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.
period of time may be required to integrate and consolidate advances and ensure that combat potentials are fully realized. We expect a modest decline in the overall number of Soviet general purpose naval ships and submarines but newer and more capable units will be replacing older and less effective ones. (VI, 55) 29. Theater Nuclear Forces. Over the next decade the Soviets will continue their ongoing programs to improve their peripheral strategic strike forces and to eliminate the imbalance in battlefield nuclear capabilities they perceive in the European theater. Force improvement carried out to date and ongoing deployment of new systems are increasing the flexibility with which the Soviets can employ their theater nuclear forces. The introduction of nuclear-capable artillery will provide low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and delivery systems with sufficient accuracy to permit employment in close proximity to Pact forces. (VI, 90) 30. Command, Control, and Communications. We estimate that about one week currently would be required before the Pact's wartime communications links could be established to theater-level headquarters and to supporting strategic cornmands. Communications, between Moscow and the fronts and within the fronts, to control combat operations by divisions and armies could be effectively established within a few days. However, the Pact has two programs under way- the creation of a centralized command structure and the establishment of a unified communications system-which, during the period of this Estimate, could shorten the time required by the Pact to get its command and control system prepared for war, The two programs are intended to establish in peacetime the. theater-level (High Command) resources needed to control Pact forces once the are released from national control. We estimate that the centralized command structure could be complete by the early 1980s. The unified communications system could begin to improve the Pact's command capabilities by the mid-1980s, but it is not scheduled for completion until 1990. (VI, 101) 16 Top ~~
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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.