ESTIMATING SOVIET INTENTIONS IN THE STRATEGIC WEAPONS FIELD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91M00696R000100020001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Sequence Number: 1
• Content Type: MEMORANDUM

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C E N T R A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A G E N C Y
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTI14ATES
22 October 1969
MEMORANDUM FOR THE STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE PANEL
SUBJECT: Estimating Soviet Intentions in the Strategic
Weapons Field
NOTE
As Soviet strategic forces approach a size equivalent
to that of US forces, Soviet intentions with respect to the
future magnitude and character of such forces become a
more acute issue for intelligence. This memorandum sets
down in a summary way the main considerations which have
figured in estimates on this subject. It is intended to
provide the basis for a discussion by the panel which
hopefully might produce suggestions for new approaches to
such estimates.
MORI/CDF
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic.
downgrading and
declassification
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say, that they still believe they are involved in an irreconcilable
conflict with the "capitalist" world, and in partictlar with the
US as the most formidable non-Communist power. This does not mean
that they intend at some time to initiate military action to
resolve the conflict in their favor. They say that the historically
inevitable revolutionary process will do this for them, but that
in the interim they must have a strong defense to thwart the
tendency of the desperate "imperialist" rulers to resort to
aggression against the "progressive" countries. Even if they
genuinely conceive the struggle in mainly political terms, they
also believe that if they are seen to possess superior military
strength political forces will work more strongly and quickly in
their favor. Thus there is no reason to doubt that if they think
it within their economic and technical capacity to surpass the US
in modern strategic weaponry they will try to do so.
6. Such an aim would not be pursued to the exclusion of
other priorities, however. We do not believe that the way to
arrive at a view of the USSR's intentions is simply to measure
its gross capability to accomplish a single goal. No society
operates in this way because the sacrifice of other goals
invokes costs and risks which the holders of power will see as
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unacceptable. And an attempt to concentrate all effort on building
the largest possible nuclear threat to the US would bring nearer
the greatest risk of all, nuclear war itself.
7. Soviet Attitudes Toward Nuclear War. Soviet military
writings betray an understandable ambivalence toward nuclear war.
Assertions that the USSR could and would prevail are, of course,
usual. But one cannot infer from such writings that Soviet leaders
really believe that nuclear war could be waged at a tolerable cost
and with foreseeable consequences. Despite accusatory rhetoric,
it is apparently believed that American leaders also see nuclear
war as unacceptable. Yet there as here prudence argues for
hedging. The Soviet leaders cannot believe that their state and
system would be secure indefinitely if the US held a decisive
superiority in strategic weapons. They evidently believe that,
since US intentions are hostile the USSR must have forces at least
large enough to deter pressures and the possibility of attack in
some unforeseeable circumstances. While deterrence could presumably
be achieved with forces smaller than those of the US, Soviet
military planners will inevitably argue that larger forces will
provide more reliable deterrence, and that, moreover, should
deterrence fail, etc. Even if the concept of deterrence alone
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governs decisions affecting the size of Soviet forces, the
tendency will be, though always in accordance with a judgment of
acceptable priority and risk, to maximize and not to minimize
scale of strategic weapons programs.
8. Economic Capability. Clearly there is some reasonable
upper limit to the amount of material resources the Soviets are
able and willing to apply to strategic weapons programs. Over
the last decade, expenditures for all military purposes have been
in the range of 7-9 percent of annual GNP. This is a not incon-
siderable burden for a country which is still backward in many
ways. But if something in the neighborhood of this figure is what
the Soviets have thought compatible with their other priorities,
including investment for further growth of the economy, then they
can presumably continue at such a rate. If they do so, they can
make substantial additions to their already large strategic forces
without undergoing excessive strain. By 1980, for example, they
could triple their force of land-based ICBM's (i.e., to over 3000
missiles) by building launcher facilities at about the same rate
of the last few years. More likely, however, they will want to
transfer resources to other programs such as missile submarines
and perhaps ABM's.
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9. The point is that general economic limitations do not
provide a basis for estimating confidently over long time periods
and within useful ranges what the size and mix of strategic forces
will be. At some point obviously the growing maintenance costs of
ever larger forces would dislocate established priorities and
become unacceptable. Probably even before this the clamor of non-
strategic elements of the armed services to retain their customary
share of the military ruble would tend to slow down the growth of
strategic forces. Adverse effects on the civilian economy and on
living standards would generate other pressures. Nevertheless,
economic capability is too rough an estimative tool. For example,
it cannot give us the answer to such a key question as whether the
SS-9 force will level off at, say 300 launchers, or will grow to
twice that size.
