WHAT ROLE SHOULD INTELLIGENCE PLAY IN US-SOVIET NET ASSESSMENTS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00171R000500210002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2003
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 15, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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THE DIRECTOR OF CENTP/AL INTFLLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, U. C. 20505
National Intelligence Officers
SP - 69/77
15 March 1977
MEMORANDU;M'FOR: Recipients of Reference
FROM: National Intelligence OFficer for Strategic Programs
SUBJECT: What Role Should Intelligence Play in US-Soviet Net
Assessments?
REFERENCE: NIO/SP Memorandum for Admiral Turner, SP-54/77, dated
7 March 1977, same subject
1. This is to' i nform you that the DCI has responded to the refer: ncpd
memorandum by annotating the original, to the effect that as a practical
matter he favors Intelligence conducting US-Soviet assessments of the types
described in paragraphs 4a and 4b on the basis of its own indcpindent efforts.
As you may recall, paragraph IIa describes one on-one analyses or US arlcl
Soviet weapon systems as well as net assessments of US and Soviet rechnnlogicil
capabilities of various kinds. Paragraph lb describes force inter?actirn anal
ses, including both those which are limited to a single function (e.g., the
capabilities of the Soviet ICBM force to destroy US Minuteman silos) and those
which evaluate the overall capabilities of a major force component (e.g., the
capabilities of the Soviet air defense system to degrade a mixed US rate1ia.o:y
force of bombers, SRAMs and cruise missiles).
2. The DCI's annotation further states that with regard to the more
comprehensive net assessments of the overall US-Soviet military balance and
the total US-Soviet correlation of military and non-military aspects of national
power, as described in paragraphs 4c and 4d of the referenced memorandum, he
favors continuing the support for a national net assessment capability in which
Intelligence would participate, as expressed earlier bVjr. Bush.
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THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
National Intelligence Officers
SP - 54/77
7 March 1977
MEMORANDUM FOR: Admiral Turner
THROUGH: Deputy to the DCI for National Intelligence
FROM: National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs
SUBJECT: What Role Should Intelligence Play in US-Soviet Net
Assessments?
Summary
This memorandum responds to your request for comments on the conduct of
US-Soviet net assessments by the Intelligence Community. It distinguishes
among types of net assessments, which can range from simple one-on-one
analyses of weapon systems to comprehensive assessments of the US-Soviet
military balance and even of the total US-Soviet "correlation of forces,"
both military and non-military. It reports the mixed reaction ;ihich
consumers have had to the limited net assessments which have appeared in
NIEs and other intelligence issuances. In paragraph 8, it discusses the
pros and cons of focusing the management of national net assessments in the
Intelligence Community. Finally, noting Mr. Bush's position that the DCI
should support the establishment of a national-level net assessment mechanism,
it recommends that you support the procedures the NSC has adopted for conduct-
ing net assessments in PRM-1O, but warns tha , extensive intelligence support
for such studies will further tax our already-strained analytical resources.
Background
1. National Intelligence Estimates and single-agency intelligence studies
have often made comprehensive net assessments of the relative capabilities of
various pairs and groups of third countries, such as India and Pakistan, North
and South Korea, Greece and Turkey, and the Middle Eastern countries. In
these studies, the military and sometimes other aspects of the local balances
NOTE: This memorandum has been coordinated with the NIOs for the USSR and
Conventional Forces, and with representatives of the Directorate of Intelligence
and the Intelligence Community Staff.
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SUBJECT: What Role Should Intelligence Play in US-Soviet Net Assessments?
have been set forth very explicitly, the options available to both sides have
been examined, and in some cases future balances as much as five years ahead
have been forecast. Such net assessments, which do not involve US capabilities
and options, are widely regarded as useful and proper Intelligence undertakings.
With respect to intelligence issuances on the USSR, there has been a trend
toward making more detailed net assessments about some aspects of US and Soviet
military forces, but the evolution has not proceeded as far as making explicit,
comprehensive net assessments to measure such things as the overall US-Soviet
military balance. Both philosophical and practical questions-have been raised
about the extent to which Intelligence should conduct US-Soviet net assessments.
