Warsaw Pact Forces opposite NATO, NIE 11-14-79, Volume II, the Estimate, CIA/NFAC, 31 January 1979

Moreover, there would be political considerations that would lead the
Soviets to defer attacks on some NATO countries in the hope of
encouraging their nonbelligerence. (IV, 2-4)
12. We believe that the need for unfettered naval operations from
their Northern Fleet bases would almost certainly cause the Soviets to
strike NATO facilities in northern Norway, and probably to attempt to
occupy some territory there, and that the urgency of this need would
lead them to do so concurrently with starting an attack in Central
Europe. We would also expect concurrent attacks on US naval forces in
the Mediterranean. None of the other potential flank offensives appear
to have that degree of urgency, although the Pact would be likely to
move against the Turkish Straits early in a war. (IV, 5)
13. The Warsaw Pact's success in achieving its wartime objectives
would depend on its ability to control and coordinate multinational
joint-service operations of great complexity.
but our
assessment of the systems strengths and weaknesses leads us to judge
that it is adequate to alert forces and control mobilization, and to
control combat operations. This assessment is discussed in detail in
chapter III. (III, 1-31)
14. The ultimate authority for the direction of the Soviet military
rests with the Politburo and the Soviet General Staff, but we believe
that should a war occur between the Warsaw Pact and NATO,
theater-level commands would be established and exercise direct
operational control over fronts and fleets and at least some degree of
control over those strategic assets allocated to support theater
operations. Unlike NATO, the Warsaw Pact does not have theater
headquarters in being in peacetime, although hardened command posts
have been constructed for at least some Pact wartime headquarters. (III,
4-6)
15. Arrangements for exercising control of Pact forces within what
the Soviets call the Western (or European) Theater of War have been
evolving over the last few years. We now have evidence that indicates
the commander in chief of the combined armed forces of the Warsaw
Pact would control all Pact forces in this theater in wartime. The Soviets
plan to divide the Western Theater of War into three land Theaters of
Military Operations (TVDs) in which they expect Pact and NATO
forces to come in conflict. These would include a Northwestern TVD
(the Leningrad Military District and the Scandinavian Peninsula); a
Western TVD (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the western
USSR in the east and West Germany, the Benelux countries, Denmark,
and possibly France in the west); and a Southwestern TVD (Greece,
Turkey, and probably northern Italy and Austria). An area in the
Norwegian Sea north of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom
10