New York: Random House, 1983. ISBN 0-394-52402-0.

I bought this book when it came out. The author makes a pretty strong case for the weaknesses of the Soviet military: The morale of poorly paid and poorly led soldiers, fliers and sailors; corruption in procurement; poor logistics; poor maintenance of equipment, vehicles and ships. The book's argument is that the west, especially the US were overestimating the threat from the soviet military and were throwing a lot of money away to counter something that did not exist.

Cockburn (he likes to have his name pronounced Co-burn) did his research and can back it all up. It was too inconvenient for the people who are making money from military expenditures, so it was ignored.

So here we are in 2022 and everyone is surprised that the Russian army couldn't just steamroll a country like Ukraine. The book is still worth reading.

jn