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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP94B00280R000700020008-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 10, 2011
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: April 22, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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?
CIA Is Skeptical that New Soviet Radar
Is Part of an ABM Defense System
U.S. and British intelligence experts question Administration charges that the radar
under construction in Krasnoyarsk may be part of a Soviet missile defense.
U ntil recently, Krasnoyarsk did not
make a lot of news. A stopping off
point on the Trans-Siberian Railroad,
Krasnoyarsk lies some 2,100 miles east of
Moscow and is the birthplace of Soviet
leader Konstantin U. Chernenko. But
among defense experts, Krasnoyarsk is
well known for the phased-array radar
which is under construction near the city.
That radar has become exhibit A for
Administration hard-liners who have
charged that the Soviet Union may be
moving to a nationwide antiballistic mis-
sile system in violation of the ABM
treaty.
Citing the radar and other alleged vi-
olations of the ABM treaty, the White
House, in its Feb. I unclassified report on
Soviet "noncompliance" with the treaty,
noted that "the aggregate of the Soviet
Union's ABM and ABM-related actions
suggest that the USSR may be preparing
an ABM defense of its national terri-
tory."
"The Krasnoyarsk radar is very appro-
priately located for ballistic missile de-
fense," Richard N. Perle, assistant De-
fense secretary for international security
policy, told the Senate Armed Services
Committee last year. In addition to pro-
viding the capability to provide early
warning of a U.S. attack, Perle said, the
radar may have "capabilities for ABM
battle management functions."
Moscow has been violating the ABM
Treaty by "constructing a major ABM
radar at Krasnoyarsk" the Heritage
Foundation charged in its 1984 Mandate
for Leadership.
But the U.S. intelligence community,
significantly, has described the radar in
less than ominous terms. A classified
1984 assessment entitled "Implications
of a New Soviet Phased-Array Radar,"
which was drafted by the Central Intelli-
gence Agency (CIA) and coordinated
within the intelligence community, has
determined that the Krasnoyarsk in-
stallation is "not well designed" to
serve as an antiballistic missile ra-
dar. The report, whose existence
has not been previously reported,
was circulated throughout the
Reagan Administration last
summer and is based on in-
formation gathered prior to
last May 1. It is consistent
with other other intelligence
judgments, according to
Reagan Administration of-
ficials and congressional
officials who have re-
viewed the assessments.
"The intelligence
community is in basic
agreement that when
the radar is opera-
tional, it will not be
optimized for an
The phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk is like this U.S. Pave Paws radar.
NATIONAL .IOURNAL 3/9/85
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Not the Only Case
The Krasnoyarsk radar installation is not the only piece of evidence for the
White House's contention that the Soviet Union "may be preparing an ABM
[antiballistic missile] defense of its national territory." In fact, the radar in
Siberia is but one of three specific Soviet activities cited by the Reagan
Administration in an unclassified report made public to buttress its claim,
and other evidence is cited in the classified version of the report. But a review
of the charges shows that in one case, progress has been made toward
resolving some concerns. In the others, the evidence is not clear-cut.
In addition to the Krasnoyarsk radar, the White House charge is based on
the complaint that the Soviet Union may have violated the ABM treaty
through tests of its air defense radars in an "ABM mode" by turning on the
radars at the same time it was carrying out permissible ABM tests at a
central Asian range near the Chinese border. Such a practice might allow the
Soviets to give their air defense radars the capability to guide interceptor
missiles against incoming warheads. This, in turn, would permit it to
circumvent the ABM treaty, which restricts each side to defense of a single
site and places no restriction on the location or number of air defense radars.
Officials say that U.S. and Soviet representatives at the Standing Consul-
tative Commission, set up to monitor compliance issues, worked out an
understanding to guard against such "concurrent" operations. But building
on a 1978 diplomatic statement banning concurrent tests, U.S. and Soviet
representatives in 1982 provided for exceptions: The Soviets would be
allowed to turn their air defense radars on during an ABM test if an
unidentified aircraft was detected, for example. The Soviet ABM test range
is close to the border with China. Under the understanding, the Soviet Union
would have had to notify the commission at the next twice-yearly meeting
that it operated the radar during an ABM test.
