STAFF STUDY A CONCEPT OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION ON THE FAR EAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00059A000300010004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 11, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 1, 1949
• Content Type: STUDY

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COPY NO. v,4 Q
A Concept of National Intelligence Production
on the Far East
1 December 1949
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THE PROBLEM
1. To determine the principal considerations which, from the
standpoint of United States security, should govern the planning and
production of national intelligence on the Far East.
2, a. Assumpt ions
ILLEGIB
For the purpose of this discussion it is assumed:
(1) That United States security objectives and
interests in the Far East are largely influenced by a
world-wide struggle for power with the USSR.
(2) That, unless a basis for mutual accommodation
is found, this struggle for power will result in;
(a) Armed conflict of major proportions; or,
(b) The gradual accumulation and exercise by
.of power, including limited armed force,(which
eventually nullify the other-s will and capacity to
'resist.
Significance of the Far East
The Far East is a region of large material and human
resources possibly capable of being controlled and organized
by an unfriendly power in such manner as to pose a crucial
threat to the security of the United States. This possibility
was recognized by Japan and planned in terms of the Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It is probable that Czarist
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Russia long rcco? sized, and is almost certain that the USSR
now does recognize this possibility. Should the Far East
region be eventually harnessed by the Soviet Union and
employed in coordination with its Eurasian potentials, the
United States would be confronted with a possibly decisive
disadvantage either in armed conflict or in a prolonged
struggle on terms short of war. From the standpoint of
United States security it is therefore essential to determine
what measures are and can be applied by any power to gain
control of the Far East, and what is the nature of the
potentials to be controlled.
c. Control in the Far East
Most of the Far East is in a state of major political,
social, and economic transition, Attendant disarrangements
have permitted the growth of a general susceptibility to
manipulation on the part of the regionts predominantly
illiterate and unsophist.i.cated populations, subject to
deprivation and uncertainty, and desirous of improving their
conditions, There is, moreover, the particular susceptibility
of those abler individuals who, released by the weakening of
customary social mechanisms, seek expression, status, and power,
and frequently identify -their aims with nationalistic or
progressive goals. Taking full advantage of these circumstances
is a vigorous international communism admittedly devoted to
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acquiring domination of the Far East as part of its
objective of world domination. The dynamic nature of
communism, its ability to exploit professedly nationalist
movements, the constantly shrinking portions of the Far
East not under its power, and the difficulty of retrieving,
by 7estern democratic methods, any area once lost to it,
all indicate the importance of estimating the remaining
prospects for increasing or lessening control in the Far
East by either side in the US/USSR, struggle.
d.. Potentials of the Far East
An assessment of the human and material potentials
of the Far East is of continuing moment to whomever may hope
to achieve a position of influence or control over all or
parts of that region. On the basis of an enduring world
struggle between the United States and the USSR, on terms
short of war, the respective contenders must recognize and
strive to control, within whatever limitations their
principles impose, those elements of human and material power
in the Far East which will ultimately help to weigh a world
balance in their favor. Since, however, the threat of war
always exists, it is more urgent to take immediate and
continuing stock of existing potentialities for war of all
or parts of the Far East. Of particular importance to
United States security in this respect is the question of
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the growth in the Far East of a comprehensive war-making
complex independent from, but in support of other centers
of Soviet power.
3. That the principal considerations which, from the standpoint
of United States security, should govern the planning and production
of national intelligence on the Far East are as follows:
a. Possibilities for control in the Far East, to include:
(1) Vulnerability of the Far East, area by area, to
control(unfavorable)to the United States.
(2) Capabilities for the acquisition, exercise, and denial
of control in the Far East by parties to the US/USSR struggle.
b. Potentialities of the Far East in War and Peace, including:
(1) The possibility of the formation of a comprehensive
war making complex in the Far Easto independent from, but in
support of other centers of Soviet power. ..~ .-