The Third World War: August 1985

Politically the years since the re-arming of West Germany (which had to be recognized as a major setback) had seen considerable improvements to the Soviet position. The departure of France from NATO was a great gain. The Vietnam War had been a useful distraction. There had been advantage in the existence of some movement in the United States towards a degree of disengagement in Europe; in the financial and economic difficulties of the United Kingdom, particularly where balance of payments and budgetary difficulties had combined to reduce troop deployments in continental Europe — and also, peripheralists might say, in the British withdrawal from the East; in the strong growth of left-wing elements in the politics of every one of the Atlantic Allies; in a general decline among Western democracies in public interest in defence; and in certain other developments. The pursuit of detente had been helpful to the Soviet interest, and negotiations on arms limitation and force reductions had brought small but useful gains.

A very highly classified planning document, given a strictly limited circulation in the Kremlin in October 1983, which fell into Allied hands after the fighting was over, throws a sufficiently clear light on Soviet policy in relation to NATO to justify the inclusion of a summary of it here.