That negotiated procedure was questioned by the Office of the Defense
Secretary, which charged that it gave the Soviet Union a loophole. An
official said the office argued that notification should occur within 10 days,
but the Soviets questioned the change in the understanding.
As it turned out, the Soviet downing of the South Korean airliner in
September 1983 blocked consummation of the understanding. After that
incident, U.S. representatives initially indicated that the United States was
not prepared to sign the agreement but gave no season why. More recently,
they took the position that notification should be given at the next commis-
sion meeting or within 30 days. The issue may be taken up at the commission
meeting this month.
Another case the Administration has cited concerns evidence that Soviet
Union may have developed a mobile land-based ABM system or components
of it. This case turns in part on a dispute over the "flat twin," an engagement
radar that sources say could be moved and made operational over a period of
weeks or months. The treaty bans mobile components. The Defense Depart-
ment took an accusatory approach and the State Department stressed the
ambiguous nature of the charge and questioned whether the transportable
nature of the radar meant it was mobile under the treaty's terms.
A third case cited by the Administration concerns the SA-12, a Soviet
surface-to-air missile. Administration hard-liners have suggested that the
Soviet Union may be trying to give the missile the capability to shoat down
warheads carried by intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Soviet Union has never tested the SA-12 against a reentry vehicle
carried by an intercontinental missile. But sources say the system has been
tested against the Scaleboard, a short-range Soviet ballistic missile, which
some hard-liners say follows a similar flight trajectory to that of older sea-
launched ballistic missiles. As a result, they contend, the Soviets have
breached the ABM treaty by testing in an "ABM mode."
But State Department officials have maintained that there is a qualitative
difference between a test against an intercontinental reentry vehicle and one
carried by a short-range missile, noting that the treaty allows tests against
short-range tactical missiles. They also have argued that U.S. submarine
missiles have a much longer range than the older missiles and that their
warheads would enter the atmosphere with a greater velocity.
524 NATIONAL JOURNAL 3/9/85
ABM role," said an Administration offi-
cial familiar with the intelligence assess-
ments. One reason for the judgment, the
official said, is that the radar "does not
cover the path of incoming U.S. ICBMs
[intercontinental ballistic missiles] be-
cause it is too far east and is pointing in
the wrong direction." (See map, p. 526.)
This has led U.S. officials to conclude
that the facility is an early-warning radar,
whose primary function is to provide
early warning of a missile attack, and not
an ABM battle management radar,
which tracks warheads as they re-enter
the atmosphere and guides interceptor
missiles toward the warheads.
Administration officials familiar with
this and other intelligence assessments
also say that the radar operates at the
wrong frequency to be a battle manage-
ment radar and that the frequency at
which it operates makes it more vulner-
able to the "blackout" effect of a nuclear
detonation-that is, the disruptive effects
of nuclear explosives on sensitive radars.
They also say the face of the radar is not
at the optimal angle to perform a battle
management function and it is not "hard-
ened," as battle management radars are.
They also note that it is not defended by
interceptor missiles and that there are no
interceptor missiles, associated radars or
other ABM-related items near the facil-
i ty.
British intelligence experts have also
taken a less alarmist view of the new
Soviet radar and have concluded that it is
"unlikely" that it can serve in an ABM
battle management role. That judgment
is contained in a Jan. 25 report of the
Cabinet Joint Intelligence Commmittee,
entitled "Soviet Union: the Abalakovo
Radar." (Abalakovo is a small town near
Krasnoyarsk where the new radar is lo-
cated.)
That report, which is currently cir-
culating within the Administration and
which draws on the CIA assessment, has
also not been previously reported. Al-
though the British report suggests that
the facility functions as an early-warning
radar, it also found "plausible" Soviet
assertions that the radar will also be used
for space tracking purposes given projec-
tions of manned Soviet space flights in
the late 1980s and 1990s.
