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Moreover, while competition is all but unknown in the civilian sector, more than one design bureau might be asked to develop the same weapon. After years of close cooperation with the military establishment, several "families" of weapons producers have evolved. The Sukhoi and Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureaus, for example, produce Sukhoi and MiG jet fighters. Missiles are the specialty of the Yangel, Chelomei and Nadiradze bureaus. Often, test models from rival firms will be put into production simultaneously. The result: in a country where the selection of shoes or overcoats is limited, there are six different types of interceptor jets.
The Soviets are convinced they have no choice but to operate their military sector with such rigor: they know they can force their citizens to wear ill-fitting shoes but they cannot afford to fall far behind the West's steady technological innovation. In some cases, designers have tried to keep up with Western models. The MiG-23, for example, has the "swing-wing" look of the U.S. F-111. The need to adapt foreign ideas and keep up technologically with foreign mili tary equipment has introduced a capitalist-like competitiveness to military production that is woefully lacking in the domestic economy, where shoddy goods do not face the test of the marketplace. As a leading Soviet economist, Academician Vadim Trapeznikov says, "One of the mainsprings of progress is the comparison of the quality of goods with that of the products of other domestic and foreign firms. This is particularly apparent in the defense industry, where there is a permanent and inevitable comparison with foreign technology."
If much of the Soviet Union's industrial output cannot compete on world markets, its weaponry certainly can. Moscow has a political interest in meddling in Third World conflicts, but economics as well as ideology has driven the Soviets to become major players in the booming weapons market; foreign sales keep Soviet production lines operating at a lower cost per item and bring in badly needed hard currency. Between 1971 and 1981, Soviet arms sales to the Third World earned an estimated $21 billion in hard currency. Says U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger: "Arms have become a larger portion of exports from the U.S.S.R. than from any other country."
The Soviet Union's arms clients are useful in providing valuable information on the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet weapons. The reports are not always upbeat. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Syrian army lost more than 390 tanks, including 34 of the modern T-72s. The Syrian performance in the air was no better. Flying U.S.-built F-15s and F-16s, Israeli pilots downed 96 Soviet-built jets; one-fifth were newer-model MiG-25s and MiG-23s. Israeli pilots also wiped out 23 batteries of Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles. The official Soviet press dismissed the reports as CIA disinformation, but the Kremlin took them seriously enough and quickly dispatched several high-level military delegations to survey the destruction.