WORLDWIDE BRIEFING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T01145R000100130006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 28, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

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WORLDWIDE BRIEFING
OCI
28 Jan 1986
2030 hrs.
Intelligence must not only report developments around the world as
they occur, but also step back and to discern patterns, linkages, and strategies
that may work to endanger the United States and its interests. During 1985,
~-.
the pattern of challenges and threats to our strategic interests-broadened,
sharpened and intensified.
The main thrust still comes from the Soviet Union, which is increasingly
posing a many dimensioned global challenge to the United States and the Free
-World. This threat resides: ~
(1) in the military might the USSR is piling up on the Eurasian
land mass,
(2) in its steady acquisition of geopolitical bridgeheads in Asia,
Africa and Latin America, and
(3) in the development, linking and use of these bridgeheads for
growing Soviet naval and air operation and to further enlarge
the Soviet geopolitical position.
The Soviets continue the moderni2ation and expansion of their military
forces both conventional and strategic. The conventional weapons threat from
the Warsaw Pact countries was the first element of this threat to emerge.
It has been intensified in recent. years and has now progressed to the point
where the Pact enjoys huge military advantages, and is now developing more
exotic arms for the future.
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In the European Central Region, the Pact maintains a three-to-one
advantage'?in tanks and artillery, and more than two-to-ore in armored vehicles
and aircraft . bR~4PH/C~ ~ ~ : /3~9/~ l~tlA2 T': NMD~It/~J,~,S,tw ~+~-
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While NATO has historically had the qualitative edge in military equipment,
this edge is eroding.
~- .
The newest Soviet tanks are at least the equal of those in=1?(ATO's arsenal.
In some aspects, such as firepower and armor protection, they are superior.
The fielding of more self-propelled artillery is boosting Soviet ground
units' maneuverability, survivability, and tactical nuclear firepower. Soviet
bridging equipment is so good that our army has benefited from reverse engineering
and is fielding models of Soviet design.
Soviet aircraft are among the world's finest. Newer fighters and fighter-
bombers have improved performance, larger payloads, and better avionics--though
the latest US aircraft still maintain leads in sortie rate and avionics.
The Soviets have developed and used in Afghanistan special effects `
munitions to provide massive destruction without crossing the nuclear threshold.
(Example: Fuel-Air Explosives)
We know that the Soviets are working to develop aircraft and cruise missiles
employing stealth features, and remotely piloted vehicles for acqquiring ~ V
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attacking armored vehicles. At the same time they are developing their own
anti-tank warheads with increased penetration ability, precision guided
munitions with enhanced accuracy, conventional explosives with enhanced
destructiveness, and a new generation of fighters, some with multiple target
look-down/shoot-down capability. - -
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These Soviet developments add up to a dominance in land warfare which
requires the West to count on its maritime reinforcement capability to counter
and its strategic forces to deter.
Sore of the Soviets' greatest strides have been in submarine production.
In the last two to three years, they have introduced three new types of nuclear
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attack submarines. They have also launched a 6 ,000 ton aircraft carrier, and
in their naval deployment and naval exercises have brought US-Soviet competition
into Atlantic and Pacific waters where until now we have enjoyed a near monopoly.
The second element of Soviet military power to emerge is its strategic
force. By the mid-1990s, nearly all of the Soviets' currently deployed
intercontinental nuclear attack forces--land- and sea-based ballistic missiles ,
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and heavy bombers--will be replaced by new and improved systems. The number S f~~7El~C
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of deployed strategic force warheads will increase by a few thousand, over ~aDE.E.viLt~'~C~v,
m ~o ~~os
the next five years, with the potential for greater expansion in-the 1990s.
The Soviets have already deployed their first new mobile ICBM
Specific major improvements are also under way in Soviet ballistic missile
submarines and bomber forces.
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We expect the Soviets to complete improvements to their operational ABM
defenses~at Moscow by 1987. This provides them with all the components necessary
fora much larger, widespread ABM defense, including transportable engagement
radars, above-ground launchers, and a new high-acceleration short-range
interceptor.