These intelligence reports do not mean
that the Soviet Union may not have vio-
lated technical provisions of the ABM
treaty that pertain to the location of new
phased-array radars, which are techni-
cally superior to older radars. Even if the
radar is designed to serve as an early-
warning alert to Soviet military leaders of
a U.S. attack and does not-as the U.S.
intelligence reports suggest-have impor-
tant ABM battle management capability,
its placement at Krasnoyarsk would
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10
breach important provisions of the agree-
ment, which is still legally in force.
But the intelligence reports suggest
that the nature of the alleged violation,
while serious, may have been exagger-
ated by some defense hard-liners.
COMPLIANCE OR NOT
The issue of Soviet compliance has
long been a battleground for moderates
and hard-liners, who still remain sharply
split over arms control issues.
The drafting of the recent White
House report on Soviet "noncompliance"
revealed important differences, particu-
larly between the Defense and State De-
partments, on ABM and other compli-
ance issues. (See box, p. 524.)
State and Defense Department offi-
cials, differ, for example, over whether
Soviet SS-16 missiles have been deployed
at the Plesetsk test range in violation of
the unratified second Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty (SALT II). The State
Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
have noted the ambiguous nature of the
evidence at hand, while civilian Pentagon
officials have taken a harder line, an
official reported. The White House re-
port noted that the evidence was "some-
what ambiguous" but called it a "proba-
ble violation."
But Krasnoyarsk is different. It repre-
sents one of the few cases in whicn both
Administration moderates and hard-lin-
ers have charged the Soviet Union with a
violation of the ABM treaty-the issue in
dispute being the military significance of
the violation.
The Krasnoyarsk radar came to the
attention of Administration policy mak-
ers in 1983, according to Perle. And offi-
cials quickly came to the judgment that
the radar was almostly certainly a viola-
tion of the ABM treaty-a conclusion
based on its location at Krasnoyarsk, in
central Siberia, and on the direction that
the radar is aimed.
The treaty allows each side to defend a
single site with a battle management ra-
dar and 100 interceptor missiles. The
Soviet Union has chosen to defend Mos-
cow with two ABM radars and 24 smaller
radars. Also under construction is the
four-sided Pushkino ABM radar, an im-
mense structure that the Pentagon says is
120 feet high and 500 feet wide. The
United States at one time had maintained
a similar though smaller four-sided
phased-array radar near its Minuteman
ICBM fields at Grand Forks, N.D., but
had determined that such an ABM ca-
pability could be too easily countered; it
no longer has an active ABM facility.
Although the treaty allows the defense
of a single site, it seeks to block construc-
tion of other ABM battle management
radars while not prohibiting the building
of all phased-array radars, which can be
also used for early warning of attack,
arms control verification and space track-
ing. To this end, the treaty maintains that
early-warning phased-array radars must
be placed on the peripheries of U.S. and
Soviet territories, where they are not
close to missile fields that they could
protect and where they are more vulner-
able to attack. In addition, they must be
oriented outward. This stipulation re-
duces the radars' ability to play an ABM
battle management role.
But the treaty permits large phased-
array radars used primarily for space
tracking or verification to be located any-
where. Complicating the issue is the fact
that such radars can sometimes serve
several purposes. U.S. Pave Paws early-
ance issue," said Sidney D. Drell, deputy
director of the Stanford Linear Accelera-
tor Center at Stanford University, who
added that he did not find very persuasive
the Soviet argument that the radar is
intended for space tracking.
U.S. officials, however, acknowledge
that the British intelligence community
has attached more credence to the Soviet
assertions that the radar can perform a
space tracking role.
Unlike the
Administration, the U.S.
intelligence community
has described the Soviet
radar in Siberia in less
than ominous terms.
warning radars are also used for space
tracking.
