Word: commandeered
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...Nearly one out of every six soldiers on earth serves in the Soviet armed forces. Over the past 30 years, its navy has evolved from little more than a well-armed coast guard to an armada of global reach; it challenges the U.S. Seventh Fleet for command of the Indian and western Pacific oceans, and the South China Sea. Technicians of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces man command-and-control silos that can launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, some of them with as many as ten independently targetable warheads, at the U.S. in 30 to 35 minutes. Soviet ICBMs are bigger...
...Soviet draftees have little chance for female contact. While they can leave base one day each month, many do not do so, because the nearest village is often beyond walking distance. Longer furloughs are granted only as a special favor or for emergency reasons. On rare occasions, a divisional command may organize "social evenings" and bring prostitutes onto the base...
...difficulty is mounting ethnic tension as more non-Slavic minorities join the ranks. Name-calling is common and fights are frequent. Another problem is the reluctance of Soviet officers to take initiative. They have been trained to prize iron discipline, they believe in conformity to a highly centralized command system, and?above all?they follow orders. But on a modern battlefield, communications can easily be cut and unit formations disrupted. Under these conditions, Soviet officers might not be able to take advantage of sudden opportunities and improvise winning tactics...
...first intensive combat experience since World War II in trying to quash guerrilla opposition in Afghanistan. Although it now appears that Soviet forces are having more trouble than they probably anticipated, Western military experts believe that the initial invasion was an impressive military operation. The Soviet forces, which were commanded by Marshal Sergei Sokolov, 68, demonstrated that they had mastered the techniques of airlifting enormous quantities of men and supplies, coordinating air and ground attacks, and controlling the action on a distant battlefield via complicated satellite communications systems. And, as the U.S. did in Viet Nam, the Soviet command...
...Half Empty or Half Full? that the Soviets will actually increase production of energy by 2% to 3% a year through 1985 and possibly more in the years afterward. Most experts believe that the Soviet Union will eventually solve the difficult problems of extracting its reserves. In a Communist command economy, Soviet managers are able to bulldoze important national priority projects, like energy development, through normal roadblocks...