PROPOSITIONS ON SOVIET ARMS CONTROL COMPLIANCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00363R001202720031-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
• Document Release Date: April 17, 2008
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: January 17, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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SECRET
17 January 1983
Propositions on Soviet Arms Control Compliance
1. Soviet compliance needs to be assessed in terms of Soviet aims
and expectations as well as American ones. These are not the same. The
Soviets perceive little mutual benefit from arms agreements.
a. Their world view is dominated by conflict and
arms control is, for the most part, an instru-
ment in the struggle.
b. We have depended disproportionately on nuclear
threats, based earlier on a superior nuclear
position, to block them -- mainly in Europe,
but also elsewhere. Therefore, eroding the
credibility of our nuclear strength has been
and is a central Soviet strategic aim. Arms
control agreements on nuclear weapons are a
key elemement in their strategy, one on which
they made great progress in the 1970s. To
them, this aim, which centers on separating
the US from its allies and shifting Europe
toward neutralism, is what START and INF are
largely about. They also must recognize that
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our current strategic programs, if fully
implemented, will tip the balance
substantially back in our direction.
c. To these ends, they have specific weapon
systems they want to protect and US and
European ones they want to do in.
d. There are some areas in which the Soviets
perceive mutual interest (e.g., keeping
radioactivity out of the atmosphere, avoiding
incidents at sea, CBM and non-proliferation.)
2. The Soviets enter into arms control agreements expecting at
most to conform to their terms narrowly defined.
a. They have no interest in the "spirit" of the
agreement. In the 1970s, while learning to
play back to us American-style rhetoric about
the destabilizing character of the "nuclear
arms race" and the dangers of war through
inadvertence, etc., their expenditures on
nuclear systems and new systems developments
proceeded on course.
b. Their preferred way to gain advantage is to
have their adversaries' publics put enough
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pressure on their governments for them to make
unilateral reductions or denials (e.g., ABM,
M-X, Pershing II, GLCM). This required them
to concede nothing.
c. They will cooperate in, or insist on, leaving
out of an agreement weapons categories that
they especially value (e.g., in SALT, Soviet
systems threatening Europe while arguing for
the inclusion of US "Forward Based Systems",
also extra "reload" missiles).
d. For those weapons systems that are included in
agreements, they closely define parameters to
be protected. (e.g., in 1978, they insisted
on the exclusion of "total impulse" in a list
of constrained ICBM parameters so as to leave
open the option of greatly increasing their
throw weight potential.)
e. Or they adhere to exploitable ambiguity in
language (e.g., their resistance to defining
"heavy missiles" in SALT I which protected
their SS-19 ICBM about which we knew little in
1972; also exploiting ambiguity in the
language in SALT II limiting encryption of
telemetry.)
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f. They exploit limitations in monitoring (e.g.,
the use of mycotoxins in Southeast Asia and
Afghanistan; uncertainly in our ability to
estimate yields of underground nuclear tests).
3. The Soviets also engage in concealment and deception; e.g.:
a. The hiding of true, and the publication of
false, military budget data.
b. Publication of distorted maps.
c. Increasing denial of telemetry (and possibly
allowing us access to biased telemetry).
d. Misrepresentation of their force strength in
Europe in the MBFR negotiation.
e. Other concerns about deception.
4. The record of compliance:
a. They have observed the force limits of SALT I
and II (except for the reductions in SALT II
which have not occurred because the Treaty
hasn't entered in force).
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b. Questions about compliance include:
The "Sverdlovsk incident" and use of
toxins and chemical agents in Southeast
Asia and Afghanistan
-- possible operational SS-16s at Plsesetsk.
concurrent testing of ABM and air defense
at Sary Shagan
-- Telemetry encryption
-- Violations of the TTBT
-- Others
SFrRFT
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