10. Technical Capability. We have been aware at various
times of failures and lags in certain Soviet weapons programs. The
record of Soviet advanced weapons development over the last 20
years or so, however, tells us that generally the Soviets will be
able to match our own development work within a few years. Thus
we are obliged to say currently that the Soviets can get more
accurate ICBM's, can develop a satisfactory MIRV system, and can
make the 'Y-c3.ass submarine the equivalent of Polaris. Such
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achievements may sometimes take longer than we ettimate, but we
cannot assume technical limitations which would set well-defined
upper limite to the size and quality of Soviet forces over any
long period.
U. Nor can we assume that the Soviets will not be able to
make certain technical advances before the US. We say that if
these occur they are extremely unlikely to be of a breakthrough
character, that is, capable of putting the US at a decisive
disadvantage and denying time or possibility for effective counter-
measures. In any case, the competition in dynamic advanced
technology is in fact a factor which limits our ability to fore-
cast the size and character of Soviet strategic forces.
3_2. Soviet Requirements. This is an approach which would
estimate the future size of Soviet forces on the basis of a
calculation of what would be required to cope adequately with US
forces and a theoretical target system. There are manifest
imprecisions in this method. Over an extended period the US
posture is unlikely to remain static. More important, in order
to attribute to the Soviet planners a particular requirements
calculation it is necessary first to estimate with some exactness
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the inputs they would use -- the accuracy and reliability of
Soviet systems, US warning capability and reaction times, the
degree of assurance Soviet decision-makers would require. And
finally there remains the larger question: requirements for
what -- for deterrence at some level of assured destruction or
for first strike? In the future, discerning what kind of con-
tingencies the Soviets may be planning for will become even more
difficult as the strategic situation is complicated by China's
acquisition of nuclear weapons. The ramifications of what might
at first blush seem an exact and systematic approach will soon
lead the estimator on to soggy ground from which he is very
unlikely to issue confident long-range predictions.
13. Historical Pattern. If we look at the record of
past strategic weapons programs for clues to future decisions,
the indications are inconclusive and contradictory. Deployment
of some missile systems and aircraft has been halted at an early
stage, presumably because the Soviets decided finally that these
weapons were not effective or reliable enough, or that something
better was in sight. In other cases (notably MRBM's, IRBM`s,
and medium bombers) numbers were deployed which exceeded consid-
erably what we would have thought required for the presumed
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mission. In general, we have the impression. that when the Soviets
develop what they regard as a satisfactory system they are likely
to deploy it in a quantity larger than we would think they
required. But a vague rule that successful programs tend to be
large does not help much to quantify future ones, especially for
unproved systems about which we still know little.
14. The Usefulness of Indirect Approaches. What the
indirect approaches to longterm estimates of Soviet strategic.
strength sketched above have in common is that they are often
suggestive but never conclusive. They do help us to judge with
reasonable confidence the general direction in which Soviet
intentions and programs are likely to move. But they do not
provide high confidence for estimates of future Soviet force
goals within reasonable ranges, nor even for the specific criteria
which govern Soviet force planning.
III. Some Concluding Propositions.
15. The Soviets' political outlook, their view of power
relations, and their fears and ambitions lead them to desire
a significant quantitative and qualitative advantage in strategic
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weaponry. Such an aim will be pursued, however, only within a
framework of competing priorities, not as an exclusive or
dominating goal.
16. Even if they were able to achieve an advantage, it does
not follow that they could or would calculate that the deliberate
launching of a nuclear attack on the US could be undertaken within
acceptable limits of cost and risk. There is no basis for
attributing to them the belief that nuclear war will be winnable
in any rational sense in the foreseeable future.
17. Should the Soviets acquire what was seen as a significant
margin of advantage in strategic weaponry, however, their policies
would probably become more assertive. They might believe that in
some critical confrontation such an apparent disparity of power
would cause a failure of will on the part of the US or its allies,
and permit the USSR to make important gains without war.
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19, The key judgment for US policy-makers is whether at
any given moment developments in Soviet strategic forces are
conceivable which would give the USSR a significant advantage
before the US could take offsetting measures. On the whole,
while intelligence cannot forecast confidently and exactly the
size and character of Soviet strategic forces at long range, it
is likely, given the size and diversity of US strategic forces;
to be able to give sufficiently early warning of such a situation.
How much hedging against worst case possibilities is desirable
is for national leadership to decide.
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