SOVIET STRATEGIC WEAPONS PROGRAMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00967A000200010013-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 21, 2006
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: February 11, 1970
• Content Type: MEMO

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
11 February 1970
Soviet Strategic Weapons Programs
I, INFLUENCES AND MOTIVATIONS
1. At the turn of the decade the Soviets face a situation profoundly
altered by developments of the past several years. With respect to numbers
of weapons for intercontinental attack, the USSR has emerged from the
position of pronounced inferiority to the US that it had long occupied. The
quarrel with China has escalated from an exchange of polemics to armed
clashes that threaten major war. Events in Czechoslovakia have again
exposed the difficulties of the Soviet position in Eastern Europe, And the
use of military power and resources to support foreign policy has been
expanded to new areas, notably the Mediterranean and Middle East.
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2. Among these developments the militarization of the Sino-Soviet
dispute represented a new element introduced into Soviet strategic calculations
and military policy. Throughout most of the post-war era Soviet military
planners were concerned primarily with two major problems: the inter-
continental strategic capabilities of the US and the military power of the US
and its allies as deployed in Western Europe. Now they face a third: a hostile
China with an incipient nuclear capability. The initial effect has been to increase
requirements; the USSR has undertaken a substantial military buildup along
the Chinese border.
3. Costly and burdensome as this Far East deployment is, it has
brought no relaxation in the buildup of strategic forces against the US; indeed
the possibility of war with China must give additional. reason for insurance
against the West. The ICBM deployment continues, Construction of ballistic-
missile-firing submarines comparable to the Polaris proceeds at the high
rate of six to eight a year. Military research. and development continues in
many lines: new or improved missiles, multiple warheads, depressed-
trajectory and fractional. -orbit ICBMs, antisubmarine weapons systems,
nuclear testing, and the ABM.
4. It, appears indeed that the strategic arms competition may be
entering a new phase. The crude number of ICBM launchers is becoming
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less significant than the technical characteristics of missile systems: their
capacity to survive attack, their accuracy and yield, their equipment with
penetration aids or multiple warheads, their degree of vulnerability to defensive
measures. The ABM, still in its earliest stages as an operational weapon,
gives promise of destabilizing the strategic balance. Meanwhile the cost of
future weapons development appears certain to increase substantially, as do
the political and psychological dangers associated with an uncontrolled arms race.
5. In this situation Soviet strategic arms policies will continue as in
the past to be shaped mainly by four influences: the Russian national experience
and tradition; the pressure of the military establishment upon the Soviet admin-
istration; the problems of economic costs and resource allocation; and the
politico-military action and reaction between the USSR and the United States
in the context of the total international situation.
The Heritage of the Past
6. Among the imprints that history and geography have left on the
Russian national consciousness are the ancient memory of invasion by Oriental
hordes, a centuries-old sense of inferiority before the more advanced West,
and the more recent experience of military conflict with Germany. From the
days of the first Muscovite Tsars Russia has always maintained a massive
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military establishment by the standards of the day, and the state of the nation's
armament has traditionally been considered a crucial mark of its place in
the world. Stalin, though non-Russian by birth, clearly recognized and reforged
the link between Russian patriotism and national defense:
. . . those who fall behind get beaten. But we do not want to be
beaten. No, we refuse to be beaten! One feature of.the history of old
Russia was the continual beatings she suffered from falling behind for
her backwardness. . . . You are backward, you are weak -- therefore
you are wrong; hence you can be beaten and enslaved. You are mighty --
therefore you are right; hence we must be wary of you. That is why we
must no longer lag behind.
7. The words are Stalin's in 1931, but the motives they reveal are
virtually identical with those which impelled Peter the Great. Observers
nowadays note that the Russians are a highly competitive people. They seem to
want always to win, to be first, to have the biggest of everything whether it
makes economic sense or not. These tendencies are compounded by communist
ideology, which causes the leaders to consider that every success, even in
such things as sports, is a proof of the superiority of their system and every
failure a challenge to the system as a whole. Added to this is the ingrained
aspiration -- common to most states -- to signify national power by the creation
and maintenance of a formidable military posture. The Soviet regime did not
create this aspiration though it has helped to make it more realizable.
