Moscow Keeping Up Strategic Arms Strength, Cheney Asserts

Although the Soviet Union has begun to transfer its economic resources away from conventional military production, the government of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has not reduced its commitment to strategic military development, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said Wednesday in a meeting with editors and reporters of The Times.

“There has been no change in the strategic military posture of the Soviet Union,” Cheney said. “If anything, their strategic military capabilities (including long-range missiles) are more robust today than they were four years ago, when he came to power.”

But Cheney said there is evidence that Gorbachev is beginning to reallocate Soviet resources “away from the military to the civilian side of his house.” He said that the rate of Soviet tank production, for example, was reduced this year.

Technology Seen as Target

Cheney also said he believes Gorbachev has pursued a “kindler and gentler” foreign policy--partly in hopes of gaining access to advanced Western technology.

The secretary said the promise of obtaining that competitively important technology may explain why the Soviet military has so far supported Gorbachev’s extensive economic and political reforms.

Cheney advocated U.S. caution in assuming that changes in the Soviet Union will continue and that they will be favorable to American interests.

“Now is not the time for us to dismantle our alliances . . . nor is it time to think that there’s sufficient change in the Soviet Union or in the East Bloc for us to fundamentally alter . . . the heart of our policies and strategies of the last 40 years,” he said.

Cheney called production of the B-2 Stealth bomber and development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” key elements of America’s strategic defense plans, and he said he expects them to continue. Past U.S. defense decisions were made based on assumptions that such systems would be developed, he added.

On other subjects, Cheney said U.S. military personnel sent to foreign countries to support the war on drugs will do so only at the invitation of the host country and will not participate in any operations missions, either directly or in support of local forces.

He said American forces will stay in “relatively secure areas” and support training and maintenance missions. “But I can’t say that the operations will be risk-free,” he cautioned.