REVIEW OF THE WORLD SITUATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: January 19, 1949
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO MVP 8 0-
I~EF,CIA LIBRARY
SECRET
REVIEW OF THE WORLD
SITUATION
(PREFACE TO CIA-49 SERIES)
Published 19 January 1949
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SECRET
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release-,2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
WARNING
This document contains information affecting the na-
tional defense of the United States within the meaning
of the Espionage Act, 50 U.S.C., 31 and 32, as amended.
Its transmission or the revelation of its contents in any
manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
1. This copy of this publication is for the information and use of the recipient
designated on the front cover and of individuals under the jurisdiction of the recipient's
office who require the information for the performance of their official duties. Further
dissemination elsewhere in the department to other offices which require the informa-
tion for the performance of official duties may be authorized by the following:
a. Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Research and Intelligence, for
the Department of State
b. Director of Intelligence, GS, USA, for the Department of the Army
c. Chief, Naval Intelligence, for the Department of the Navy
d. Director of Intelligence, USAF, for the Department of the Air Force
e. Director of Security and Intelligence, AEC, for the Atomic Energy Com-
mission
f. Deputy Director for Intelligence, Joint Staff, for the Joint Staff
g. Assistant Director for Collection and Dissemination, CIA, for any other
Department or Agency
2. This copy may be either retained or destroyed by burning in accordance with
applicable security regulations, or returned to the Central Intelligence Agency by
arrangement with the Office of Collection and Dissemination, CIA.
DISTRIBUTION:
Office of the President
National Security Council
National Security Resources Board
Department of State
Office of Secretary of Defense
Department of the Army
Department of the Navy
Department of the Air Force
State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee
Joint Chiefs of Staff
Atomic Energy Commission
Research and Development Board
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
REVIEW OF THE WORLD SITUATION AS IT RELATES TO THE SECURITY
OF THE UNITED STATES
The following is issued as a general introduction to CIA-49 Series "Review of the
World Situation as it Relates to the Security of the United States." It is intended to
describe the point of view from which the CIA-49 Series will be prepared. It is also
concerned to identify types of security problem in order to set up points of reference
for the analysis of global developments in relation to the continuing security interests
of the United States.
Note: This review has not been coordinated with the intelligence organizations of the Departments
of State, Army, Navy, and the Air Force.
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
REVIEW OF THE WORLD SITUATION AS IT RELATES TO THE SECURITY
OF THE UNITED STATES
1. A check of CIA-48 Series shows that terms like "US security interests," "national
security," "threats to US security," have been used in so many different connections
that their meaning has become blurred and they are losing their usefulness for intelli-
gence analysis. Obviously not everything that is put forward as a security interest can
have equally valid claim to consideration as such; but the way the terms are presently
used makes it difficult to distinguish real from apparent problems.
2. The following general remarks are pertinent:
a. At the present time, the distribution of power in the world is such that the US
and the USSR are alone capable of developing and maintaining modern power
structures.
b. Other states, or groups of states, though they may formerly have had this capa-
bility, must now be considered as being on the side lines of a bipolar power situation.
c. A modern power structure requires the presence and the coordination of at least
the following components:
(1) Possession or control of adequate supplies of mechanical energy-coal, water
power, petroleum, etc.
(2) Possession, control of, or ability to obtain by seizure, the raw materials needed
to maintain basic heavy industries (iron and steel) and to maintain the social organi-
zation of the state (light service industries, distributive and communication systems,
etc.).
(3) Manpower, both quantitatively as a supplement to the energy resources of
the state and qualitatively in the sense of widespread technical and managerial skills.
(4) A social structure which links the habits and skills of its members into an
effective "Going Concern." This "Going Concern" must develop a productive process
capable on demand of providing surpluses beyond consumption so that there will be an
unused margin of production available as military force in readiness. In addition,
given the world-wide distribution of resources and markets, a "Going Concern" is
further strengthened by being part of a system of international commerce.