Communist ideology may reinforce it by assigning to the Soviet state a far
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more universal mission than Tsarism ever claimed for itself. But this
messianic element is mitigated by the conviction, also derived from Marxism-
Leninism, that since the future belongs to Communism in any case, military
adventurism is a cardinal sin.
8. In making military policy the present leaders have thus been
building broadly on layers constructed in the distant past and responding to
motivations which lie deep in the national character. Yet there are also
important ways in which the domestic and international political environment
of the last few years has left its stamp. For various reasons the hallmark
of policy under the collective leadership has been conservatism shading
over in many instances into reaction. Add to this the unsettling impact of
events -- the uncertainty about US intentions arising out of the war in Vietnam,
the complementary fear aroused by Chinese behavior, the war in the Middle
East, worry over currents in Eastern Europe, and the appearance at home
of a small but hardy protest movement -- and it is not surprising that the
Soviet leadership found a new appeal in the orthodox verities. It is not
surprising either that in these conditions it neither wanted nor dared to ignore
the needs of defense. The hardening of ideological outlook and the leader-
ship's generous response to the demands of the military establishment in
recent years have had the same immediate causes.
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The Influence of the Military Establishment
9. There is no reason to believe in the existence of sharp conflict
between the Soviet military establishment and the Party bureaucracy. Political
controls over the military structure, which run from top to bottom, are
evidently as effective as they have ever been, and though the military may
occasionally chafe at these controls they do not seriously challenge them.
Moreover, the political and military leaders are not divided in broad outlook
and view of the world. They see eye to eye on most major questions of policy.
Certainly they agree on the general proposition that the US represents a threat
to Soviet security and Soviet interests, and that measures must be taken not
only to counter the military threat but also to demonstrate Soviet power and
thereby increase the credibility of Soviet diplomacy.
10. The influence of the Soviet military establishment in the USSR
is probably much like that of the military establishment in the US. It is a
powerful element in government, and its professional concern is with defense
and with the policies, techniques, and weapons which assure defense.
Together with its associated scientific and industrial groups it exerts pressures
and urges reasons for the continuation of current arms programs and the
undertaking of new ones. Final decisions are made by civilian authorities,
who of course do not question the requirement for national security. Yet
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the Party leaders must perforce take a wider view; they have many demands
to consider apart from those of the military. In particular they have
exhibited much concern about the state of the Soviet economy, and have
indicated hesitantly that they would like to obtain some relief from the
pressures of military spending.
Economic Constraints
11. It is not the amount of money spent on the military establishment
which accounts for the increasingly poor showing of the Soviet economy.
Measured in rubles, the military only takes about 8 percent of GNP, a com-
paratively modest proportion. What it does take is a wholly disproportionate
share of the best and most scarce resources: special materials and machines,
skilled technicians, competent management. Enterprises supporting defense
are also relatively free from the bureaucratic harassments which are as
responsible as shortage of investment for the slowing growth of Soviet
industry. Merely to switch funds from the military to the civilian economy
would ameliorate but not solve the problems of declining productivity of
labor and capital.
12. Clearly there is a belief within the Soviet leadership that, if it
could safely be done, some of the resources now going into defense could
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be put to more productive use elsewhere. The issue, however, is one of
desirability and not of overriding necessity, for there is no doubt that present
and even higher levels of defense spending can be supported by the Soviet
economy. Economic constraints alone will not slow down the Soviet military
buildup. The burden can be borne. It cannot be appreciably lightened with-
out a substantial modification of relationships between the Soviet Union and
the US.
Action and Reaction Between the USSR and the US
13. It is no more than a truism to remark that any two states having
energetic and effective governments, and deeply committed to mutual rivalry,
will be especially concerned about their respective military establishments.
If one of these states feels itself to be in a position of strategic inferiority
its efforts to catch up will be given highest national priority. For a good many
years the Soviet leaders have seen their country to be in this inferior position,
and it is this which accounts in large part for the rapidity and magnitude of
their recent strategic buildup.