The Krasnoyarsk radar is located some
500 miles from the Soviet border with
Mongolia, and its single face is directed
cast across 6,000 miles of Soviet territory
toward the northern Pacific.
U.S. representatives have asked the
Soviets to stop construction of the radar
pending resolution of the issue-a re-
quest conveyed at confidential meetings
of the Standing Consultative Commis-
sion, established by the SALT I and
SALT I I accords to deal with compliance
issues. The Soviet Union has maintained
that the facility is for space tracking and
verification, which would make the radar
permissible under the ABM treaty.
But this argument is largely discounted
by the Administration, which has main-
tained that the radar may have some
space tracking capabilities but was de-
signed primarily for other purposes. "You
don't need to build something several
football fields large" to provide that ca-
pability, said a senior Administration of-
ficial. "It is clear that is not designed for
that because the screen of the radar is not
most propitious for space tracking."
Significantly, some arms control ex-
perts who have been highly critical of the
Administration's policies consider the ra-
dar to be a probable violation of the ABM
accord. "It looks like a serious compli-
EARLY WARNING?
But if the radar is not for space track-
ing, what is its military significance?
Reviewing the list of allegations in the
Administration's latest report on Soviet
"noncompliance," Kenneth L. Adelman,
director of the Arms Control and Disar-
mament Agency, said in an interview,
"You could say that none of these viola-
tions in and of themselves have immedi-
ate and profound military significance."
Adelman compared the alleged viola-
tions to "a taxpayer violating income tax
laws. Even though the failure of a single
taxpayer to pay may have no monetary
significance for reducing the deficit, the
failure to prosecute tax evaders will lead
to a breakdown of the tax system."
But a senior official argued that the
Krasnoyarsk radar has ABM "potential"
because it is near Soviet missile fields,
specifically SS-18 missiles.
Moreover, the Administration, in the
classified version of last year's report to
Congress on Soviet "noncompliance,"
gave some credence to theories that the
radar could be used for ABM battle man-
agement. It noted that the location of the
radar at Krasnoyarsk made it "more ap-
propriate" for ABM purposes than for
early warning of a U.S. attack. By plac-
ing the radar in central Siberia instead of
on the periphery of Soviet territory, the
report stated, the Soviets had sacrificed
about six minutes of warning time.
But the report also noted that while
Krasnoyarsk and five other large phased-
array radars "probably have the size and
the power to perform a battle manage-
ment support role, we cannot ascertain
whether they have the necessary data-
processing capacity, and uncertainties re-
main about their actual performance
characteristics."
But now some Administration officials
familiar with intelligence on the radar
have expressed a much more benign in-
terpretation and maintain that the facil-
ity is an early-warning radar designed to
plug a gap in Soviet radar coverage. They
note that the radar has a single face,
unlike the four-sided battle management
radar near Moscow, and looks only to-
ward the northern Pacific, from which
U.S. Trident submarines could fire mis-
siles at the Soviet Union.
NATIONAL JOURNAL 3/9/85 525
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The Soviet radar at Krasnoyarsk faces east toward the northern Pacific.
According to this argument, the Soviet
Union could have filled the gap in its
radar coverage by building two or more
radars nearer the periphery of its terri-
tory. But it elected not to do so to save
funds and to avoid having to construct the
radars in an inhospitable and relatively
inaccessible region of Siberia.
A congressional expert who has access
to intelligence reports said: "What it does
is fill a gap left in the north Pacific. One
can speculate that part of the problem
was that they did not want to build two
instead of one in a miserable location. If
they had spent a few more bucks, they
could have built the facilities and have
been fully in compliance. In form, fit and
function, the Krasnoyarsk radar is essen-
tially the same as other early-warning
radars. They would need a different type
of radar to handle the engagement phase
of an attack."
Expressing this interpretation is the
CIA-prepared report on the Soviet facil-
ity. It notes that the Krasnoyarsk radar
does not provide coverage of the "ICBM
attack corridor," according to an Admin-
istration official familiar with the report.