3. Neither the US nor the USSR possesses these attributes of power in an absolute
form. In neither have the components been developed to the maximum possible; in
neither have the components been fully interlocked in a system of maximum power
effectiveness. Present power relations between the US and the USSR are affected by
differentials in these respects; and one of the continuing security interests of each
state is to preserve a favorable differential and modify an unfavorable one. The differ-
entials favorable to the US are qualitative manpower, developed and reserve mechani-
cal energy, and the superior effectiveness of its productive process. The differentials
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
favorable to the USSR are quantitative manpower, superior military force in being, and
the dictatorial controls by which it can restrict consumption and thus acquire a margin
of resources for ready use as actual power in spite of a comparatively inferior productive
process.
4. Of the nations that were previously able to deploy some or all of these com-
ponents with relative effectiveness, none can now be considered capable of regaining
and maintaining this status purely by its own exertions. It is only Western Europe as
a group of nations that can now be considered capable of attaining this status within
a reasonable period of time. Even this group would require a period of subsidy before
its existing components of power could be reintegrated.
5. These remarks about the nature of a modern power structure suggest that the
security problems that arise from the power relations of the US and the USSR come in
part from the differentials between two major power structures and from the inevitable
efforts each makes to alter these differentials in its own favor, and in part from the
fact that formerly integrated components of power are in process of being pulled into
new alignments. The number of previous centers of power, whose positions have been
undermined and whose relations to the two new poles of power have not yet been clearly
stabilized, strongly suggests that the security problems of the US and the USSR do not
primarily lie in their direct relation to each other but rather in the relations of each
to third states, group of states, or geographical regions.
6. Situations, in which security problems arise and by which, consequently, security
interests appear to be threatened, can be classified under three headings : Geographical,
Sociological, and Domestic. This classification must be regarded as essentially theo-
retical and useful primarily as an analytical tool.
Description of the Basic Categories.
7. Geographical: this covers the relations in space and time of the two major
power structures to each other and to third states. The security interests that specifi-
cally arise in these connections are-
a. Strategic-access of each power to the territory of the other; control of loca-
tions which facilitate or deny such access; control of areas adjacent to the territory of
the other in order that actual military force can be offensively projected.
b. Maintenance of power potential-control of or access to sources of raw mate-
rials and mechanical energy.
c. Positive additions to power potential-the expansion of political influence in
intermediate areas in order to control or obtain access to the resources of other states.
The USSR, by means of international Communism, has placed great reliance on this
method and pushes it to the point of seeking to establish absolute institutional control.
This is in sharp contrast to the US, which is limited in this respect to the control that
can be produced by indirect economic, commercial, and political influences.
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
8. Sociological: this covers the relations of the two major power structures to each
other and to third states in terms of the psychological reactions of individuals and
groups and of the possible effects of these reactions on the social organization of the
states involved. Since distance, artificial barriers, and cultivated antagonisms insulate
the individuals, groups, and social institutions of the US and USSR from significant
mutual influences, sociological security problems develop primarily in those intermedi-
ate regions where competitive influence of the US and the USSR is still possible. Secu-
rity interests arise in this category in connection with-
a. The development of mass attitudes favorable or unfavorable to the objectives
and policies and relative power positions of the two major power structures.
b. The organization of the attitudes of politically effective groups in ways which
identify the interests of these groups with the objectives and policies of one or the other
of the two major power structures.
c. The bringing of influence to bear on key policy-making individuals for the pur-
pose of persuading them that their responsibilities and objectives can best be served if
they are coordinated with the objectives and policies of one of the major power
structures.
Generally speaking, a US or a USSR security interest develops in the states of the inter-
mediate region in connection with the extent to which such states identify or can be
persuaded to identify their interests with what are understood to be the purposes of the
US or the USSR. The desirable end product of protecting a security interest of this
type is clearly to improve a relative power position by assuring the availability of the
power resources of an intermediate state.