14. In the present era, however, the compulsion of advancing tech-
nology tends to produce especially vigorous action and reaction between the
military programs of the USSR and the US. It is true that for thousands of
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years the art of warfare has been revolutionized from time to time by tech-
nological developments. During the last three decades, however, such
developments have been more numerous and their putative effect more
appalling than in the whole previous span of history. There is no reason to
doubt that this rapidity of technological advance will continue.
15. In this situation neither side can afford to rest comfortably - as
states often did in the past - upon the security afforded by a stable military
establishment, with weapons and doctrines inherited from its last previous
war, and with new developments slowly and cautiously adopted. Technology
has made the strategic relationship susceptible to sweeping and rapid change,
which can only be prevented if each side assiduously presses forward the
frontiers of scientific advance and carefully observes what the other side is
doing. The contest becomes one of research, development, testing, deploy-
ment, and intelligence. Above all it becomes one of anticipation; each side
must provide not so much against what its adversary has at the moment, but
against what it will have or what it may have five to ten years ahead. The
technological rivalry takes on a life of its own. Each side is powerfully
impelled to consider the "worst case": to prepare against the most alarming
possibilities that can be envisaged. Thus there appears a strong and almost
inescapable motivation for continuing vigorous weapons development and
deployment.
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II. SOVIET STRATEGIC WEAPONS POLICIES
16. As the preceding discussion indicates, it would have been out of
character for the USSR to refrain from a vigorous strategic buildup. The
Soviet leaders, to be sure, had some latitude in determining how rapidly
the program should be pushed and what particular weapons systems should
be favored. Yet there were limits to their freedom of choice. Things could
move no faster than the advance of technology permitted. The allocation of
resources to military purposes had to be constrained by considerations of
general economic and social policy for the country as a whole. At the same
time, the decision-makers were urged towards large and rapid programs by
various pressures: the desire for more power to back up their diplomacy,
the influence of the military establishment and of the constituent elements
thereof, above all the felt imperatives arising from estimates of what the
US was doing and what it might do in future. Moreover, once large and
expensive weapons programs get under way they acquire numerous personnel
with an elaborate organizational structure and many installations for research
and development, deployment, training, command and control. Enterprises
of such magnitude tend to keep moving if for no other reason than their own
inertia; even their pace is difficult to alter and they can be terminated only
by bold and far-reaching decision.
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17. Evidence from the past decade or so leads to the judgment that
while the Soviet buildup in strategic arms has been great it has not been
frenzied. There has been no such vast expenditure of national product or
massive mobilization of national effort as would indicate a clear intent to
overshadow the strategic posture of the US, or a conviction that general
nuclear war was a likely prospect. And there is no good reason at present
to believe that future Soviet arms policies will have a markedly different
priority. Yet the course of international affairs, or of Soviet domestic
affairs, or of both, could be such as either to increase or to diminish the
magnitude of the effort.
18. In the near future the strategic arms limitation talks offer some
hope of reducing the intensity of competition. Some Soviet leaders obviously
think that the prospect is worth exploring. Their motives are doubtless
mixed, and may include the hope of gaining through negotiation some limited
strategic advantage over the US. Yet some apparently think that an agree-
ment would be beneficial to the USSR if it perpetuated a relationship of
rough strategic equality with the US and averted the necessity of keeping
expenditure and effort at the levels required by an arms race. Even an
arrangement of less scope, referring perhaps only to one or two important
classes of weapons, might permit some relaxation of the Soviet effort.
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19. On the other hand, vast difficulties would attend the formulation
of an agreement establishing rough strategic equality. It is true that many
Soviet and US authorities declare that the two states have already reached
nuclear parity, by which is meant a condition of more or less equal mutual
deterrence. This state of affairs might well be perpetuated by agreement.
As between two great powers, however, the phrase "strategic equality"
signifies something broader than mutual deterrence. It is an equality of
strategic "posture". But strategic postures cannot be measured or
compared with precision. The geopolitical situation of the two countries
differs, and their respective strategic requirements are in many respects
incommensurable. By the time the USSR acquired what its major interest
groups believed to be true equality, most Americans would believe it to be
clearly superior.
