In ancient Greece, the tyrant of Syracuse is reputed to have forced Damocles, a member of his court, to eat a banquet under a sword suspended by a single thread. He did this to demonstrate the precariousness of even a king's fate. This story is probably a myth, but there is nothing mythical about the sword suspended over the free world. There are now Russian submarines patrolling off our coasts whose missiles could strike our cities with negligible warning. Russian ICBMs could strike every American city many times over in less than an hour. More than half of our population could be dead in less time than it took to transmit a declaration of war in World War II.

We have learned to live under this sword with confidence and hope. Unlike Athens in the Peloponnesian War, our freedoms have grown under the stress of the thirty years of the nuclear era. We have real allies, not captive clients or dependents. We have learned we can defend ourselves, but show restraint. We have learned that other nations can be both free and neutral. We have learned that we can pay the cost of national defense—and still improve the equality and quality of our society. We have learned we can defend without ever ceasing the search for arms control and peace.

We sometimes forget, in the agony of meeting each new challenge this era brings, that we have faced more challenges successfully since 1945 than any other society in history. We have made many mistakes, and we will make many more, but as a nation we have grown under pressure. No one can look back on the last generation and doubt our courage, or our progress.

But this growing freedom and maturity has a price. We are constantly dependent on our military strength to minimize the risk that nuclear weapons will be used against the United States. We are dependent on the military strength not only for our lives, but for that added margin of security that allows us to pursue broad social goals, to permit wide ranging dissent and differences of view, to defend our allies, to give other nations the choice of independence and neutrality, and to pursue arms control without weakness. A secure military balance is the fundamental price we must pay to pursue still other, even greater objectives.

We have tended to lose sight of this reality in recent years:
• A long period of strategic nuclear superiority has led many of us to take our fundamental security for granted. But we have no monopoly on technological innovation, tactics of the modern battlefield, or strategic planning. We have gradually accepted Soviet strategic nuclear parity, focusing on hopes of detente and a new limit on strategic arms. As a society, we have failed to focus on the consequences of future competition with a Soviet Union which is willing to commit vast resources to increasing its superior strategic power and, to many observers, achieve strategic nuclear superiority. We have let hope for the future blind us to the fact that we still face decades of military competition before there is any probability that an armed world of hostile nations can be united into a secure peace.
• The military balance grows increasingly complex, more difficult to analyze and understand as each new development surfaces. Even with the full resources of Congress, it is difficult to cut through the morass of technical terms and special interest pleading, to determine how new weapon systems (ours, and the Soviets') will affect our present and future security. Congress is only now coming to realize that it must shape defense policy through a comprehensive assessment of the balance, and that it cannot focus on technical features, price tags, or individual programs without examining how these affect our overall military capabilities.

The two studies that make up this book probably provide the most authoritative, complete assessment of the U.S./Soviet balance that the American citizen and Congress have had available in unclassified form. They describe not only the current balance, but the broad trends in the balance that will shape our future national security.

John Collins' study provides a unique service in making available to the public the information necessary for an informed and open debate on the defense needs of this nation and its allies.

Anthony Cordesman has added the new techniques of net assessment to provide a different view of that balance focusing on the different ways that military s trength can be counted and military capabilities can be measured. He has looked beyond force numbers to differences in strategy, tactics, and doctrine.

Neither author would claim that his work is comprehensive or without error. John Collins' study, for instance, was never intended to stand on its own, but was commissioned by Congress as a companion piece to his earlier works on Soviet and U.S. national defense issues. Both authors have emphasized the uncertainties in their judgments and analysis. However, I feel that both can take pride in providing a new beginning for strategic studies.

I commend this book because I believe that all Americans should become more concerned with strategic studies and with their military security. They cannot, like Damocles, rely on indifference and hope, and let fate shape their future. They should understand the military balance, and John Collins and Anthony Cordesman have given them a sophisticated, intellectual framework with which to shape that understanding.

We forget how much of every tax dollar we pay is dedicated to the cost of wars—past, present, and future—particularly, if we count the cost of veterans' benefits and interest on our national debt (which derives largely from the cost of military conflict). We forget that four out of every ten male citizens over eighteen years of age have either worn or are wearing the uniform of our country.

Thus, it is important that every American pay close attention to the trends in U.S. and Soviet military strength shown in the Collins-Cordesman work. John Collins warns us of a present danger, but I feel the most critical question lies in whether we will maintain in the future the determination and strength necessary to deter the Soviet Union, and to insure a peaceful world.

My concern is that we renew our commitment to the future, and have no illusions about the nature or character of the Soviet Union's unprecedented military buildup. We must pursue a safe and meaningful SALT II agreement; we must pursue safe and meaningful mutual force reductions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact; and we must not over-react to the militarism of a totalitarian Soviet society that lacks adequate political and economic mechanisms for converting its growing economic wealth into consumer goods and an improved life for its citizens. But, we must also not let Soviet power grow to the point where our deterrents weaken, where our resolve and capability are uncertain, and where we face a rising threat of war.

It is my hope that without over-reacting to military issues or obsessive concern with our security, America and the western world will retain our recognition of the threat posed by the rapid changes toward an increasingly unfavorable military balance. If we plan prudently, we can meet the challenges of strategic nuclear parity, the growing strength of the Warsaw Pact, and the problems of the military in the post-Viet Nam era; but to do so, we need to understand the dynamics which John Collins and Anthony Cordesman present here.