The distinction between missions far surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) an~i
ABMs is becoming increasingly blurred as the result of technol gy improvements
The Soviets have long been working on technologies basic to our Strategic
Defense Initiative.
We estimate that between 1980 and 1983, Soviet space program cots nearly
doubled. The costs of the USSR's military space activities alone are about
the same as those for their strategic offensive forces. Soviet space systems
are likely to be an integral part of any strategic missile defense system ,
the Soviets might develop and deploy.
The five-year plan which Gorbachev will soon propose to Party Congress
will call for an 80 percent increase in the investment in machine building.
There will also be ambitious goals for high tech support industries. This will
include the microelectronics and computers essential for developing the more
complex weapons systems the Soviets plan for the next decade. We believe the
current high level of military spending will continue to grow at the roughly
one percent rate that has prevailed for the past ten years.
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The important thing is not how much the Soviets spend on arms, but the
quantity and quality of arms they get for their money. Because of accumulated
earlier investment and defense industrial capacity, the number of weapons
systems that they will be able to buy over the next five years will be
substantially greater than what they acquired the past five years.
Despite the much greater US spending for arms of the past few years,
only recently has the US begun to catch up with Soviet weapons acquisition;
until then, we simply were not falling behind as fast.
The steady growth of Soviet weapons procurement from the high level of
the last decade will give the Soviets a massive cumulative inventory of
weapons, and they will continue substantially to modernize their forces in
the next five years and buy larger nunhers of weapons.
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Even at a time of economic difficulty and a reordering of domestic
priorities in the Soviet union, Soviet defense programs have been protected.
For example, during the next five year plan we expect ICBP1 production to
increase substantially over the 1981-85 plan, submarine production to be up
about 20-25 percent, and tank production to jump well over 50 percent.
There will be some 4,000 fighters and helicopters and a few hundred new
strategic bombers produced during this period. While these numbers are somewhat
lower than in the preceding five-year period, the new aircraft wi}1 be
substantially more technically advanced and capable. Thus, the prospect
is for continuation of the steady ?.0-year expansion and modernization of -
Soviet strategic and conventional forces. The cumulative effect of this
buildup is so great that the United States has only begun to catch up.
This huge military force and its continued growth may never be used
against the United States or NATO--although the Soviets clearly are prepared
to do so if their vital interests are threatened. But the mere existence of
this force not only validates the Soviet Union as a superpower but has an
intimidating effect on countries around the world as the Soviets seek to expand
their presence, influence, and power. It represents the backdrop for an
aggressive challenge being played out worldwide, but most particularly
on the ground in the Third World and in the vicinity of critical sea lanes.
The Soviet Union has acquired bridgeheads in Cuba, Angola, Nicaragua,
Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Yemen and Ethiopia. Gorbachev, since coming to
power, has moved sharply to strengthen the Soviet hold on these bridgeheads. In
the last six months alone, he has extended a 5600 million credit to Nicaragua, a
S1 billion in new economic assistance to Vietnam, and completed the supply of 51.5 billion
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in military equipment to Angola. Each of these countries has become an
outpost for Soviet intelligence collection, propaganda and subversion in its
respective region. Several have undertaken on their own to destabilize
neighboring regines. Virtually all are strategically located either near
important strategic choke points or in areas of almost certain regional
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As the map indicates, the USSR now has Marxist-Leninist allies or clients
spread around the globe. It has naval and air basing rights in some of these
places, close to Free World sea lane choke points. These various strategic
positions which the Soviets have acquired around the world are being linked,
moreover, in a growing logistic and infrastructure network.