20. But would any sort of "parity" or "equality" satisfy the Soviets?
Do they perhaps intend to attai.n a clear superiority, so that whether or not
they actually make war they can exert a preponderant political influence
over the US? The question is intrinsically interesting, and may be of
importance in connection with. the SALT talks. Assuming a continuing arms
competition, however, the question of intent becomes secondary; the
dynamics of the competition are primary. Each side, though motivated
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by the fact of rivalry with the other, wages the contest not directly against
the other, but indirectly upon the frontiers of technological advance. It does
the best it feasibly can to improve its own position, to anticipate future
possibilities, and to counter what it believes to be its adversary's developing
position. It tries to insure that it shall at a minimum stay. equal through the
years to come. The adversary perceives in this effort an intent to achieve
superiority, or at least a threat that superiority may be achieved; it
accordingly accelerates its own efforts. In the course of these processes
one side or the other might conceivably acquire a useful degree of superiority,
either through an important technological breakthrough, or because the
adversary relaxed his effort sufficiently to fall well behind. The Soviet
leaders may hope for one or both of these eventualities, but it would be idle
for them to count on either, or seriously to plan on the basis that either
will occur.
21. What, then, do the Soviets seriously plan to achieve? Do they for
example simply want to maintain a credible deterrent, or do they aim at a
force capable of substantially impairing the credibility of the US deterrent?
In the early 1960's the second alternative was out of the question, since no
effective counter to ballistic missiles could be more than dimly envisaged.
Now, however, technology is beginning to change the situation. The
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prospect of ABMs is taking shape. Ballistic missiles can be of sufficient yield
and accuracy to destroy the adversary's land-based ICBMs. Neither system
has yet become a deployed reality to any significant extent. Neither promises
in the foreseeable future to give adequate insurance against massive retaliation
in case of attack. The deterrent force therefore remains a sine qua non of
the strategic posture of both sides, and in our view will remain so for many
years to come.
22. This is not to say that the nuclear armaments of the two countries
must be kept at "parity", whether computed in numbers of delivery vehicles,
megatonnage, or similar measures. There is a fairly wide though indefinable
range within which the relative nuclear strengths of the two powers may vary
without significantly impairing the condition of mutual deterrence. Whatever
force they may think necessary for the purpose, however, we are confident
that the irreducible minimum objective of the Soviets is to maintain the
credibility of their deterrent. Meanwhile they will surely continue research
and development in defensive and counterforce systems, partly with the aim
of reducing the US deterrent, but even more because continuation of research
and development is the essence of the strategic competition.
23. In a broad and general sense, then, the motives and impulses as
well as the feasible objectives of Soviet strategic arms programs are fairly
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plain. It is when one comes down to specifics that questions become unanswer-
able in any confident or precise way. How many ICBMs will the Soviets deploy,
and of what kind, and when? Will they develop MIRVs? Will they produce an
ABM which they consider dependable, and if so when, and how widely will it
be deployed? How many ballistic-missile-firing submarines will they build?
Which among the manifold lines of technological advance that can be foreseen
or imagined will they decide to work on? And so on.
24. On the basis of hard evidence, questions like these can be answered
for no more than the coming two or three years. When we look further ahead
we must formulate judgments resting on assumption and argument, and endeavor
to evolve what for the Soviets would be rational goals and programs. Experience
has demonstrated, however, that what seems rational to us does not always
appear to seem rational to the Soviets; moreover, it is a generous assumption
to suppose that any country's arms programs are developed purely in accordance
with rationality. Yet a few propositions may be offered on one or two of the
more specific questions, even though none can pretend to be definitive.
Land-based ICBMs
25. The Soviets had 250 ICBMs operational in 1966; at the beginning
of 1970 they had 1,158. Since it seems obvious that the US would have been
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adequately deterred from practically any adventure by the prospect of receiv-
ing far less than this number of missiles on the homeland, why such an
inordinate and expensive buildup? Probably the most cogent explanation is
that the US itself had at the beginning of the 1960's programmed a force of
IFJlinutemen, and the Soviets did not propose to be left numerically
behind. But there are doubtless other reasons: the demonstrated fondness
of the Russians for inexplicably large numbers in certain elements of their
military forces, or a judgment that great numbers of ICBMs were desirable for
massive psychological effect on the US and the rest of the world, or a calculation
that a surplus of Soviet ICBMs would compensate for US superiority in manned
bombers and Polaris-type submarines. Perhaps the number of ICBMs repre-
sents nothing more subtle than the success of the Soviet rocket command in
gaining large appropriations for its new and glamorous weapons. Or the
26. For whatever reason or combination of reasons, the buildup
continues; by 1972 the Soviets will have some 1, 400 land-based missiles
capable of attacking the US. Insofar as these missiles are intended for deter-
rence, that is, for establishing a credible capability for retaliatory attack
after a US first strike, we see no rational basis for pushing the number higher.