9. Domestic Social Organization: this covers all internal US and USSR problems
connected with the maintenance of their respective societies as "Going Concerns."
Their relative power positions are directly related to the productive capabilities and
stability of their domestic social organizations. US security interests within this cate-
gory are beyond the province of this analysis; but their existence is clearly indicated by
the attention which both the US and the USSR give to the possibility of tensions devel-
oping in the social structure of the other.
10. The preceding definitions suggest that the security interests of the US and the
USSR have not developed in isolation and of their own accord, but are closely related
and simultaneously arise out of the global power situation in which the two states
equally are involved. Theoretically, this is the correct analytical approach to the
problem of national security in a world where power has become essentially bipolarized.
However, when particular situations are examined, some significant differences appear
in the basic security problems of the US and the USSR. These differences are noted as
follows:
a. US security interests are widely dispersed in both the geographical and sociologi-
cal categories. Geographically they have developed along the entire perimeter of the
continent of Europe-Asia. Sociologically they have to be protected in a wide variety of
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
circumstances (democratic, monarchical, class conflicts, feudal absolutism, nationalism,
and imperialism). In relation to individual states, the democratic process tends to
disperse these interests through all social levels and makes it theoretically undesirable
to identify them with the maintenance of any particular social group, even though in
present fact identification with center and middle class groups is politically normal.
b. USSR security interests are concentrated in both the above respects. Geo-
graphically they develop in areas contiguous to the USSR. Sociologically they are con-
centrated at the same social level in each state-the mass of industrial and agricul-
tural workers that feels itself prevented from exercising the degree of political and
social power commensurate with its strength and aspirations.
c. In addition to the comparative ease of guarding security interests thus concen-
trated, the USSR-through international Communist activities-is able to conduct
offensive operations against the dispersed security interests of the US. Such opera-
tions, as for example those that have been and are being carried out by the Communist
Party in France, do not represent the positive protection of basic USSR security inter-
ests. They can be abandoned without any immediate adverse effect on the present
power position of the USSR. They do, however, represent an effort to undermine a
US security interest and, to the extent that they succeed, they improve the relative
power position of the USSR.
11. There are so many points of unbalance in the present power conflict between
the US and the USSR that security problems seem to arise in bewilderingly various
and contradictory forms. It is consequently desirable to try to define a minimum num-
ber of basic US security problems in a way that will be comprehensive enough to pull
together into a recognizable long-term pattern the short-term problems that develop
in geographically scattered areas and sociologically diverse situations. Once estab-
lished, these basic problems can be used as points of reference for analyzing interna-
tional situations in relation to US national security; and a security interest that cannot
be convincingly shown to derive from one or more of these basic problems should have
its validity as a security interest challenged.
12. Three basic problems in US security can be thus stated :
a. The geographical problem of keeping the still widely dispersed power resources
of Europe and Asia from being drawn together into a single Soviet power structure
with a uniformly communist social organization.
b. The sociological problem of persuading the peoples and the political authori-
ties of states in the intermediate regions that their political aspirations and security
interests can be satisfactorily identified with those of the US. This problem also
includes that of developing a general conviction that aspirations will be forwarded
and security protected simultaneously with the protection of US interests.
c. The domestic problem of maintaining the social structure of the US intact
and adaptable. This involves not only the maintenance of internal stability but the
SECRET 4
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
maintenance of those external contacts with sources of raw materials and mechanical
energy that are essential to the total US productive process.
A Detailed Examination of These Problems.
13. The geographical security problem created by the possible consolidation of
the power resources of Europe and Asia under a single authority has been theoretically
discussed for over thirty years. Only the present bipolarity of power in the world
convincingly sets the stage for this possibility to become a reality. It is now necessary
to assume the beginnings of such a trend. Although the focal center of the USSR
power structure is still located west of the Ural Mountains, subsidiary centers are
being developed in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Far East. The linking of
these centers into a modern productive system is presently limited by underdeveloped
transportation and inadequate skills; but these limitations cannot be considered as
final and absolute. The present significance lies in the fact that these subsidiary
centers are located so that they constitute regional preponderances of power in areas
contiguous to the USSR and thus provide the means to maintain a general process of
continental expansion. They form, in fact, part and parcel of the methodical step by
step process by which a continental land power extends and consolidates its authority.