2. For the most part, limited US-Soviet net assessments have been conducted
by Intelligence in order to assist us in evaluating Soviet objectives and percep-
tions and predicting the trends in Soviet forces and their capabilities. To
make these judgments, we have had to be cognizant of the US forces and capabilities
against which the Soviets are competing. During the 1950s and 1960s, our
cognizance of the US side was largely implicit in our estimates about Soviet
forces, but recently it has been made more explicit, particularly in NIEs on
Soviet strategic forces. Partly this has been a response to Nixon Administration
demands that NIEs contain much more detail about the evidential and analytical
bases of our judgments. Partly it has resulted from recognition by intelligence
officers that an understanding of the implications of Soviet forces requires at
least some net assessment; projections of Soviet forces tend to be sterile
unless the reader of an estimate is also in armed about how the trends would
affect Soviet capabilities against the USSR's primary adversary, the US. Partly
it is because a growing number of questions put to Intelligence by the Congress
are about comparative US-Soviet capabilities.
3. The reaction to more explicit US-Soviet net assessments in Intelligence
studies has been mixed. Dr. Schlesinger, who was responsible for setting up a
small Strategic Evaluation Center in CIA to perform net assessments and related
studies, continued to encourage this aspect of CIA's work when he was Secretary
of Defense, although for practical reasons he counselled against getting into
what he called the "farther reaches of wargaming." Congressional pressures
for Intelligence to do US-Soviet net assessments have mounted, although precisely
what Congress has in mind is not clear. On the other hand the PFIAB, in
commenting on the NIEs of 1974 and 1975, criticized us for making judgments
about the future strategic balance which gave the appearance of comprehensive
net assessments when in truth the Blue side aspects had been explored only
partially and inadequately. I I"B" Team levied the same charge last
year. Also last year, the Air Force in elligence chief dissented from part of
NIE 11-3/8-76 on the grounds that the limited analysis of the interaction of US
and Soviet offensive forces which it contained was oversimplified and therefore
misleading.
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SUBJECT: What Role Should Intelligence Play in US-Soviet Net Assessments?
What Intelligence Has Done
4. US-Soviet net assessments can take a number of different forms,
depending on their comprehensiveness, complexity and purpose. While they can
be categorized in different ways, inevitably with some overlap, the following
are representative types of net assessments which can be made about the US
and USSR:
a. One-on-one analyses of weapon systems. An example is the range
at which a certain Soviet SAM could engage a B-52. Such assessments are
used to judge Soviet weapons capabilities in the real world, and to
predict Soviet technical requirements. We also regularly make net
technical assessments, i.e., comparisons of Soviet and US capabilities
in a wide variety of technologies.
b. Force interaction analyses. These can be limited to a single
function or can extend to the overall capabilities of a major force
component. For example, the capabilities of the Soviet ICBM force to
destroy US Minuteman silos is a limited force interaction analysis. More
extensive interaction analyses would include, for example, the capabilities
of the entire Soviet air defense system to degrade a mixed US retaliatory
force of bombers, SRAMs, and cruise missiles. Force interaction analyses
are often highly dependent on tactical and operational details of US and
Soviet planning and execution. They are more readily done for strategic
force components than for conventional forces, because the latter are
more complicated, involve broader geographic considerations, and can be
affected by the forces and actions of Allies and adherents on both sides.
c. Comprehensive assessments of the US-Soviet military balance. For
example, the relative capabilities of the two sides to damage each other
in full-scale or limited intercontinental nuclear war ten years hence.
Such analyses are highly dependent on scenarios for war initiation and
prosecution, and are also highly dependent on what each side does in the
intervening years. A fully integrated and explicit analysis of all
military forces, missions, and objectives on both sides would severely
tax the capacity of any single study or study group.
d. Comprehensive assessments of the total "correlation of forces,"
including all military and non-military aspects of national p-,tier. These
are highly judgmental and dependent on perceptions on both sides. Like
category (c) above, they could be monumental in scope and could be even
more taxing.
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5. Informed judgments in all four of these categories are necessary in
making intelligence estimates on matters involving the US and the USSR, but
assessments tend to be done less rigorously and less explicitly as we go up
the scale from (a) to (d). In most such "netting," implicit or explicit,
the objective of Intelligence has been to evaluate Soviet rather than US
options and to articulate Soviet rather than US abilities to carry out
national or military objectives. In all cases, the US-Soviet net assessments
which have been made explicit in NIEs and CIA studies have been relatively
simple and limited in nature. We have attempted in such assessments to
illustrate the significance of trends in Soviet capabilities by studying force
performance under tightly-constrained conditions which minimized the variables
and did not necessarily reflect the results of an actual two-sided conflict.
