INDICATIONS AND WARNING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M00596A000300030003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 6, 1978
• Content Type: REPORT

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INDICATIONS AND WARNING
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The goal of the Indications and Warning Mission, in its broadest
interpretation, is to provide timely warning of events in foreign
countries that might require action by our national leaders. Ultimately,
events of greatest importance to the President and the NSC are those
which portend a hostile nation's increased capability or intent to wage
war against us or our allies, and, as a result, much of our I&W effort
centers on improving our capability to perform this warning-of-war
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mission. Traditionally, the Community's approach >0 providing warning-
of-war is to identify anomalous activities (or indicators) which are
precursors of military actions, and then continually monitor a potential
enemy's activities to detect the indicator' occurrence. Although this
approach seems to work well for military warning, application to political
warning is more difficult. In the political arenalidentification and
monitoring qf relevant indicators is complicated by the wide range of
political events of potential interest and the difficulties encountered
-eke.
in rigorously structuring the analysis ofA politicaland economic information
available. Among his community responsibilities, the DCI assigns highest
priority to improvements in I&W in general and political warning in
particular--improvements that should be facilitated by a number of
initiatives in e.a.m.N4R-i-t-Xrganization, collection, and production undertaken
during the past year.
Organizationally, the major I&W initiative in the past year was the
DCI's recent establishment of a National Intelligence Officer for
Warning (Nb/Warning) who will serve as his senior staff officer for all
warning matters. The Nb/Warning will establish new national warning
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procedures and will, on a continuing basis ensure maximum sensitivity
to the warning content of existing in ligence. On the policy and
management side the Nb/Warning
chair the newly created interagency
Working Group on Warning*. Substantively, that is in deciding of what
to warn, when to do it, and how, h
ork through and direct the
other NI0s. Among the NIO/Warning's present priorities are:
o overseeing the shakedown period of a new monthly cycle of
NIO-Community consultations on warning, followed by NIOs' communications
to the DCI describing which situations or trends in their various
areas of responsibility warrant special attention in the ensuing
one to three months. This process will place special emphasis on
Cimproving the warning discipline for political intelligence;
Cas-------7oreviving or modifying as appropriate the Alert Memorandum
a key mechanism for conveying warning to senior consumers;
o rewriting the DCID related to the warning mission (1/5);
o developing close working relationships and mutual support
understandings with the senior intelligence officers of the DoD
commands;
*Membership: DIA/Vice Director for Production; CIA/NFAC, Chief Requirements
and Evaluation Staff; State/INR, Chief, Political/Military Affairs; NSA,
Chief, "V" Group; Associate Deputy to the DCI for Collection Tasking. A
representative of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is currently
sitting in on the Working Group's initial definitional phase. Other
participants may be included from time to time as the agenda indicates.
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o procedurally, reviewing the mission and functions of the
Strategic Warning Staff;
o developing and implementing a strategy to respond to the
National Intelligence Topic on warning: "How much warning of
attack can the U.S. expect? To what extent are Soviet active and
25X1 passive measures likely to degrade warning?"
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A second organizational initiative which is directly relevant to
I&W is the creation of a National Intelligence Tasking Officer (NITO)
for Warning and Crisis Management within the newly created Collection
Tasking Staff. The NITO for Warning will be collocated with the Collection
Coordination Facility in the Pentagon and will have Community-wide
responsibility for all aspects of I&W collection.
Other I&W initiatives in the past year range from the development
facilitate the collection and extraction of
of tools and procedures to
warning information from current intelligence, to longer term production
efforts aimed at providing a better understanding of the context in
which events of interest are likely to occur. An example of a major
effort specifically designed to improve both I&W collection and production
is the ongoing WISP (Warning Improvement Study and Plan) project sponsored
by DIA. Initiated in 1977 and conducted with Community-wide participation
and DCI endorsement, the goals of WISP are to:
o select, on an all-source basis, a set of intelligence
targets to provide unambiguous and timely warning that the Soviet/
Warsaw Pact Forces are developing the capability to launch an
attack;
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o develop a strategy to guide the collection of information
against the target set which best utilizes the capabilities of the
relevant sensors;
o develop automated procedures for processing and analyzing
the collected information and the taking of reasoned and orderly
action on the warning intelligence produced.
The target selection phase of WISP was completed this year and a
pilot test of proposed collection, reporting, and processing procedures
is currently underway. The test uses historical PHOTINT and SIGINT data
collected on Soviet LRA and Naval activities during the Spring of 1975
to determine how well the "Readiness to AttaCk Temperature" predicted by
the WISP model tracks with known conditions during the sample period.
In addition, the test will help identify problems in collection or
reporting that might develop if the WISP concept were employed under
operational ,conditions.
Another initiative designed to improve I&W procedures and capabilities
is the recent publication by DIA of a Concept Plan for upgrading and
better integrating the Worldwide DoD I&W System. In conjunction with
this effort a Policy Council was formed, chaired by DIA's Vice Director
for Production with representatives from the four services and the eight
Unified and Specified Commands. Thus far the council members have
reached agreement on:
o a common definition of the DoD I&W mission;
o a hierarchical structure categorizing the roles of the 25
I&W centers which comprise the worldwide system;
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o a list of warning products that each of the centers will
produce.
The next stage in the Upgrade Project is the development of a
system implementation plan which will be more specific on what ADP,
communications, and analyst training resources will be necessary to
realize the upgrade goals. A newly formed, working-level Planning Group
will meet to address these issues in early 1979, followed by the second
semiannual Policy Council meeting in the Spring.
Of the more recent longer term production efforts relevant to I&W,
two that are especially noteworthy examine our warning capabilities in
Europe and Korea--areas of perennial warning-of-war interest. NIE 4-1-
78, "Warsaw Pact Concepts and Capabilities for Going to War in Europe:
Implications for NATO Warning of War" was completed in March 1978 and
concludes that under a wide range of likely scenarios the Community
would be able to provide warning within one day of the Pact having
initiated the process of placing its forces in a state of full combat
readiness.
In the Korean theater, DIA is continuing the WINK (Warning in North
Korea) analysis of our ability to provide warning in a likely, worst
case scenario detailed in the 1977 report "A North Korean Attack (Pre H-
Hour Scenario Study)." Current WINK efforts center on an in-depth
assessment of data generated by collectors and I&W analysts who were
asked to evaluate their capabilities against targets and indicators
relevant to the postulated scenario. In addition to estimating the
probability of being able to provide warning, the analysis is addressing
such questions as: what collection targets are most lucrative, which
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indicators provide greatest analyst reaction, and what is the relative
timeliness of different collection systems.
Finally, examples of other prominent studies with I&W relevance
that are either recently completed or currently underway include:
o HPSCI: "Warning: An Assessment of Intelligence Community
Performance and Capability"
o IIM: "Warning of the Warsaw Pact Use of Chemical Weapons"
o CIA: "Soviet Indications and Warning" (first in a series)
o Resource Management Staff: "An Analysis of U.S. Indications
and Warning Collection Capabilities in Europe"
o Interagency Working Group: "A Survey of Warsaw Pact
Intelligence Denial Capability"
o NIE 11-10-78: "Soviet Military Capabilities to Project
Power and Influence in Distant Areas"
o NIE 11-14-78: "Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO"
o NIE 11-3/8-78: "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear
Conflict"
o NIE 11-6-78: "Soviet Strategic Forces for Peripheral
Attack"
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