In the late 1970's defense chiefs of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became troubled by the shifting balance in conventional defense capabilities. While the Warsaw Pact has held a quantitative advantage in conventional forces, NATO's qualitative edge, coupled with a flexible response strategy of nuclear escalation, provided the Alliance with a credible deterrent against Warsaw Pact aggression. Strong conventional forces above those needed to conduct a brief forward defense were considered both unnecessary and politically not affordable. Developments in Warsaw Pact strategy and conventional defense capabilities crystallized the need to strengthen the conventional component of NATO's military deterrence. The continuing Warsaw Pact military buildup in both numbers and quality of conventional and nuclear weapons, matched by NATO's failure to make sufficient responsive investments, had put the Alliance's strategy of deterrence and flexible response in jeopardy. More important, a sustained conventional attack without the use of nuclear weapons was becoming a major element in Soviet strategy.
NATO Acquisition Strategy: A Way to Improve Readiness and Sustainability
1988
13 pages
Report
No indication
English
Logistics Military Facilities & Supplies , Acquisition , Nato , Military procurement , Ammunition , Attack , Conventional warfare , Defense systems , Deterrence , Failure , Forward areas , Military strategy , Nuclear weapons , Strategy , USSR , Warsaw pact countries , Military equipment , Materiel , Operational readiness
Psychophysiological Readiness and Sustainability
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997
|National Military Strategy: Army Reserve Readiness
NTIS | 2013
|Enhancing Performance Based Logistics Programs to Improve Fleet Readiness
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2006
|