We have tended to avoid exploring alternative US options, because that would
have intruded us into the policymaking field. We have been unable to conduct
extended force interaction analyses in areas where the results would be highly
dependent on US operational plans and tactics, because of our limited expertise
and in some cases because we lacked access to the data.
'6. Intelligence continues to participate by invitation in a variety of
US-Soviet net assessments conducted by the DoD. CIA is actively involved in
a current net assessment of command, control and communications, DIA has
recently been participating in studies of US bomber and ASPS options, and the
DCI was represented in the NSSM 246 review of US defense posture last year.
The office of the Secretary of Defense has the responsibility for national not
assessments; its work includes, for example, the c3 study referred to above.
In general, however, the DoD approach to net assessments has become fragmented
since the departure of Hitch and Enthoven from the Pentagon. There has been
no active, NSC-level net assessment machinery for many years.
Pros and Cons of Greater Intelligence Involvement
7. A related issue is whether Intelligence should seek to conduct more
comprehensive, explicit net assessments of the US-Soviet balance to assist
it in performing its intelligence mission, or to provide a service of common
concern to the Government as a whole, or both. That there is a need for some
better mechanism for conducting such assessments seems clear from the diffi-
culties we have had with NIEs in the past fees years and from the difficulties
the DoD had in the NSSM 246 study last fall. The Carter Administration's
initiative in promptly beginning a new PRM-10 on both the military and the
overall US-Soviet balance may effectively meet this need, but it is quite
possible that this PRM will suffer from the absence of an established,
functioning mechanism for net assessment.
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8. The advantages of focussing the management of net assessments in
Intelligence would be:
a. Such assessments, if conductel by CIA, would be regarded by many
consumers as having been conducted by Drofessionals who have no particular
policy preference as to the outcome, or as to the US courses of action
the assessments might imply.
b. The conduct of such assessments would enable Intelligence to
respond more confidently and professionally to the kinds of questions
that are being asked increasingly by consumers.
The principal disadvantages would be:
a. By conducting comprehensive net assessments, Intelligence would
be seen by some to be intruding into the policymaking process by evaluating
US options rather than sticking to the business of foreign intelligence
analysis.
b. A major effort in this field by Intelligence would present
difficulties of execution because of problems of access to the necessary
resources and expertise, and in some cases because of lack of access to
US operational data.
c. While some consumers would have confidence in the objectivity of
Intelligence, others would not. The effect could be to introduce additional
controversy into intelligence estimating, with a damaging spillover into
areas of analysis not involving net assessments.
9. At the very end of his tenure as DCI, Mr. Bush addressed the question
of comprehensive US-Soviet net assessments in a memorandum to the PFIAB. He
was responding to the 0 Team critique of intelligence estimates, and
reflecting as well a survey of national foreign intelligence production which
had been compiled by the IC Staff. Bush said he would object to assigning to
Intelligence the responsibility for full net assessments of the US-Soviet
strategic balance or of the balance in other, situations involving US and
foreign forces. He believed that such an arrangement would give excessive
responsibility to Intelligence and would be unlikely to promote the cooperation
of policymaking departments whose participation would be essential. However,
Bush said he hoped his successor would encourage officials of the new
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Administration to identify a national net assessment mechanism--perhaps at
the NSC Staff level--and would pledge the Intelligence Community to cooperate
by providing the intelligence data and insights necessary for its operation.
10. Regardless of the management focus, a more active, continuing
mechanism for comprehensive net assessments in the Government would require
extensive Intelligence participation, and this participation should he a
responsibility of the DCI. In this way any net assessments would include the
best available Red side data, would reflect the uncertainties and differences
about such data that had been surfaced within the Intelligence Community, and
would include judgments about Soviet perceptions and objectives as estimated
by CIA as well as the service intelligence agencies. Active participation by
Intelligence in net assessments would also enable Intelligence better to
appreciate the US side of the equation, and hence to identify the Soviet
options which are most significant to US security interests. It should be
noted, however, that requirements for intelligence support to an expanded
national net assessments program would put still greater demands on our limited
analytical resources, which are already strained.
11. Meanwhile, the management focus which the NSC has selected for the
net assessments in PRM-10 should be given a chance. The plan for this PRM
involves the active participation of Intelligence via DCI representation,
management of the purely military aspects of the assessments by DoD, management
of the broader "correlation of forces" assessments by the NSC Staff, and overall
review responsibility by the NSC itself. Throughout this process, we should be
looking for lessons on how to put this apprcach on an effective and durable
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