Documents / FOIA release
This is Volume II of National Intelligence Estimate 11-14-79, Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO, issued by the Director of Central Intelligence and dated January 1979. The National Foreign Intelligence Board concurred with it. It was the first comprehensive estimate of Pact forces facing NATO since 1971. It covers Pact doctrine, the ground, air, naval, nuclear and chemical forces, command and control, and campaign plans for war in Europe. It judges that Central Europe would be the decisive arena, and it lists Pact weaknesses in pilot training and antisubmarine warfare. The document contains no UFO material.
“The Advance”37 pages
KEY JUDGMENTS Warsaw Pact Policy and Doctrine for Theater Warfare 1. It is Soviet policy to acquire and maintain forces capable of successfully fighting either a conventional or nuclear war in Europe and to keep a clear numerical advantage over NATO in important military assets. Soviet leaders stress the need for large, combat-ready forces to be in place at the outset of hostilities. They intend any future European conflict to take place on Western, not Eastern, territory. (1, 1-2) 2. The Soviet Union views control of its East European allies as vital to its national interests. The East European members of the Pact provide sizable forces and a territorial buffer between NATO and the Soviet Union. (See figure 1.) The presence or proximity of large, well-equipped Soviet forces gives the Soviets considerable leverage in exerting control over these countries, thus safeguarding the integrity of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets also value their military strength as a means of influencing European domestic and foreign policy decisions and deterring political or military developments which might alter the balance of power to their disadvantage. They do not, however, measure the military balance in Europe in isolation from the larger, global balance and, accordingly, are inclined to be very cautious in the use of military force in Europe. (1, 2-3) 3. Our analysis of Soviet nuclear policy and doctrine has led us to the following judgments: -- The Soviets believe that the initial stages of a conflict probably would be conventional, and they would prefer that a NATO- Pact conflict remain nonnuclear, but they expect that it would eventually involve the use of nuclear weapons. (1, 1.0) -There is evidence that the Soviets now have a more flexible policy for the use of tactical nuclear weapons, but they apparently have not sought to match NATO's capacity for accurate and selective use of very low yield nuclear weapons, and they remain profoundly skeptical of the possiblity of controlling escalation. (I, 12) - We cannot predict how the Soviets would respond to a limited and selective NATO use of nuclear weapons or the conditions under which the Soviets might initiate nuclear operations in a NA'TO-Pact war. (1, 13-14) References are to chapters (Roman numbers) and paragraphs (Arabic numbers) in this volume of the Estimate. 5 op et
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 201 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.