In a nuclear conflict, Minuteman or MX
missiles would fly over the North Pole
and attack Soviet missile silos from the
North. So the Krasnoyarsk radar would
be better suited as an ABM system if it
were located further to the West and
were facing the attacking missiles.
The British intelligence report found it
was "unlikely" that the radar would serve
as the basis of an ABM system. It said
that such a system would be extremely
vulnerable to the blackout effects of nu-
clear detonations-an argument also
made in the CIA report. The British
report also noted that there were no inter-
ceptor missiles near the facility or any
infrastructure near the facility that would
imply an emerging ABM capability-a
point reaffirmed by U.S. officials.
An Administration official said that
the lower frequencies of the Krasnoyarsk
radar will make it better for target detec-
tion at great distances but not as good as
higher-frequency ABM radars for mak-
ing precise predictions about where war-
heads will land.
The argument that the Krasnoyarsk
radar is intended for early warning is also
supported in an analysis by the U.S. intel-
ligence community of the low angle at
which the radar's face is placed. "If you
try to maximize the detection range, you
have to point the face of the radar pretty
close to the horizon to compensate for the
spherical nature of the earth. But if you
are in the engagement mode, looking
close to the horizon is not going to help
you with RVs [warheads] coming in at an
angle of 35 and 30 degrees," said a con-
gressional source.
In addition, some officials,have ques-
tioned whether the Soviets obliquely tried
to signal their intention to build a new
early-warning facility.
Some who argue that the Soviets may
have tried point to classified proceedings
of the Standing Consultative Commis-
sion. In an Oct. 23, 1981, session, the
Soviet representative responded to U.S.
concerns about the location of other So-
viet phased-array radars by insisting that
they were consistent with the treaty and
that the placement of the radars also had
to take account of "technical and practi-
cal considerations involved in their place-
ment," an assertion repeated in 1982.
526 NATIONAL JOURNAL 3/9/85
"Some people in retrospect think that
they [Soviet representatives] made state-
ments in the [Standing Consultative
Commission] that might have been an
explanation for what was coming up. But
it was very abstract and does not fit with
the actual radar," said a senior Adminis-
tration official.
Some Pentagon officials concede that
the Krasnoyarsk installation is an early-
warning radar and not an ABM battle
management radar but say that it is still
troubling from a military point of view.
"It may be an early-warning radar in the
wrong place," said an official. "But its
placement allows the Soviets more time
to track the RVs for several more minutes
than if it was on the periphery. It might
be able to hand off information to an
engagement radar."
Former Defense Secretary Harold
Brown, in a Feb. 28 talk at the Johns
Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, said the facility
was "an early-warning radar that is lo-
cated in the wrong place. I do not think
that is is a great threat to U.S. security
because I do not think that it has that
much capability."
THE TREATYS FUTURE
Still, establishing that the Krasnoyarsk
facility is an early-warning radar does not
let the Soviet Union off the hook because
it would still constitute a technical viola-
tion of the treaty.
Turning a blind eye to the radar, U.S.
officials say, would set a dangerous
precedent that would allow construction
of radars that are more worrisome. It
could also encourage a process whereby
each nation chips away at the ABM
treaty and searches for ingenious loop-
holes.
The Soviet Union has already charged
the United States with some breaches of
the treaty for planning to build two Pave
Paws early-warning radars in Texas and
Georgia. The systems are oriented out-
ward and are designed to provide warning
of a submarine missile attack. John B.
Rhinelander, one of the U.S. drafters of
the ABM treaty, argues that the radars'
240-degree coverage means that they will
span U.S. territory and raises the issue of
whether they are a technical violation or
might be seen by the Soviets as ABM-
related.
"I worry that rather than a deliberate
abrogation of the treaty, the treaty might
stop being observed on the two sides,"
Brown said. "Each side may go further
and further over the edge and make its
own interpretations, and after a while you
would have a meaningless piece of Paper-
I do not think that is what the Adminis-
tration intends to happen, but it could
happen." O
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