Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Intelligence assessment, dated January 1985, examines how Warsaw Pact air forces would support large strategic operations in Central Europe. It concludes that the Soviets see NATO air power as the greatest threat to a Pact ground offensive. They revised their air supremacy plans in 1980 and 1981 to use sector-concentrated raids and a defensive air operation. The assessment also finds that heavy aircraft losses and limited deep attack capability would remain serious problems. The document has no UFO content.
To Secret observations and ongoing NATO force improvements, offensive counterair campaign had led to the develop.the Soviet General Staff may have questioned the ment of a detailed plan for this contingency. Thislikelihood that nough NATO aircraft would be plan, a reactive variant of the air operation, included adestroyed on the ground in a brief series of airfield nearly maximum theaterwide air defense effort toattacks to substantially alter the overall balance. The blunt the NATO air raid, accompanied by simulta.Soviets must have been aware that NATO had decid- neous attacks against NATO airbases. These attacksed to deploy a flet of AWACS early warning were to be smaller than those of an offensive airaircraft, had started to improve national intelligence operation and were intended to force returningsupport to theater commanders, had taken measures NATO aircraft to land at alternative airfields, whereto increase aircraft readiness rates, and had begun they could be destroyed in the open by Pact groundnew initiatives to further harden airbases against air attack aircraft that had been waiting on airborne alert. Moreover, Soviet mi:ary writings suggest that by 1979 the General S'itf probably had concluded that the Pact's fleet of ground attack aircraft possessed in 1978 t cinsufficient striking power to ensure the destruction of oviets were probably becoming more concerned overNATO's air forces as called for in the plans for the the shift in the air balance and the possibility thatinitial air operation. These diminished expectations NATO was thus more likely to take the initiative inaccompanied the general adoption of more conserva- the air at the outset of war. It was reformulated intive planning norms for conventional warfare during 1980 as the so-called initial air defense operation,'the late 19 70s, which probably resulted from the more and elevated in importance to complement the initialcareful examination by the General Staff of the air operation in the struggle for air supremacy. Thisproblems of conducting a strategic offensive operation reformulation by the General Staff made'the so-calledin the Western TMO, The Soviets' doubts also may air defense operation analogous doctrinally to groundhave stemmed from a greater appreciation of the forces defensive operations--classifying it as an ag-problems posed by the proliferation of hardened air- gressive form of defense designed to blunt the NATOcraft shelte.s mI NATO airbases, given their contin- air offensive and create conditions favorable for goingud emphasis on destro in aircraft caught on the over to the offensive with the initial air operation. The ground. air defense operation would thus make it possible to synchronize the air scenario with ground forces opera-The surfacingof these problems during the 1974-79 tions in the MO if NATO attacked first or if the period vidently led the Soviet General Staff to doubt Pact ground campaign suffered a reversal.the viability of existing employment concepts for the initial air operation. As a result, the Soviets aban- doned their expectation of achieving a quick, relative- The Soviets had encountered serious problemsly inexpensive victory in the air war and came to view in executing the precursor to the the struggle for air supremacy as a more complex mitialair defense operation. They probab'y hopedendeavor that would probably require protracted op- that a series of major command and control changeserations. that were instituted in 1980 would allow them toovercome these problems. These changes includedDevelopment of the Initial Air Defense Operation. By 1976 the Soviets' concern about NATO's ability to 'The so-called initial air defense operation would include apreempt and disrupt their initial air operation with an substantial number of offensive countcrair attacks and should notbe confused with the purely defensive routine air defense activitythat would follow much lessintensey once the Pact went over to theoffensive or established air supremacy 13 'o c-of
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 95 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.