ESTIMATE OF REACTIONS TO VARYING DEGREES OF US MILITARY COMMITMENT AND ACTIVITY IN THE NEAR EAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79S01011A000400010002-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 10, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 1, 1951
• Content Type: IR

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IQE, No. 17 Copy Noe
ESTIMATE OF REACTIONS TO VARYING DEGREES OE US
MIt.,ITARY COMMITMENT AND'ACTIVITY IN THE NEAR EAST
An Intelligence Estimate
Prepared by
The Estimates Group
Office of Intelligence Research
This is as Intelligence Report;
nothing in it I$ to be construed
as a statement of US or Depart-.
mental policy or a recommerdation
of 9ny given policy.
May is 1951
DEPARTMENT OF.. STATE .
State Dept. declassification & release instructions on file
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THE PROBLEM
o estimate foreign reactions to:
(A) an explicit US commitment to defend `t`urkey and Greece;
(b) subsequent US programs to build' up military strength in
Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean, area,
CONCLUSIONS
2. The Soviet Union would react to a US commitment to defend Turkey
and Greece by exerting increased pressure, through measures short
of wars, upon the countries of the Near East,
The Soviet reaction to subsequent US military programs in
this area would depend on the scope of these programs; There is a
real Possibility that the Kremlin would responcl to US initiation of
a large-scale military program, particularly one whose completion
threatened to deny Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean area to
the Soviet Union in time of war, by undertaking preventive military
action against this area.
S. Turkey would react to the receipt of a US sacurity guarantee by
allowing the US to carry out any desired program for using or con-
structing bases in Turkey. Greece's present pro-Western policy
would not be affected by the receipt of such a gvuimtee or by US
military programs in this area. Reactions in other foreign countries
to any of the contingencies envisaged in this paper would not be
decisive.
I DISCUSSION
4. A s tion A: Extension of a US commitment to defend Turkey
and Greece agamat aggression:
(a) Basic Soviet policy would not be affected by this US action,
since a de facto US commitment to defend Turkey and Greece is probably
already considered to exist by the Kremlin, This US action would,
bowiever, bring on an intensification of Soviet propagr,, diplomatic
pressure, and subversive activity in the Eastern Mediterranean area,
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If the Kremlin does not consider that present US and NATO
military plans already portend such a decisive mobilization, however,
it would be unlikely to consider that they had been rendered decisive
by a continuation of the present US program of building a few ? air
bases in the ? Near East. The Soviet Union probably discounts, to
some extent, the value of scattered US Installations in an area that
it presumably expects to conquer soon after the start of general war.
Since that conquest could not be instantaneous, however, initiation
of a new and expanded US air base program might represent a sig-
nificant potential addition to Western capabilities in the view of the
Kremlin, and so might bring these pro; ected capabilities somewhat
closer to the point at which prevention of their realization would
seem to warrant Soviet military action. In other words, if the Soviet
Union were already close to a decision in favor of war, a new and
expanded air base program might be one factor in hastening that
decision.
A much more serious view would, however, be taken by the
Kremlin if the US tried to build up enodgh strength in and around
Turkey to threaten the present Soviet capability of over-running
this area in time of war, The Kremlin might feel that present
Western mobilization plans, even if not decisive by themselvesg would
be rendered decisive if they were accompanied-by a program whose
completion would enable the US0 in time of war, to maintain control
of an area of the Eurasian land mass from which strong land attacks
on the Soviet bloc might eventually be launched, The Kremlin may
well consider that Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean. represent
such an area, and so may feel bound to undertake, military action to
prevent the completion of any military program which threatens
to deny this area to the Soviet Union in a general warn
(b) The reaction in Greece and Turkey to a US program of
building up military stre is a Eastern Mediterranean would be
favorable. These countries are less afraid of a general war ear se
than ixf being the individual objects of a Soviet attack which the US
might not resist with all the force at its, command,,
(c) Yu oslavia would welcome a. US program of building up
militancy strength in the Eastern Mediterraman, since this program,
without directly and provocatively focusing Soviet attention on Yugo-
slavia, would enhance the Western, ability to aid Yugoslavia if that
country were attacked,
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(d) The Western European reaction would be ambivra.lent.
Those Europe n a ements w ch. favor meeting Soviet pressure with
Western strength would be encouraged, while those which fear the
provocation that such strength offers to the Soviet Union would be
frightened. If the US military program were on a relatively small
scales the first reaction would probably predominate." If, however,
the US program represented a major military effort, which obviously
greatly alarmed the Soviet Union, the second reaction would be
quite signuica t
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