum area of the Defense Intelligence Agency Headquarters at

Bolling Air Force Base Bolling Air Force Base or Bolling AFB was a United States Air Force base in Washington, D.C. In 2010, it was merged with Naval Support Facility Anacostia to form Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling. From its beginning, the installation has hosted elem ...

in Washington, DC. Printing of the 100-page thick ''Soviet Military Power'' was traditionally handled by the

Government Printing Office The United States Government Publishing Office (USGPO or GPO; formerly the United States Government Printing Office) is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States Federal government. The office produces and distributes information ...

; the 1981's run numbered 36,000 copies, printed at a cost of $40,000. The booklets were widely distributed within the government and press, and could also be purchased by the general public at local United States Post Offices (in 1981, for $6.50 quivalent to $ today. At the time of initial publication, ''Soviet Military Power'' constituted the largest release of declassified data in Pentagon history. According to US Secretary of Defense

Caspar Weinberger Caspar Willard Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American statesman and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including chairman of the Californ ...

, ''Soviet Military Power'' did not constitute any form of propaganda aimed at supporting the increasing defense budgets of the Reagan Administration but was designed instead to alert the US public to a growing imbalance between the military capabilities of the United States and the Soviet Union. However, a 2016 publication in ''

The National Interest ''The National Interest'' (''TNI'') is an American bimonthly international relations magazine edited by American journalist Jacob Heilbrunn and published by the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D ...

'' asserts that this publication was largely a propaganda effort aiming at justifying the then-US defense buildup through an exaggerated presentation of the Soviet Union's military power. The first volume triggered an immediate response from the Soviet Union in the form of two countering propaganda documents ''Whence the Threat to Peace'' and ''Disarmament: Who's Against?''Soviet Union Ministry of Defense.
Disarmament: Who's Against?
' Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1983. published by the Soviet Union's Ministry of Defense.

Notes

References

*Barney, Timothy. ''Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America's International Power''. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. *Cooper, Leo. ''The Political Economy of Soviet Military Power''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. *Gervasi, Tom. ''Soviet Military Power: The Pentagon's Propaganda Document, Annotated and Corrected''. New York: Random House, 1987. *Frei, Daniel. ''Perceived Images: U.S. and Soviet Assumptions and Perceptions in Disarmament''. Totowa, NJ: Bowman & Allanheld, 1986. *Holzman, F. D. “Politics and guesswork: the CIA and DIA estimates of Soviet military spending”, ''International Security'' 13 (1989): 101–31. *Kelly, James & Bruce Nelan. “Throwing the Booklet at Moscow”, ''Time Magazine'' Monday, October 12, 1981. *Oberg, James. “Soviet Military Power: The Pentagon's Propaganda Document, Annotated and Corrected Book Review”, ''National Review'' (August 18, 1989). *GlobalSecurity.org http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mig-29-specs.htm *Haines, Gerald K. & Robert E. Leggett, eds. ''CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union: 1947–1991''. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2001. *Roberts, John A. ''The Validity of Soviet Military Power'', Masters thesis, ADA227470, 199

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