Soviet Union The Big Shake-Up

Moscow's military faces its most serious overhaul in decades

When Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci tours defense installations in the Soviet Union this week -- the most senior American official granted that privilege since World War II -- he will find the military in the midst of one of those profound shake-ups that have plagued the Red Army since Leon Trotsky helped build it in 1918. Under Mikhail Gorbachev's program of perestroika, the world's largest military machine faces unprecedented political pressure to slim down, open up and rethink its basic strategy. At the same time, the armed forces are plunging into the electronic age in a frantic drive to narrow the...

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