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.
“US Navy”42 pages
Io ecr. USSR if the war were going badly for the Pact. Accordingly, it is Soviet military policy to acquire and maintain forces capable of successfully fighting a - Escalation of the intensity of nuclear strikes nuclear war in Europe, to establish the command over time. relationships necessary to control these forces, and to formulate a doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons against NATO in a European conflict. 11. In the 1960s it was Soviet policy to retaliate against any NATO nuclear initiative with a theater- the Sovi- wide strike. By 1970, however, the Soviets had adopt- ets have at least considered the possibility of ed a policy for more flexible use of nuclear weapons graduated escalation, either at their own discre- against NATO. the tion or in response to NATO. qualitative and numerical advances in their forward- 12. Despite the Soviets' having adopted a policy for based tactical nuclear forces since 1970, reflect a more flexible use of tactical nuclear weapons, and concerted program to improve the Pact's nuclear notwithstanding the impressive improvements they flexibility and develop alternatives to the single option have made in forward-based tactical nuclear capabili- of a theaterwide response to even a small-scale NATO ties, they have not sought to match NATO's capacity use of nuclear weapons. Alternative responses that for accurate and selective use of very-low-yield nu- have at least been examined include. clear weapons. Although they have evidently been - Delayed responses to NATO's first small-scale working on nuclear artillery for at least 20 years and use of nuclear weapons. have nuclear-capable artillery units in the western USSR, they do not appear to have given high priority to fielding it in Central Europe. Also, their armory of tactical nuclear warheads has shown a strong trend toward higher rather than lower yields. Although the Soviets now have the necessary forces and employment doctrines to conduct limited nuclear war in Central Europe, we believe that they remain skeptical of the possibility of controlling escalation. Soviet planners may 13. In sum, we cannot predict how the Soviets have begun to regard the limited, selective use of might respond to a limited and selective NATO first nuclear weapons by NATO as a distinctive, if use of nuclear weapons or to their perception of transitional, phase of conflict that would not NATO's preparations for the imminent use of nuclear necessarily require an immediate nuclear weapons. They might conceivably continue purely response nonnuclear operations, or they might respond with small-scale nuclear strikes of their own. They might - Responses at the lower end of the nuclear aloaucateariencersrk. spectrum with small-scale strikes by forward- also launch a theaterwide nuclear strike. based systems rather than with theajerwide strikes involving USSR-based systems. We have reliable evidence that in 1970 the Soviets decided that NATO's selec- tive use of tactical nuclear strikes may, in certain 14. Neither can we be certain of the circumstances circumstances, make it necessary for the Soviets under which the Soviets might initiate nuclear oper- to make corresponding strikes and that certain ations in a NATO-Warsaw Pact war. missile units must be kept ready for selective strikes. 1-5 Top'Seret
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 201 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.