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The marginal deterrent value of each additional Soviet ICBM has long since
become practically zero. But since we have seen little rational basis for
pushing the number as high as it is, we can have no confidence in any prediction
for the farther future.
Counterforce Capabilities
27. There is in sober fact no hard evidence that the Soviets contemplate
the development of a ballistic missile force capable of effectively attacking US
ICBMs. The SS-9, however, has been estimated to have the combination of
yield and accuracy
operational. If enough were deployed they might indeed destroy the entire
Minuteman force, assuming (it is a dubious assumption) that they all actually
arrived on target before Minutemen were launched. Or the Soviets might equip
the missile with multiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicles, thus
requiring a much smaller number of launchers. The SS-9 has been tested 13 times
with multiple re-entry vehicles, though not independently-targeted ones; equipped
with a warhead heavy enough to carry them, however, the missile has not yet
demonstrated a range great enough to reach more than a small fraction of the
Minuteman force,
28. We think that the SS-9 is a possible counterforce weapon. In any
case we have estimated that the Soviets will in fact develop a counterforce
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weapon, perhaps an improved SS-9, more probably a new missile with better
range and accuracy, and with MIRVs. It is worth observing that although there
has been some evidence of the development of a new and improved missile, its
purpose and effect have been judged wholly on the basis of technological feasi-
bilities and probable Soviet desires; it has not been flight tested. Since the
possibility of a counterforce weapon exists, we estimate -- or perhaps more
properly we assume - - that the Soviets will seize it. And US officials therefore
seriously discuss the likelihood that land-based, fixed-site ICBMs will before
long become obsolete, and that this important element of the US deterrent force
will lose its credibility. Even the discussion of this eventuality represents a
notable score for the Soviets in the strategic competition.
29. The Soviets may hope to achieve at least a marginal alteration of
the strategic balance in their favor by introducing counterforce weapons plus
defensive systems, especially the ABM. They would expect thereby to reduce
the number of US warheads which might otherwise descend upon them. They
would expect to create in the world an enhanced impression of their military
capabilities. They might even hope that the US would estimate that its deterrent
capabilities had been grievously impaired -- perhaps negated. To the extent
that the US made this judgment they would indeed have succeeded in altering
the strategic balance, which is, after all, essentially what the respective
governments think it is.
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30. Whatever the US came to think, however, we doubt that the Soviets
would feel themselves liberated from the constraints of the US deterrent. It
is almost inconceivable that they could ever have such confidence in counterforce
weapons against Minutemen as to feel no sense of deterrence from the Minutemen
that might survive an attack or be launched before the attack had done its work.
And there would remain the threat from manned bombers based in the US, in
Europe, or on carriers, and from the Polaris submarines, against the last of
which no effective counterforce is in sight. It is difficult even to believe that
any foreseeable combination of counterforce and defensive systems would give
the Soviets such massive assurance of immunity as to make the risks of
deliberate attack on the US seem acceptable, or even to make unintended general
war appear much less intolerable.
Ballistic Missile Firing Submarines
31. We have a good deal of confidence in judging that the Soviets will
build a substantial force of ballistic missile firing submarines. One reason
for such confidence is that the technology is clear; the system has proved to
be feasible. Another reason is that submarines are likely to remain for years
to come, almost invulnerable to counterforce. Moreover the Soviets have
lately commenced series production of a new and effective submarine -- the
Y-class. By the middle of the 1970's they can have as many of these as the
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US now has, and probably will. Because of the geographical situation of the USSR,
however, and its lack of bases in the Western Hemisphere, we think that the
Soviets may want a larger force than the US has in order to establish strategic
"equality" with respect to this system.
