But because of the peculiar nature of the military situation in Laos, the Soviet leader must be tempted to let things ride -- a course that would appear to cost him little on the spot, but would bog Washington in a tactical mess.

Somehow, the pictures and stories of Soviet T-34 tanks on Cuban beaches and Russian Mig jet fighters strafing rebel troops has brought home to all of us the stark, blunt truth of what it means to have a Russian military base 90 miles away from home.

You may have misgivings about certain aspects of our military establishment -- I certainly do -- but you know any comparison of over-all American strength with over-all Soviet strength finds the United States not only superior, but so superior both in present weapons and in the development of new ones that our advantage promises to be a permanent feature of U.S.-Soviet relations for the foreseeable future.

Here I do not speak of military power where our advantage is obvious and overwhelming but of political power -- of influence, if you will -- about which the relevant questions are: Is Soviet influence throughout the world greater or less than it was ten years ago??

Today the Nasser and Kassem governments are adamantly hostile to the West, are dependent for their military power on Soviet equipment and personnel ; ;

The Soviet Union and other members of the Communist bloc are rapidly expanding their economic, technical and military assistance to the uncommitted nations.

One item in this unhappy scheme was to have Germany policed exclusively by its continental neighbors, among whom only the Soviet Union possessed real military strength.

Thus he strongly opposed both United States aggression in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism.

The first IFV was the Soviet BMP-1, which surprised western intelligence analysts when it appeared in a military parade in 1967.

After the Soviet withdrawal, between 1992 and 1996, he was minister of defense in the new government of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and acted as its military leader in the civil war against competing militias around Kabul.

:" The establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan 1973 increased the Soviet investment in Afghanistan and the PDPA influence in the government's military and civil bodies.

Conspiracy theorists believe his conflict with certain members of the Pakistani military ( Rawalpindi conspiracy ) or suppression of Communists and antagonism towards the Soviet Union, were potential reasons for his assassination.

The military forces of Belarus are exclusively armed with Soviet-era equipment inherited from the Soviet Union.

In the conferences during World War II, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin openly requested the concession of Soviet military bases on the Straits, even though Turkey was not involved in the war.

Indeed, in the largest biological weapons accident known – the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk ( now Yekaterinburg ) in the Soviet Union in 1979, sheep became ill with anthrax as far as 200 kilometers from the release point of the organism from a military facility in the southeastern portion of the city ( known as Compound 19 and still off limits to visitors today, see Sverdlovsk Anthrax leak ).

This doctrine was announced to retroactively justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 that ended the Prague Spring, along with earlier Soviet military interventions, such as the invasion of Hungary in 1956.

The Brezhnev Doctrine stayed in effect until it was finally ended with the Soviet non-invasion of Poland during the 1980-1981 crisis and later refusal of Mikhail Gorbachev to use military force when Poland held free elections in 1989 and Solidarity defeated the Communist Party.

The Soviet military commander in Sofia assumed supreme authority, and the communists whom he instructed, including Kimon Georgiev ( who was not a communist himself, but a member of the elitarian political organization " Zveno ", working together with the communists ), took full control of domestic politics in the People's Republic of Bulgaria.

Soviet military forces in the Soviet sector that surrounded Berlin totaled one and a half million men.

The Soviet Union, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland founded this military alliance.

The report outlined the National Security Strategy of the United States for that time and provided a comprehensive analysis of the capabilities of the Soviet Union and of the United States from military, economic, political, and psychological standpoints.

The speech was also seen as a stand against the Soviet Union because it stated the firm intention of the United States to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely.

Under the old Soviet central planning system, Armenia had developed a modern industrial sector, supplying machine tools, textiles, and other manufactured goods to sister republics in exchange for raw materials and energy.

After World War II, Bulgaria followed the Soviet model of economic development more closely than any other East Bloc country with becoming one of the first members of Comecon ; the new regime shifted the economy from mainly agrarian type towards industrial economy and much of the labour force from the countryside to the city, providing workers for new large-scale industrial complexes.

By winning operationally, strategically it could not keep up the momentum as the superiority of the Soviet Union's industrial base and economy began to take effect.

Administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets.

In addition, the Chinese Communists were able to fill the political vacuum left in Manchuria after Soviet forces withdrew from the area and thus gained China's prime industrial base.

The Reds — dominated by industrial and agrarian workers — were supported by the Russian Soviet Republic.

By the early 1950s the Soviet Union had seized reparations in the form of agricultural and industrial products and demanded further heavy reparation payments.

Reduced exports to the former Soviet bloc and shrinking industrial output contributed to a sharp decline in GDP.

In 1929, Ivens went to the Soviet Union and, to his astonishment, was invited to direct a film on a topic of his own choosing which was the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk.

Many European Soviet citizens and much of Russia's industry were relocated to Kazakhstan during World War II, when Nazi armies threatened to capture all the European industrial centers of the Soviet Union.

Within the centrally controlled structure of the Soviet system, Kazakhstan played a vital industrial and agricultural role ; the vast coal deposits discovered in Kazakhstani territory in the twentieth century promised to replace the depleted fuel reserves in the European territories of the union.

The vast distances between the European industrial centers and coalfields in Kazakhstan presented a formidable problem that was only partially solved by Soviet efforts to industrialize Central Asia.

Kemerovo is an important industrial city that developed during Soviet times with important chemical, fertilizer, and manufacturing industries.

Conversely, the years of Russian and Soviet occupation tended to integrate Latvia's economy to serve those empires ' large internal industrial needs.

Conversely, Trotsky held that socialism in one country would economically constrain the industrial development of the USSR, and thus required assistance from the new socialist countries that had arisen in the developed world, which was essential for maintaining Soviet democracy, in 1924 much undermined by civil war and counter-revolution.

After Marshall's appointment in January 1947, administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets in their occupied zone.

The third Soviet Five Year Plan required massive new infusions of technology and industrial equipment.

At the same time, throughout early 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had discussed a possibility of an economic deal involving industrial equipment and armament for the USSR in exchange for raw materials needed for German war production.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Soviet-supplied economic aid, North Korea has faced a long period of economic crisis, including severe agricultural and industrial shortages.

It was also agreed that 10 % of the industrial capacity of the western zones unnecessary for the German peace economy should be transferred to the Soviet Union within 2 years.

The section also agreed that 10 % of the industrial capacity of the western zones unnecessary for the German peace economy should be transferred to the Soviet Union within two years

However, though with a heavy price, the Soviet Union was transformed from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time.