In what way does that sound dysfunctional? It definitely functioned, it just had very different goals and priorities.
From the author, who is admittedly biased since he was a dissident officer who eventually received political asylum in the west. Dysfunctional does not necessarily mean non-functioning, just that it's operating in a way that will eventually impede its operations. Perhaps a similar example of dysfunction in the U.S. military would be the ridiculous sums we give to contractors.
And that sense it was very successful: they certainly had the ability to stop countries from leaving the Warsaw Pact and republics from leaving the USSR but Gorbachev ordered them to stand down. Even the coup attempt at the very end of the Soviet Union, (which involved high-ranking elements of the CP, KGB, and the military, not just the military) collapsed almost immediately. And if the KGB and the party hardliners had not been involved, it never would've even been attempted.