WARNING ASSESSMENT: USSR-EE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B01027R000300040003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 22, 1982
• Content Type: MEMO

THE DIRECT OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
21 July 1982
Notional Intelligence Council
NOTE FOR: See Distribution
Acting R-EE
SUBJECT : Warning Assessment: USSR-EE
1. Attached is the assessment prepared
holoonn2 tJulmo1982. CComments wouldnbemmostng
held
welcome.
2. The next warning meeting will be held
on Tuesday, 17 August, at 1400 hours in Room 7E62,
CIA Headquarters. I solicit suggestions regarding
any topics or contingencies you feel we may be
overlooking, and request that such recommendations
be forwarded to me by COB Friday, 6 August. 0
SECRET
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. SECRET .
THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
National Intelligence Council
DDI #6010-82
22 July 1982
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
Acting National Intelligence Officer for USSR-EE
SUBJECT Monthly Warning Assessment: USSR-EE
(Meeting held on 20 July 1982)
1. Poland. The analysts' expectation of little, if any,
movement on the part of the government has been borne out by
Jaruzelski's speech. Calm will probably prevail in the next few
days although isolated incidents are possible. However, once the
limited nature of Jaruzelski's moves become clear, the
possibility of renewed Solidarity activity and limited anti-
government demonstrations will increase. The second half of
August with its anniversaries of the black Madonna and the Gdansk
agreements is a particularly sensitive period. The scarcity of
information on Solidarity should not lead us to underestimate its
recuperative capacity. As for the Soviets, their public
opposition to the papal visit, their renewed attacks against
Solidarity, and more recently the dispatch of another ideological
delegation all suggest Moscow's realization that the situation in
Poland, while no longer immediately threatening, remains tense.
2. Soviet Nuclear Politics. Ustinov's 12 July Pravda
article is a propagandist Politburo document whose main intent is
both to impress the West with the significance of the Soviet no-
first-use pledge and to increase the pressure on the US to modify
its policies (particularly in the INF negotiations). Analysts
disagree about whether Ustinov's reference to questions being
raised in the USSR about the wisdom about the no-first-use pledge
is factual or designed to impress the West with the alleged
difficulty of making the decision (I share the latter view). The
most interestinq parts of the speech, however, are the statement
that the no-first-use pledge means that the Soviet military will
now have to give "more attention . . . to the task of preventing
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SECRET
a military conflict from growing into a nuclear one" and the
ass:?rtion that any aggressor still cannot hope to gain victory
through the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. By these two
statements, Ustinov seems to be saying that recent changes in the
Soviet command structure do not mean any diminution in-.central
control and that central control-.does not affect the Soviet
capability to react quickly.
3. The Soviet Position in the Middle-.East. There was
general agreement that the apparent Soviet helplessness in the
Lebanese nexus and ambivalence in the Iran-Iraq war had
diminished Soviet stature in the short term. However, the Soviet
response to date also reflects continuity in Soviet policy and
probably the realization that more active Soviet involvement now,
particularly with Syria, would increase the risk of directly
embroiling the Soviet Union in situations where its power to
shape events was very limited. More importantly, the Soviets
probably calculate that Israeli intransigence and the perceived
US association with it will eventually turn short term losses
into gains at the expense of the US. The Soviets are probably
formulating their overall, and particularly their Syrian, policy
with this end in mind. Barring any unexpected developments,
analysts do not foresee any dramatic change in-Soviet policy over
the next few months. The possibility of Soviet out-of-area
actions aimed at the US or its allies was discussed but judged to
be not immediately necessary and also very much dependent on
conditions in those potential out-of-area locations. For
instance, the Soviets probably encouraged the latest Ethiopian
offensive but that development can be explained without any
reference to the Middle Eastern events. The possibility of out-
of-area response needs to be kept well in mind hnwpvpr
25X
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Approved For Release 2007/04/24: CIA-RDP83BO1027R000300040003-1