14. In contrast, the focal center of the US power structure lies compactly within US
continental limits and, on a world map, is situated as if on an island. US power cannot
expand beyond this center by simple territorial accretion. To be used effectively in
terms of global power relations, US power must be projected across water and through
the air.
15. The present disposition of US and USSR power does not permit the effective
projection of US power into regions contiguous to the USSR. The USSR, on the other
hand, can continue to extend the perimeter of the area in which its power is effective
and in which its institutions can be established. Each such extension, by preparing
the ground for a fuller development of USSR power potential, modifies in some degree
the balance of power relations between the US and the USSR. The natural geographi-
cal limit of such a process is the Eurasian littoral, for further movement would imply
the conversion of Soviet land-air power into sea-air power. Since the US and the USSR
are not in direct territorial contact, except at the Bering Strait, the geographical secu-
rity interest of each is not at the moment essentially a product of their adjacency.
It lies in the relation of each to third or intermediate regions, and consists of the com-
parative influence which the US and the USSR can exert in such regions in relation to
their power positions and their estimated strategic requirements. These intermediate
regions consist of Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, the
Indian Peninsula, Southeast Asia, China, and the offshore Asiatic islands; in short,
those regions of Eurasia to which US power has access by means of sea and air communi-
cations and which cannot, under present conditions, be readily incorporated into the
USSR power structure.
16. The pressure of the USSR to develop its power structure to these natural limits
will probably be of long duration. The method will probably be that inherent in the
SECRET 5
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059A000500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
strategy of a traditional land power-slow expansion by the political absorption of
immediately adjacent areas, not leaping ahead militarily into advanced but geographi-
cally isolated positions. The USSR can and will, however, seek to prepare the ground
for ultimate geographical expansion by generating sociological security problems in
areas beyond its actual reach, where US interests can be threatened without the need
to commit actual power to the operation. The tactics of such operations can be con-
siderably varied, as is illustrated by the use made of the Communist Party in France
and of indigenous nationalist movements in the colonial areas of the Far East. The
objectives of such operations do not, under present conditions, represent the positive
protection of USSR security interests. They represent generalized threats to US secu-
rity interests; threats from which advantages are derived only indirectly and in the
long run.
17. These same intermediate regions also coincide with the recently disintegrated
power structure of Western Europe and the strategic control points by which European
states formerly projected their authority and maintained colonial and semicolonial
systems as additions to their power resources. Since many of the essential components
of this power structure-the industrial plant, the raw materials, the human resources-
still exist, an essential issue develops between the US and the USSR in connection with
the ultimate redistribution of these components. Specifically, will they be divided
between and incorporated in the US and USSR power structures? will they be reinte-
grated as a Western European power structure with colonial appendages? will the colo-
nial and semicolonial areas split off and minor power structures develop along the
Eurasian littoral, with centers in Western Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East?
or will some pattern of international relations emerge that includes all of these possi-
bilities in a sort of mixed bag? The only one of these possibilities that is of basic
importance is the one which would divide power finally between the US and the USSR.
Diverse power structures on the coastal rim of Eurasia-even if not responsive in the
long run to US influence-would not in themselves be a threat to US security, pro-
vided they could and would remain unresponsive to USSR pressure. The only contin-
uing threat is the steady expansion and consolidation of the USSR power structure.
18. The basic US security problem of a geographical kind is to deny the USSR final
and irreversible access to the Eurasian littoral, and simultaneously to maintain US
access to strategically significant sectors of that littoral. The strategic significance
of various sectors will almost certainly be modified as US and USSR short-term objec-
tives are realized or fail to be realized. It is for this reason that it is possible to esti-
mate that one or other sector has superior claims to attention and to the allocation of
US resources; or that power should be positively projected at one point, temporarily
withheld at another, and used at still another merely to the degree called for by a
holding action. Such judgments, however, do not alter in any essential respect the
persistent geographical security problem.
