Not too many years ago, the burden of Soviet defense seemed a secondary issue. The conventional estimates of the size of the burden were low and the Soviet economy was growing rapidly. Now, the era of rapid growth seems to have come to an end and the Western estimates of the burden are much higher. The conjunction generates intense interest in the relation between the two developments. Especially important is the role of the defense burden in shaping future growth prospects. How serious a drag on the economy does the Soviet military budget represent? Is cutting defense spending the solution to current Soviet economic problems? Will the military budget nevertheless continue to grow? These questions are the focus of the present paper. The first section considers the various estimates of the size of the Soviet defense burden. It is followed by a discussion of the connections between defense burden and resource allocation choices. A final section speculates on the implications for future defense spending.

Two questions are posed: How can we explain the monotonic growth of the Soviet military budget over two decades when overall economic growth was slowing down? Can changes in this pattern be expected? Section II defines and analyzes the concept of the Soviet defense burden, then surveys empirical measures of the burden. Section III is skeptical about the extent to which the Soviet buildup is a response to external threats to security. The persistent buildup is seen instead to reflect the leadership's perception of national priorities and to be supported by a decisionmaking apparatus that maintains them. In the near future, external challenges (particularly the U.S. buildup) and opportunities will create pressures to maintain the pace of military spending, but worsening economic prospects will make it increasingly burdensome. Neither Brezhnev nor his successors are likely to have new options for dealing with this dilemma, and considerations that have induced the Politburo to try to 'middle through' will probably continue to dominate. U.S. policy has a significant capacity to influence Soviet policy in this direction.

During the Cold War, when the United States' intelligence efforts were focused on the Soviet Union, one of the primary tasks of the Central Intelligence Agency was to estimate Soviet defense spending. In Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990, Noel E. Firth and James H. Noren, who spent much of their long CIA careers estimating and studying Soviet defense spending, provide a closer look at those estimates and consider how and why they were made. In the process, the authors chronicle the development of a significant intelligence analytic capability. Firth and Noren also explain what the CIA has learned since the collapse of the Soviet Union about the USSR's actual military spending during the Cold War.

Contents: Soviet defense expenditures, 1950-1965 Difficulties and complications The official defense budget The 'real' defense budget The cost of military manpower Trends in Soviet defense spending The economic impact of the Soviet defense effort Defense as a component of GNP Industrial growth trends Industrial labor resources Defense and industrial technology Alternative demands for resources: agriculture and consumption Trends in the growth of Soviet GNP Conclusions The framework of choice Policy in the Krushchev era.