Warsaw Pact Air Forces: Support of Strategic Operations in Central Europe, CIA/DI/SOVA Intelligence Assessment, January 1985.

To Lcreit
Warsaw Pact Air Forces:
Support of Strategic Operations
in Central Europe
Key Judgments Soviet military writings confirm that the Soviets have a high regard for
[Iifrmali,,n ai~lae NATO's air forces and apparently believe that they constitute the greatest
as is i~ this report. potential threat to the success of a Warsaw Pact ground olTcnsivc in a
conventional war in Central Europe. Accordingly, senior Soviet military
authorities have stressed the need to establish theaterwide air supremacy at
the outset of a conventional war and have implied that its attainment would
be second in importance only to preempting the first major NATO nuclear
strike
Authoritative Warsaw Pact military writings indicate that in the mid-
1970s the Pact planned to defeat NATO's air forces in an intense battle of
attrition during the first two days of a war. It intended to win this brief air
war by conducting an olTensive air operation that would rely on surprise
and overwhelming force to deliver a series of three crushing blows against
NATO's airbases in Central Europe.
Soviet military writings suggest that by the late 1970s, however, the Soviet
General Staff had concluded that the existing Pact plans for the air
supremacy campaign were no longer viable. These writings noted that it
would be difficult to achieve sufficient surprise to catch most of NATO's
aircraft on the ground in the airfield attacks. Moreover, senior Soviet
military officials stated that the Pact air forces lacked sufficient firepower
to accomplish their tasks, probably reflecting an altered Soviet perception
of the Central European air balance that occurred during the late 197 0s.
This perceived shift in the air balance-probably caused by a combination
of closer French cooperation with NATO, NATO's force modernization,
and a possible Soviet switch to more conservative estimation techniques-
had, in Soviet calculations, evidently turned a clear Pact advantage into a
situation of near parity. Authoritative Soviet military writings suggest that
" near parity in the air balance would deny the Pact the overwhelming force
necessary to launch a theaterwide air operation with high expectations of
success
Revising the OffJensive Air Operation. The Soviets changed their force
employment concepts and reorganized their forces in 1980 and 1981-
probably in large part to improve their prospects for attaining theater air
supremacy. Senior Soviet military officials had cited their limited prospects
of achieving air supremacy as a weak link in the Pact's ability to win a war
in Central Europe. Classified Pact military writings indicate that by 1981
the Soviets had created a new variant of the offensive air operation that
would achi.:ve temporary localized force advantages by concentrating the
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