The Soviets have created in Cuba the strongest military force in the
Western Hemisphere, with the exception of our own. ,
Even more worrisome than this military bastion on our doorstep are the
growing logistic networks that the Soviets have sponsored in both Cuha and
Nicaragua. In Cuba at least three, and probably more, airfields have been
upgraded to host Soviet TU-95 Bear heavy bombers capable of carrying nuclear
air-to-surface missiles. These planes are routinely transiting from the
Kola Peninsula in the Soviet Arctic to Cuban airfields. In Nicaragua, aircraft
revetments to handle high performance fighters have been cor~pleted at Sandino
airfield; the runways at Puerto Cabezas and 6luefields on the Atlantic coast
and Montlimar on the Pacific have been extended to host MIG fighters.
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Cuban construction crews are completing the new airfield at Punte Huete
outside Hanagua, which with a 10,000 foot runway will be the only airbase in
Central America capable of accommodating Soviet jet fighters, heavy transport
aircraft, and TU-95 bombers.
A direct sea connection between the Cuban base and its extension in
Nicaragua will be made this year when the Bulgarians complete a major port
facility at E1 Bluff on the Caribbean coast near Bluefields.
This, in conjunction with the Pacific ports of Corinto and San Juan del Sur,
where the Soviets intend to install a dry dock, will provide the Soviets with
secure port facilities on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in close
proximity to the Panama Canal. In addition, a Soviet team is surveying the
construction of a second canal between the Atlantic and Pacific across the
San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua.
We see similar parts of this network snaking around the globe. In the
South Atlantic, Soviet naval and naval air forces operate astride Western
shipping lanes. These forces depend on a growing infrastructure panned and
protected by nearly 2,000 Soviet 81oc advisors, 35,000 Cuban military, and
a local Angolan government army of 100,000. You will note from the map that
this node is linked to the Cuban part of the network.
The Soviet global network encompasses the 14editerranean anchored at
Libya and Syria. About 6,000 Soviet Bloc advisors support those bases,
which include air, naval and air defense facilities.
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Similarly, this network threatens Western sea lanes in the Red Sea-
Arabian Sea-Indian Ocean from bases in Ethiopia and South Yemen. Over 7,000
Soviet and Cuban military personnel and about a quarter million Ethiopian
military support this node, as well as Soviet Bloc personnel in South Yemen
and Mozambique.
Finally, Soviet naval and air forces operating out of-Cam Ranh Bay and
Da Nang in Indochina not only command the economic lifelines of Japan, Taiwan
and South Korea, but linked with Soviet naval and air bases in Siberia
threaten US facilities in the Philippines. Thousands of Soviet military
personnel man the infrastructure of this second largest Soviet military
complex outside the Warsaw Pact.
Beyond the consolidation and linking of positions in these Soviet outposts,
there is the spread of Soviet subversion--active measures, support to insurgent
forces, efforts to destabilize countries friendly to the Nest and exploitation
of economic hardship and political instability for strategic advantage. In
the case of both their outposts and their support to subversive groups,
there is a flood of weapons pouring out of the great arms depot at Nikolae'1-
to regimes and groups all over the world supporting Soviet objectives.
To build the foundation and further project this far-flung program, Moscow
maintains extensive military advisory presence in 29 Third World countries.
This presence ranges from 5 military specialists in Benin to about 6,000 in
Vietnam. There are something like 3,000 in Syria, about 2,000 in Ethiopia,
Libya and Afghanistan, and 1,200 in Angola and South Yemen, and 800 in Mozambique.
In some of these countries--Ethiopia, Angola, Afghanistan--Soviet officers
exercise command and control and in others they have great leverage and influence.
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In addition to this, the Soviets and their surrogates provide support
to Communist or radical insurgents in some ten countries, and help some seven
Socialist-oriented client regimes suppress insurrections of their own. All
this involves 335,000 combat troops, over 65,000 advisors, extensive political
and military training, and various levels of political support. The 335,000
combat troops occupying other countries include 118,000 Soviet soldiers in
- -~
Afghanistan, over 130,000 Vietnamese in Cambodia and 45,000 in~{Laos, and over
40,000 Cubans in Africa.