19. The basic sociological security problem must be regarded as subordinate to the
basic geographical problem, though in no way less important. The Eurasian littoral is
SECRET 6
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
not only a disputed geographical region between two major power structures. It has a
social and political reality of its own and, as far as circumstances permit, it pursues
its own ends. It is presently engaged in dealing with civil conflicts both vertically
between social groups within individual states and horizontally between the colonial
areas of the East and the colonial authorities of the West. The resolution of these
conflicts is pertinent to the relations of the US and the USSR with the region and hence
to their relative power positions. The sociological security problem lies, therefore, in
the manner and shape of the settlement reached in the intermediate regions, and
inevitably produces both US and USSR efforts to determine the character of that settle-
ment. It is probable that the geographical interests of the US cannot be adequately
protected in the long run unless sociological interests are simultaneously protected.
It is certain that the sociological interests cannot be guarded if the geographical inter-
ests cannot be protected. The first point is illustrated by the course of events in the
Far East; the second by the speed with which Eastern Europe was drawn in the Soviet
orbit.
20. The breakdown of the power structure of Western Europe has been accompa-
nied by a breakdown of the institutional structure of the entire Eurasian littoral. The
region must accordingly be regarded as in dispute sociologically as well as geographi-
cally, and US security interests in both categories are mutually supporting as well as
open to simultaneous attack. That the sociological security interest is of major signifi-
cance is indicated by the violence with which the US and the USSR clash in the intangi-
ble and uncharted field of human reactions and can be measured by the resources that
have been assigned to the conduct of this "cold war."
21. The comprehensive character of the "cold war" makes the sociological security
problems of the US more immediately significant than the geographical, except in a
limited number of well-defined areas-notably Germany and Austria, and Greece,
Turkey, and Iran. Generally speaking, a sociological security problem can claim a
higher priority the further removed it is from the focal center of USSR power. Thus,
in Greece, Turkey, and Iran, the sociological interest can be given attention at the
present time only to the extent that it directly supports the geographical. In France,
Spain, and Italy, the two types of interest begin to come into more equal balance. In
China and Southeast Asia, where the threat to the geographical interest is remote even
though definable, and where time and circumstances permit the development of counter-
actions, the sociological problem is paramount. Adequate handling of sociological
interests can have the effect of retarding and perhaps can even prevent the ultimate
posing of a blunt and unacceptable threat to a basic geographical security interest.
22. Reference has not been made to regions that lie outside the area of fundamental
US-USSR power conflict-notably Latin America and Africa south of the Sahara. In
both regions, a comprehensive sociological problem admittedly exists, but, from the US
point of view, it is not linked with a geographical security interest in any degree com-
parable with the one which has developed in Eurasia. These regions are as remote
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
from the influence of actual USSR power as is Central Asia from the influence of actual
US power, and no basic security interest is presently developing in either. Probably,
in analyzing the general significance of these regions to the global power position of the
US, some such phrase as security desiderata should be used instead of security interest.
23. If the categories of security problem here described are used as points of refer-
ence for the analysis of current situations, it is considered that more generally accept-
able estimates can be made of-
a. the comparative importance of current situations and of the immediate security
interests that they touch upon;
b. the priorities of attention, decision, and action called for;
c. the mutually interlocking development of sociological and geographical prob-
lems. For the purposes of the intelligence analyses to be made in CIA-49 Series, it will
be assumed that the basic geographical security problem is the fundamental one; that
the basic sociological security problem may be the more pressingly important; and that
neither is separable from the other or from the basic domestic security problem.
SECRET 8
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
 Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3
SECRET
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
3319-STATE-1949
Approved For Release 2001/08/01 : CIA-RDP67-00059AO00500080014-3