RECOMMENDATIONS OF TEAM 'B' - SOVIET STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79M00983A002200010005-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 3, 2006
• Sequence Number: 5
• Content Type: MF

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Professor Richard Pipes, Team Leader
Professor William R. Van Cleave, Team Member
General Daniel 0. Graham, Team Member
The Honorable Paul Nitze, Advisor
Ambassador Seymour Weiss, Advisor
Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, Advisor
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MEMORANDUM FOR. Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence
THROUGH
SUBJECT
Advisory Board
Director of Central Intelligence
Recommendations of Team "B" - Soviet
Strategic Objectives
In our critique of current and previous National Intelligence
Estimates, we made a concerted effort to identify those aspects of
methodology, procedure and institutional structure which we believe
have contributed to unsound estimative judgments. In the attached
paper we proffer our recommendations to PFIAB concerning improve-
ments in methodology, procedure and structure aimed at correcting
the perceived deficiencies. Evidence for our conclusion. that the
cited shortcomings do, in fact, exist in the NIEs is to be found
in the main body of our report.
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Team "B" Recommendations
1. Concerning methodology
A. Mirror Imaagj . To overcome the bias toward viewing.Soviet
motives and intentions in U.S. terms, it is urged that:
1) In dealing with Soviet intentions, the NIEs should
integrate observed and projected Soviet weapons' programs
and force deployments derived from the "hard" physical data
with more thorough analysis of historical, political,
institutional, and other "soft" factors shaping Soviet
motives and intentions. The search should be for a consistent
elucidation of both sets of factors and their interaction.
In this connection considerably more attention should be paid
to relevant open and clandestinely acquired Soviet pronounce-
ments and writings (especially those directed to internal
audiences) than has been the case in the past. In this regard
it should be understood that expert analysis of the open
material can reveal a great deal, insofar as the Soviet
political system often compels the Party to issue to its cadres
authoritative guidance on policy matters through unclassified
sources;
2) Soviet objectives should be perceived in terms of
Soviet concepts: this rule applies especially to the treat-
ment of concepts like "strategy", "strategic threat" and
"strategic objectives", all of which should be understood
in the Soviet context of "grand strategy." When, for reasons
of convenience to U.S. consumers, the NIEs address Soviet
military programs in the U.S. rather than the Soviet strategic
context, this fact should be made clearly evident to the reader.
B. Net assessing.* Whatever their intentions, the drafters of
the NIEs do engage in implicit net assessments of sorts, particularly
when advancing major judgments in the executive summaries. These
x What we mean by net assessment in this context is a judgment on
the balance between U.S. and Soviet military capabilities based
on the relevant static indicators extant or projected, or based
on a dynamic analysis of the balance assuming that those
capabilities actually are to be called into use. The latter type
of net assessment assumes a scenario, but may or may not assume
actual warfare.
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assessments are usually so rough, so poorly documented, and essentially
so speculative that they invite -- indeed, cannot be'immune from -- the
injection of the authors' general biases. Where NIE judgments demand
net assessment, the netting should be done explicitly, analytically,
and thoroughly, not implicitly or perfunctorily. The interface between
NIE judgment and net assessment should be identifiable.
C. An integrated view of Soviet'weapons and force developments.
The NIEs tend to an excessive extent to analyze each Soviet weapon system
in isolation from the totality of the Soviet military effort (and indeed
from other relevant non-military factors as well), with the result that
the overall Soviet military effort appears as less significant than it
actually is. Team "B" urges that in the future weapons systems
and force developments be examined in a more integrated manner to yield
"combined evaluations" more indicative of Soviet total military
capabilities and overall intentions.
D. Policy pressures and considerations. In the opinion of Team "B",
total avoidance of policy pressure on the intelligence estimating process
is an impossible goal. The normal and proper function of policy makers
in raising questions which are to be addressed by the intelligence
estimators in and of itself influences the answers the latter provide.
Some awareness on the part of the estimator of the impact of intelligence
judgments in support of or in opposition to policy is unavoidable.
Nonetheless, improved methods and procedures adopted for the preparation
of the NIEs should be able to minimize the policy pressure on judgments
and prevent the abdication by the intelligence apparatus of its responsi-
bility to-provide objective answers.
