QUICK THOUGHTS ABOUT THREAT OUTLOOK II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T00472R000200290004-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: January 4, 2017
• Document Release Date: April 15, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 15, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2008/04/15: CIA-RDP87T00472R000200290004-9
SECRET
15 August 1984
NOTE FOR: VC/NIC
FROM: Hal Ford
SUBJECT: Quick Thoughts About Threat Outlook II
Herb, a few brief ideas concerning possible nominees for our next
edition of the Threat Outlook -- which will probably gear up during my
absence. The DCI's "Threat" in the title has a certain constraining
effect, but we can and should interpret "Threat" broadly in the interests
of providing nourishing fare. Here are some possibles for Threat Outlook
II (or later):
1. Major internal problems besetting Soviet policymakin~. I
personally don't believe that the intelligence and policymaking
communities have given enough attention to certain major problems,
internal to the Soviet system, which now are almost certainly severely
constraining Soviet policymaking. Lots of attention is being given to
how US and other foreign problems are frustrating Soviet leaders, etc.,
most recently examined brilliantly in Fritz's just-published NIE. But I
would like to see a somewhat expanded and underlined treatment of the
NIE's mention of the internal sources of Soviet conduct, this time in NIC
judgments free of DIA's hangup that internal matters don't cut much ice.
The purpose of such a Threat Outlook II edition: to give senior US
policymakers a better grasp of some of the reasons the Soviets are
behaving as they are, and to point up according US expectations, threats,
and opportunities.
2. Chernenko, Gromyko, et al., are confronted not only with an
aroused USA and a more threatening external scene, but with simultaneous
major complications from within the system -- and it's the forces within
the system that have always been paramount in shaping Soviet conduct,
from Lenin to the present. At the moment the Kremlin's chief such
problems are:
-- An increasingly undisciplined and disruptive Eastern Europe, of
which the greatest headache is the GDR and its various troubles.
-- Almost certainly, still another succession problem at hand or in
process, with a weak Chernenko physically and politically), the
others circling about positioning themselves for succession.
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-- Pronounced policy differences over how to proceed, at home and
abroa . Admittedly our evidence is not strong, but the signs are
certainly there -- indicators which have proved out in past cases.
-- All the myriad economic and social problems the USSR faces . . .
3. So-what? A Threat Outlook focused on these questions could give
policymakers a fuller understanding of why the Soviets are being so
difficult, and a better idea of what to expect from them, or not, over
the next six months or so. That is, better understandings that:
-- Soviet policy is on dead center not only because of US-dealt
frustrations and the US election period, but because the many
internal constraints now at work on the Kremlin leaders would be
negating much policy movement in any event.
-- A big maybe: The many problems confronting the USSR may make it
-- in a total sense -- much weaker at the moment than its outward
visage might suggest. Put another way, some months or years from
now we don't want historians to look back and say that the US
missed some opportunities (in negotiations, ploys, pressures,
whatever) because it assumed the Soviets to be much stronger and
policy coherent in mid-1984 than they actually were.
4. What are the trends in El Salvador? Here again there is lots of
reporting of scattered military and po itical facts, some of which point
up, some down. But except for committed policy types, no one is leaning
back and telling US policymakers how things are going overall, what to
expect six months or so from now, and -- especially -- what weaknesses in
El Salvador need attending. We have an Estimate underway on this
but its findings are weeks away. There is a good case f&r
trying out some tentative judgments in a Threat Outlook soon. This would
at least identify and point up what some of the central political and
military points are, and begin the process of making analytic judgments
on the state of progress, or not, in El Salvador. And, it would be a
useful comparison to the views being given out nowadays by Pickering and
Gorman: if our views all coincided, so much the better; if our views of
progress differed from theirs, then we could task the intelligence
community to dig into these questions all the more deeply.
5. The Soviet military presence in Vietnam. Dave Gries told me he's
thinking about nominating and writing up this subject for our Threat
Outlook II. The facts of this Soviet buildup have been well reported.
But no one has point up their significance. This latter is what Dave
has in mind.
Approved For Release 2008/04/15: CIA-RDP87T00472R000200290004-9
 Approved For Release 2008/04/15: CIA-RDP87T00472R000200290004-9
SECRET
Distribution:
Orig - VC/NIC
1 - C/NIC
1 - NI0/USSR
1-
1-
1 - NI0/LA
1 - NIO/EA
1 - Chrono
1 - Threat Outlook File
Approved For Release 2008/04/15: CIA-RDP87T00472R000200290004-9