CIA SEES SOVIET STRATEGIC BUILDUP, BUT CRITICS SLAM REPORT'S RELEASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000301210006-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: August 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT. -
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g ARMED FORCES JOURNAL
ARTICLE APPEAR% August 1985
ON PAGE IM
CIA Sees Soviet Strategic Buildup,
But Critics Slam Report's Release
by Michael Ganley
The Soviet Union is on the brink of
a massive expansion of its
strategic nuclear offensive and de-
fensive forces, according to a new in-
telligence estimate by the Central In-
telligence Agency.
In rare public testimony, intelligence
officials told Senate Members at a joint
hearing of the Armed Services Strategic
and Theater Nuclear Forces Subcommittee
and the Defense Appropriations Subcom-
mittee June 26th that the USSR's arsenal of
strategic nuclear warheads could grow to
12.000 by 1990 from an estimated 9,000
warheads today. Without continued arms
control restraints, the officials estimated,
the number of deployed Soviet warheads
could rise to between 16,000 and 21,000 by
the mid-1990s.
Some conservative Rgublican Sena-
tors, apparently frustrated by the Con-
gressional slowdown of the Reagan
Administration's military buildup, urged
the White House to release the CIA report
and let CIA officials testify in open session
about it. The report is based on conclusions
of a secret new National Intelligence Esti-
mate on Soviet military forces prepared by
the CIA.
Some Senate Democrats, however,
complained that Republicans were playing
"partisan" politics with the intelligence as-
sessment and damaging the CIA's credibil-
ity on Capitol Hill.
The CIA assessment and testimony came
only two weeks after President Reagan an-
nounced June 10th that the US will con-
tinue to comply with SALT II despite in-
tense pressure from conservatives in Con-
gress to renounce the accord.
The Soviets could deploy more than the
Thousands of Warheads
Growth in Number of Deployed Warheads
on Soviet Strategic Intercontinental
Attack Forces by 1994
Ballistic Missiles SLBMs ICBMs Bombers
\ I
21 DEADIPO
18
15
12
9
6
1985
SALT I
Possible
Soviet
US
Numerical
Expansion
START
START
Restrain $
Beyond
Proposal
Proposal
Until Mid:1990
Arms Control
1994
Source: Soviet Strategic Force Developments, CIA paper presented in testi?
mony before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommitee, June 26, 1985.
predicted 3,000 new nuclear warheads in
the next few years. according to informa-
tion provided AFJ by one Republican Sena-
tor's office.
Those documents show a potential
Soviet warhead increase in the next six to
seven years of between 2.956 and 5.072,
even under current SALT I and SALT II
restraints. The US, by contrast, must dis-
mantle nearly four times as many warheads
as the Soviets between now and 1991 in
order to stay within the treaties' limits.
Some of the new Soviet missiles are de-
signed to carry More warheads than older
ones they replace. The numbers of laun-
chers would still remain within the SALT I
and SALT II accords, however. Because
the US is deploying hundreds of single-
warhead, air-launched cruise missiles.
which are counted as launchers under the
SALT accords, its Trident modernization
program would raise the total number of
launchers above treaty limits unless older
Poseidon subs and Minuteman missiles are
retired.
About 7,600 US, warheads, over two-
thirds of which are based on nuclear sub-
marines, are currently deployed. Only
modest future increases in the number of
US nuclear warheads are planned. depend-
ing upon how many M-X missiles are ap-
proved by Congress. (The Senate voted to
cap deployment at 50 M-X missiles, while
the House voted on June 18th for only 40
missiles, the difference to be resolved in a
House-Senate conference. that began July
11th.)
Republican Pressure
The Republican who pushed hardest to
get portions of the new intelligence report
released was Sen. James A. McClure (R-
ID). On June 6th, Mc-
Clure. along with
Senators Jesse Helms
(R-NC) and Steven D.
Symms (R-ID), wrote
President Reagan ask-
ing him to release as
much of the informa-
tion in the new Na-
tional Intelligence Es-
timate as possible.
