THE MILITARY BALANCE 1980—81

The Military Balance presents an excellent quantitative assessment and professional analysis of the military power together with the defence expenditures of the countries throughout the planet. The authors of the publication are providing a good and thorough examination of the available facts of military power. The countries have been grouped by geographical areas.

Each section of the volume has been provided with the brief description of multi- and bilateral pacts as well as military agreements. The layout is standard throughout the book in order to enable easier comparison of the data - the information contained covers the manpower and GNP, defence expenditure, military formations etc. There is some additional information presented in data tables comparing nuclear vehicles plus nuclear balance, major naval shipbuilding, transfer agreements and divisional establishments.

A separate section has been devoted to the assessment of the balance between the Warsaw Pact and NATO presenting a perfect summary of statistical data related to the weapons and forces that used to face each other across the famous Iron Curtain. This issue of the Military Balance is the first one and will be continued within several more issues with each one addressing particular historical period, in most cases issued annually.