E. Disciplined presentation of conclusions. Key judgments of NIEs
are presented in various styles and formats. This on the one hand
permits statements to be made with a certainty that is not warranted by
the available evidence, and on the other hand permits statements, better
supported by the evidence, to be degraded in the reader's mind through
the insertion of a clause or sentence that have the effect of dismissing
their impact. A more disciplined (though not necessarily rigid) format
for NIE key judgments, summaries, and conclusions should be constructed.
The format and style should ensure that the various reasonable interpre-
tations of the available evidence are laid out without semantic embellish-
ment; that the pros and cons of evidence supporting each are discussed
briefly; that the likelihood of occurrence of each-is assessed; and that
the requirements for additional data to resolve remaining uncertainties
are identified. Further, each major intelligence estimate should contain
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as an annex a review of the past 2 to 10 years' "track record" of
U.S. estimates on the major aspects of the relevant subject matter.
Such an annex would be best prepared by a body of analysts not
responsible for the estimates critiqued. The purpose of such an
annex would not be to criticize or chastise but rather to throw light
on possible trends of misanalysis or mistaken judgments so that a
compounding of error by continuation into future intelligence estimates
can be avoided.
2. Concerning procedures.
A. Some, though undoubtedly not all of the methodological
shortcomings which Team "B" found in the National Intelligence Estimates
can be overcome by improving the process of their preparation and review.
The authors of the NIEs will always remain in some measure prone to
perceive the USSR in U.S. terms and to allow political considerations
to affect their judgments. Nevertheless by minimizing inherent
institutional biases and broadening the range of judgments brought to
.bear on the NIEs it should be possible to weaken considerably the impact
of factors which have accounted in the past for NIE misperceptions.
B. Team "B" considers the organizational position of the NIE
function within the national defense - security - foreign policy complex
less than optimal for guarding against both policy and institutional
biases. Current and previous organizational entities charged with
preparation and processing of NIEs have been subordinate to the Director,
CIA, and staffed almost exclusively with CIA officials. This arrangement
was intended to compensate for the real or alleged biases of the
Departments of Defense and State, but it can over-compensate by encouraging
the institutional biases of the Central Intelligence Agency itself.
C. Team "B" recommends that some combination of the following three
steps be considered:
1) The first involves building as much immunity to
institutional pressures as possible into that entity which
is charged with preparing NIEs on Soviet strategic objectives.
There are various ways to accomplish this end. One attractive
possibility is to identify an official in the Executive Office
of the President who would be charged with assuring such immunity and
who would report directly to the President. His staff would be small
and guarded against acquiring an institutional life of its own.
Members of the staff would be drawn from the various intelligence
organizations and serve relatively short tenures (3-4 years). The
official charged with this function would be genuinely removed
from and independent of the operating membership of the NFIB by
the devices of a separate budget, a separate staff, and a separate
physical location. He should have the authority to subpoena
substantive intelligence officers from any agency and to require
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of pertinent departments and agencies such net assessments
as may be necessary to the NIE process;
2) The second step involves the marshalling of
expertise in and out of government to offset the temptation
to mirror-image. The official charged with assuring the
objectivity of the NIEs (as specified above) should enlist
the part-time services of a panel of prominent outside
specialists for the purpose of reviewing estimates so as to
identify judgments that are based on questionable assumptions
concerning Soviet strategic doctrine and behavior. Such
reviews should be carried out immediately post facto, but
they should not form a part of the NIE preparation process
itself.
3) The third step involves periodic independent checks
on both the process and the substance of the NIEs by employing
procedures similar to the PFIAB-conceived Team "B" approach.
Intermittently, perhaps initially every second year, a team
of outside experts who owe no formal responsibility to the
existing governmental intelligence agencies would be assembled
to play the adversary role. The composition of the Team would
vary every time. Team members would have available all the
pertinent information from all the sources. The effort would
be reasonably time constrained. The report of the Team would
be subject neither to review nor to revision but would be
made available directly to the President, Secretary of State,
and Secretary of Defense. (After the Team had made its report,
it would become available to other governmental agencies for
criticism but not for revision). While this step would not
eliminate the particular views and biases which the non-
governmental experts would bring to their study, it would be
free of the bureaucratic pressures or biases of the existing
governmental inte igence -- or indeed policy -- agencies.
D. Team "B" has not addressed itself to substantive national
intelligence issues other than Soviet strategic objectives. Should
similarly critical issues arise -- e.g., with regard to China or the
Middle East -- the above recommended processes could help to ensure.
objective intelligence support to top policy makers.
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