They told the Presi-
dent that because the new report?NIE
11-3-8-85?predicts "a dangerously wor-
sening state of Soviet military suprem-
acy. . . . We consider a full public under-
standing of the evolving military imbalance
between the US and the Soviet Union to be
essential. . . ."
Shortly after receiving the letter, the
White House ordered release of a declassi-
fied version of the intelligence report's
conclusions, according to Hill sources.
McClure
Continued
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Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), Chairman of the
Senate Appropriations Defense Subcom-
mittee, agreed to a request from McClure to
hold the joint hearing.
McClure has previously succeeded in
getting the Administration to declassify in-
formation on the Soviet arsenal. In Febru-
ary, for example, as debate on the Fiscal
Year 1986 defense budget got under way,
DoD declassified .information on both
Soviet conventional and nuclear capabili-
ties at McClure's urging. In a "Dear Col-
league" letter enclosing much of the declas-
sified information, McClure said it showed
that, "On the average, We Soviets hold a
6-to-I advantage over the US in the key
measures of military power."
Sen. Gary Hart (D-CO), among other
Democrats, protested at the joint hearing,
however, that disclosing the new in-
telligence information "threatens to make
partisan and ideological what is central to
this nation's security."
Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of
Intelligence for the CIA, said he would not
"address the motives of the White House"
in releasing unclassified conclusions of the
new intelligence estimate.
"We're fully aware of the dangers of a
public presentation to the integrity and ob-
jectivity of our assessments," Gates added,
but "we also recognize the value of making
available on a broad basis a commonly
agreed set of facts for discussion of Soviet
strategic force development."
"We were impressed that we were get-
ting in secret session the assessment of the
CIA about things we know about the Rus-
sians that they know we know about but our
public didn't know," Sen. Stevens told
Democratic critics at the hearing, "and we
felt they [the public] had a right to know."
The Assestreent
_r
The NIE's conclusions and the CIA testi-
mony revealed that by the mid-1990s the
Soviets expect to replace with improved
systems nearly all of their currently de-
ployed intercontinental nuclear attack
forces?land- and sea-based ballistic mis-
siles and heavy bombers. Seven new ballis-
tic missiles are under development. The
Soviets' newly produced Bear H bomber
also will become operational this year
carrying a new AS-15 ALCM. Their
Blackjack bomber will go into service in
1988 or 1989 carrying both ALCMs and
bombs.
The CIA report predicts that over the
next 10 years, the Soviets also will deploy
2,000 to 3,000 ALCMs, sea-launched
cruise missiles (SLCM), and ground-
launched cruise missiles (GLCM).
Soviet improvements in ballistic missile
defense, antisatellite, and directed-energy
and kinetic-energy weapons also "will sig-
nificantly improve the capabilities of their
[Soviet] strategic defenses over the next 10
years," the intelligence report says.
The Pentagon's annual Soviet Military
Power book released earlier this year (June
AFJ) touches on many of the points men-
tioned in the new Soviet intelligence
analysis.
But the intelligence report provides more
detailed and precise figures on future
deployment numbers and times, and, in
one instance, even a dollar amount.
The Soviets, for example. are conduct-
ing extensive work on both ground and
airborne laser weapons "that would cost
roughly $1-billion per year if carried out in
the US," the report says. "We are con-
cerned that Soviet directed-energy pro-
grams may have proceeded to the point
where they could construct operational
ground-based ASAT (antisatellitel weap-
ons," the report adds.
On a more optimistic note, the report
finds that:
? "We do not believe there is a realistic
possibility that the Soviets will be able to
deploy in the 1990s a system that could
pose any significant threat" to.US nuclear-
powered ballistic missile submarines.
? "Stark economic realities" could force
the Soviets to stretch .out development of
some deployment programs.
? Soviet active and passive strategic de-
fenses will be "unable to prevent large-
scale damage from a major attack," though
their technology increasingly will defend
military and industrial bases necessary to
continue wartime operations. ? ?
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