APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110009-4
Armed Forces
A. Defense establishment
The armed forces, known as the Czechoslovak People's Army, consist of ground and air elements under the federal Ministry of National Defense. A militarized security force, the Frontier Guard, is also administered and controlled by the federal Ministry of National Defense. There is no navy in the usual sense. (C)
Total personnel strength of the armed forces as of January 1974 was 210,300, including 143,000 in the ground forces and 57,800 in the air and air defense forces. Major combat elements included 10 ground forces divisions (five motorized rifle and five tank) and about 500 combat aircraft. There were in addition some 9,500 in the Frontier Guard (including 500 in the quasi-naval Danube Defense Guard). This force, although organized primarily for border security, is equipped and trained to augment the ground forces in wartime. (S)
Because Czechoslovakia is a participant in the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak armed forces are expected to play a role that is consistent with Soviet war aims. Prior to the 1968 invasion, Soviet influence over the armed forces was exercised through a small Soviet military mission in Prague and through the Warsaw Pact unified command in Moscow. Now, however, since Soviet tactical units are stationed in Czechoslovakia, the armed forces are subject to more direct Soviet influence; in wartime, they would be under Soviet control. (S)
The Czechoslovak preoccupation with the maintenance of its independence and territorial integrity against any resurgence of German aggression was a major factor favoring continued close relations with the U.S.S.R. Fear of German incursions, coupled with Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, suppressed Czechoslovakia's desire to regain its prewar eastern territory of Ruthenia, ceded to the Soviet Union in 1945. Because of this, but mainly because of the Warsaw Pact invasion of the country, there is considerable bitterness toward the Soviet Union throughout the country. (C)
In wartime, Soviet leaders would determine the scope and nature of the Czechoslovak contribution to the total Warsaw Pact effort. Strategic objectives planned for the Czechoslovak forces against NATO probably remain the same as they were prior to the 1968 intervention. (C)
The armed forces are deployed mostly in the west, where the terrain lends itself to defense. At the same time this western position—bordering on Austria and West Germany—provides a natural staging area for launching offensive operations against NATO forces in Europe. (S)
The position of Poland, astride the main routes of travel from the U.S.S.R. to Western Europe, and the positions of East Germany and Czechoslovakia, confronting West Germany, have caused the combined forces of these three countries to have a close relationship with the U.S.S.R. Any changes in NATO, and particularly any substantial increase in the role of West Germany, would also give impetus to a strengthened relationship among Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and the U.S.S.R. (C)
The armed forces are organized, trained, and equipped largely along Soviet lines. The ground and air forces are the third largest among the Warsaw Pact nations, ranking behind those of the Soviet Union and Poland. The ground forces rank with those of East Germany and Poland as the most effectively organized Warsaw Pact forces outside the Soviet Union. In training and equipment, the armed forces are generally on a par with or superior to those of other European countries of comparable size. (S)
1. Military history (C)
The first Czechoslovak armed forces were formed in 1919 from personnel of the former Austro-Hungarian Army. The nucleus of the armed forces was the Czechoslovak Legion formed during World War I from men captured by the Russians on the eastern front. The legion was created to fight against the Central Powers but attained its greatest fame against the Bolsheviks in Siberia.
The French Army maintained a training mission in Czechoslovakia, which was a member of the French-
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110009-4