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The principal Soviet targets in supporting insurgencies are:
- E1 Salvador and Guatemala which are supported from Cuba and Nicaragua;
- Chile, in which Cuba, ~Jicaragua and the Soviet Union and several
East European countries have been training and providing weapons for
violent opposition and funding of the Communist party;
- Colombia, where three insurgent groups receive support from some
combination of Moscow, Cuba and Nicaragua; /GeAPK~c ~~lr/1'IA~POf /~'Fit'r~~1/
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- Namibia, where weapons and r~ilitary training for the insurgents
of the Southwest Africa Peoples Organization comes from the Soviet
Union, Libya and Cuba; and
- Sudan, where Libya and Ethiopia provide support for insurgents.
For most of the decade of the 70s people were flocking to 3oin Communist
insurgencies. This has been reversed and today some half million people around
the world are fighting in resistance movements against Communist regimes.
In Afghanistan, there is virtually a nation in arms fighting against 120,000
Soviet troops; in Angola, Savimbi has some 60,000 fighters at present in
all parts of Angola. In Ethiopia, Eritrean and Tigrean rebels fight the
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CGP~~Ir~ Rio : /I~t~p a~.~!-si~
Marxist Mengistu government and the largest army in Africa with its Cuban
and Soviet advisors. In Cambodia, sore 30,000 insurgents fight some
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140,000 Vietnamese soldiers. In Nicaragua, some 20,000 resistance fighters
are in a standoff with some 120,000 Sandinista troops and militia.
Finally, there are areas of great instability, for example, in Sudan
and southern Africa and in the Philippines where US and Western political
and strategic interests are at risk and 'which offer the potential of enormous
gain to the Soviets.
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These soft spots may have largely indigenous sources but they offer -
tempting opportunities to the apparatus I have been describing. The most
critical situation is that of the Philippines where a Communist-led insurgency
controls an increasing proportion of the country's villages and rural areas.
It has shown an ability to conduct urban violence in the second and third
cities, Dabo and Cebu, and substantial preparation and potential for/bringing
violence into Manila itself.. Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming election
we are likely to face rising challenges to US interests in the Philippines.
The USSR has been very careful to date, dealing with Philippine establishment
figures there, not openly associating itself with the NPA--but definitely in
touch covertly with various revolutionary groups. If the NPA's fortunes
improve, as seems likely at present, we can expect the Soviet role to grow.
Meanwhile, political and insurgent pressures on US basing facilities are likely
to grow and the Soviet base at Cam Ranh Bay is only 120 minutes away from
our bases at Clark Field and Subic Bay.
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~kAPNIC X13 : /hip OF 14F~?/. ~
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Another soft spot is Sudan. Its severe political and economic disarray
is compounded by Libya's strenuous efforts to gain predominant influence
there. At the moment, insurgents of the Sudanese Peoples' Liberation Army (SPCA)
are supported primarily by Ethiopia. the 25X1
Soviets may be increasing their contact with the SPCA and providing some
arms assistance through the Ethiopians. We believe that East Germans and
Cubans have been training Sudanese insurgents inside Ethiopia. Resulting
pressures have led the Sudanese to withdraw from joint military exercises
with us, revoke access rights for US forces, and question the future status
of prepositioned US military equipment. Additionally, the Libyans have been
given rights of air passage over Sudan enabling the Soviets to hook up more
ensily their presence in Libya and Ethiopia. US interests will be further
jeopardized if radical elements pull off a successful coup in Khartoum, if
the general situation becomes one of near anarchy, or if a weak elected
government should draw closer to Libya. If it or a successor should allow
more Libyan and Soviet influence and presence in Sudan, hostile forces would
face Egypt on the west and the south--and pro-Soviet elements in the Sudan,
Ethiopia, and South Yemen would fully command the southern approaches to the
Suez Canal.
This combination of subversive aggression and soft spots around the
world has been gravely compounded by the emergence of what we would call
the radical entente of Syria, Libya and Iran, all of which share the common
objective of expelling the United States from the Middle East, the Persian
Gulf and Southwest Asia. These three states all have radically diverging
interests, personalities, and style, but they share critical characteristics:
opposition to nearly all aspects of US policy in the region; a desire to
weaken or destroy moderate Arab leadership; active opposition to the US
peace process; and the sponsorship of .terror to attain political goals.
