Land Power. Total Red army strength, including service troops, is 2,800,000. Of these 1,555,000 men are organized in 175 divisions, averaging 6,600 men in each; at full strength a Russian division has about 8,000 men. (The U.S. has 15 divisions in service, is organizing three more.) The Russians' 175 divisions break down into about 125 infantry divisions (including the airborne), and 50 mechanized divisions including armored outfits. U.S. Army Intelligence believes that Russia, which has long had a thoroughgoing system of compulsory military training, can mobilize 300 divisions within 60 days.
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Much of this progress is due to increased technological skill. By the end of the '30s, the Russians were learning new industrial techniques fast, were just about to reap a modest harvest by the time they switched over to total war production. After the German attack in 1941, thousands of Russian technicians went to the U.S., worked in U.S. factories, took home invaluable industry know-how. The 1940-49 figures show in part how the new knowledge paid off.
The gains do not mean that Russia has greatly increased its capital equipment. Dr. Demitri Shimkin, who served on the U.S. Army's General Staff during the war, and is now with Harvard's Russian Research Center, has concluded from a careful study of postwar Russian production figures that the Russians achieved much of their gains by hard use of their old capital equipment. Shimkin's conclusion seems to indicate that after World War II the Russians decided to go on turning out all the war material they could at top speed—rather than to emphasize capital goods at first so as to be able to turn out larger amounts of war goods later. That involved taking a chance that their present capital equipment would be inadequate for the demands of a future war. Significantly Moscow took that risk in order to be ready for war at any time.
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The steel figures add up to this: Russia has not enough steel to fight a long war involving major ground action. That is why Germany's Ruhr is a key piece on the chessboard of world strategy. Western Germany is now producing almost as much steel as the whole vast U.S.S.R. Transfer of the Ruhr capacity from Western to Russian control would change the world strategic picture more decisively than any other territorial grab the U.S.S.R. could make.
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Transport is the overall limiting factor in the economic growth of the U.S.S.R. Russia's resources, especially iron ore and coal, are wide apart (see above). Russia has five main industrial regions: north western European Russia (Moscow, Leningrad, Gorky); the Ukraine (Kiev, Krivoi Rog, Dneprostroi) ; the newer industrial complex just behind the Urals (Sverdlovsk, Magnitogorsk, etc.); the Kuznetsk Basin (Novosibirsk, Stalinsk, etc.); and the scattered mills, mines, army bases and slave-labor camps near the Pacific. Despite a widespread belief in the West that Russia's industrial trend is toward "safety behind the Urals," there is evidence that about 1947, Stalin & Co. hardheadedly concluded that U.S. bombers could strike behind the Urals almost as easily as in the Ukraine. So the trend appears to be back to the Ukraine and Western Russia.
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Militarily, the satellites might be of more use to Russia; they can provide about 100 divisions, whose worth would depend largely on the effectiveness of Communist propaganda and political control.
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The Russian economy's shortages, especially in steel and transport, are not necessarily as serious as comparable shortages would be in the U.S. One factor beyond statistics — and possibly more important — is Russia's ability to turn all its resources relentlessly to war needs. An example of this ability is the Russian munitions output in 1944. At that time Russia's national income was only 20% of the U.S.'s. Nevertheless Russia's munitions output reached 35 to 40% of U.S. production and Russian production of some weapons was equal to the U.S. output. Despite the abuse inflicted on it, the Russian industrial machine does not seem to break down; in the words of one baffled U.S. economist it "somehow" goes on producing.
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The U.S.'s chance to exploit Russian shortages and cripple its war machine is to force Russia to fight the kind of war in which it will have to expend its resources faster than it can replace them. In the absence of such expenditure, strategic bombing of the U.S.S.R. is unlikely to have a decisive effect.
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The modern world has several impressive examples of the ability of dictatorships to control their people even under the most extreme rigors of war. One example is that of Russia itself, which fought on in World War II even after the most valuable portion of the country had been lost, after 5,000,000 army casualties had been suffered, and after the level of life had dropped to a point which the West would consider unbearable.
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Russia partially compensates for its lack of military mobility by control of the Communist Party throughout the world. The party carries the Red offensive into distant lands, dupes other peoples into fighting Russia's battles and ties up (as in Korea and Indo-China) the armed forces of the West. The Communist Party is the most effective substitute for sea power the world has ever seen.
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If allowed full use of these assets, Russis could win world domination by two wars, or two phases of one war.
First Phase. Russia would hold together under U.S. atomic bombing while the Red army took over Western Europe and the Communist Parties consolidated Red power in Asia. Meanwhile, Russian atomic bombing of the U.S. would try to force an armistice or, at least, throw the U.S. off balance so that its offensive strength could not be brought to bear.
Second Phase. Russia, controlling Western Europe and with help from Asiatic satellites, would have a productive base far stronger than that of the U.S. today. Most of today's limitations on Russian mobility could be overcome in five or ten years.
The present Russian strength makes Red victory in the first phase a distinct possibility. Russian victory in the first phase would make victory in the second phase a heavy probability.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,813854,00.html