The ABM
32. Unlike the Polaris-type submarine, the ABM is still a weapons system
which exists only upon the frontiers of technology. Both the US and the USSR have
developed ABM systems which can destroy incoming objects, and to some degree
can differentiate between warheads and penetration aids. But neither side has, or
has in any near prospect, a defensive system which could cope with the hundreds,
perhaps eventually the thousands, of warheads which the other side could dis-
charge against it. Both countries continue to work at the problem, as they have
done for many years. The effort to develop an effective ABM represents probably
the clearest current example of the sort of scientific and technological contest
which characterizes the strategic relationship between the two powers.
33. The Soviets have in fact already deployed the ABM-1 system around
Moscow, but both the US and the USSR recognize that this system is incapable
of dealing with anything more than an attack of most limited scale. It could
easily be saturated and rendered useless. In the early days of its development
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the Soviets may have expected more from this system, but they must have come
to realize that it would be ineffective; why, then, did they go to the great cost
and effort of deploying it? Probably they argued that a "thin" defense of Moscow
was better than no defense at all; at least it might cope with "accidental" firings.
Perhaps also the operational deployment contributed to foreseeing and solving
problems to be faced by later and better systems. The Soviets have often
exhibited a propensity to early deployment of new weapons, without waiting for
as thorough a testing and proving as the US usually thinks necessary for new and
advanced systems.
The "Multiplier Effect" of Soviet Strategic Weapons
34. With the deployment of the .ABM-1, ineffective as the system is,
the Soviets nevertheless scored another "first" in the arms competition. There-
by they acquired a certain prestige; everyone was moderately impressed, and
slightly raised his estimate of the probable strategic stature of the USSR in years
to come. The US was worried. The political and psychological effect of the
ABM-1 deployment was greater than the military usefulness of the weapon justified.
35. Soviet leaders must indeed be conscious of this "multiplier effect"
in many of their strategic weapons programs. It required only a few Soviet
heavy bombers in the mid-1950's to produce debate in the United States about
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a "bomber gap". The first few Soviet ICBM tests led the US to make an exag-
gerated judgment of the rapidity with which these weapons could be operationally
deployed, and led to talk of a "missile gap". The SS-9 was originally designed
as a sucessor to the early SS-7; almost certainly it was intended to be merely
another deterrent weapon. But the Soviets know that US defense authorities
have concluded that the SS-9 is a "counterforce" weapon, and are sorely
troubled. They also know that in half a dozen tests of simple multiple re-entry
vehicles on the SS-9 some US officials saw a hitherto unsuspected and highly
threatening MIRV technique. They know that their SA-5 and even their SA-2,
both designed for use against aerodynamic vehicles, are considered by some
Americans to have a significant capability against ballistic missiles.
36. We cannot assert that the Soviets confidently plan for each technical
advance of their own to exert such effects on the US as in the above cases. Indeed
it might be supposed that they would think this sort of US reaction disadvantageous,
since it stimulates the US to renewed efforts of its own to stay ahead, or at least
to stay even, But Soviet leaders have never displayed much inclination to
alleviate US fears. They seek to enhance their own strategic stature in the eyes
of the US and of the world, and their strategic stature depends partly on their
real capabilities but even more on the adversary's estimate of these capabilities.
It is reasonable to suppose that the Soviets are gratified, on the whole, if the
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US occasionally magnifies existing threats or even discovers threats which do
36. The ultimate test of "real" capabilities can only occur in war, but
there is no reason to believe that the Soviets intend to appeal to this test. On
the contrary, they may hope to stabilize the strategic relationship with the US
by an arms limitation agreement. Saving this possibility, however, they
appear to see the strategic competition as being of indefinite duration, a
continuing contest in which each side is likely to feel its ups and downs from
time to time but never (at least until the coming of the Communist millenium)
to know either total defeat or total victory. They know that the arenas in which
the competition is conducted are technological, political, and psychological,
and that the interaction among these is continuous. All the evidence indicates
that they intend to keep the contest in these fields, and to avoid the ultimate
test of general war.
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