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The activities of these states are not directed by the USSR, but their
policies largely serve Soviet interests by dareaging both Nestern interests
and moderate forces. The Soviets provide major Military support to two of
the three--Syria and Libya.
Syria is the most effective of the three. While its goals are more
limited than the other two, its leadership is tactically brilliant and
generally successful--qualities which hardly describe Iran or Libya.
Iran's attentions are largely consumed by the Gulf war and by Shia
politics in the Gulf--despite broader interests in propagating Shia
fundamentalism in the world. Its role in Lebanon, however, was a critical
factor in stimulating the US exodus from that country in the face of unremitting
Shia attack.
In Libya, Qadhafi's interests and ambitions parallel those of the USSR
in so many respects that the disruptive effects are not measurably different
from what they would be, with Qadhafi a total surrogate of Moscow's.
No other state outside the Soviet Bloc has a geographic range of subversive
activity to match that of Libya. Oadhafi's ambitions are mirrored in subversive
meddling which now ranges from Chile to the Caribbean, to South Africa, across
the Middle East to East Asia, Indonesia, and New Caledonia in the Southwest
Pacific.
Libya has significant military forces to bring to bear and its threat
to its immediate neighbors of Chad, Sudan, Egypt, and Tunisia is very real.
Libya is the greatest stockpiler of weapons in the world with billions of dollars
worth, including hundreds of T-72 tanks (far more, for example, than Poland
has), and hundreds of sophisticated Soviet jets.
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Qadhafi's explicit ambitions with respect to Malta and the air and air
defense weapons the Soviets have provided him to station in Libya make Libya
a threat to the Mediterranean sea lane.
I will not dwell in detail on international terrorism this morning
since your Comr~ittee went into considerable classified detail on these
questions yesterday with NIO Charlie~Allen and other US experts. I do wish,
however, to stress the relationship of the USSR and its associates to terrorism.
The USSR and its Eastern European allies support a host of Near East and
other Third World terrorist groups. The Eastern European hand is the more
pronounced, the Soviet hand more disguised. Their combined support takes
many forms: training, arming, the providing of communications and documentation,
safehaven, and so on. Many of the most notorious terrorist leaders -including
Carlos and Abu Nidal--have for years circulated fairly freely in Eastern Europe.
These problems we have highlighted this morning/afternoon by no menas
exhaust the threats that will increasingly confront the US. I can assure
you that the Intelligence Community is deeply involved on a priority basis
with alerting policymakers to hazards and opportunities in numerous other
categories. These include, for example, developments concerning Soviet
domestic problems, the Iran-Iraq war, China, Japan, the Korean Peninsula,
LDC debtors, nuclear proliferation, CW proliferation, BW proliferation,
technology transfer, drug trafficking, oil futures, ecological problems,
resource problems, and so on.
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All these questions will continue to receive our close attention.
But in planning US defenses and military assistance, we believe, now and in
the future, the broad, linked threats that I have stressed today demand and
deserve the closest attention. The backdrop of growing Soviet military
power, the Soviet network of assets and facilities abroad, and Soviet promotion
of disorder in the Third World are together creating an increasingly
interrelated threat of growing proportions. Growing Soviet global reach,
Soviet basing facilities, developing military inf restructures, Soviet military
air lanes, and growing Soviet or Soviet client proximity to target countries
and to sea lane choke points are all combining to confront the United States
with rising challenges for the future.
We have a tendency too often to focus on specific events as they come
along, and to be skeptical about drawing linkages and relationships between
events. In this view of the world in 1986 and the threats awaiting us in
the future, I have tried to lay out for you how US intelligence sees the
challenges which our country will have to face in the years ahead. It is
only through understanding these emerging patterns and relationships that
the United States can shape effective strategies for meeting these challenges.
Thank you for your attention. My colleagues and I will be pleased to
entertain any comments or questions you may have.
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