NOTE FOR:(SANITIZED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00171R001200210006-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 14, 2001
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 27, 1977
• Content Type: NOTES

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27 January 1977
1. I would like to give you a few immediate reactions
to your comments on the "B" Team report, and perhaps more
later. As a starting point for our somewhat longer-term
effort to assess how well the Community is equipped to deal
with the whole problem of understanding the Soviet military
challenge in the future, and also because Admiral Murphy
has instructed us to do our own audit of the "B"Team's
charges, we too have surveyed the record. On the whole, we
seem to be coming out with the same kinds of judgments you
reached. The balance and sobriety of your assessment so
far is highly commendable. The rebuttal could probably be
more vigorous and still fair to the record .a
2. My vantage point on all this is less with who gets
the better of which, a y uiuent than with diagnosing and treat-
ing problems of performance. I am espec..ially concerned with
what the polemics around the "B" Team affair may obscure.
3. Take the matter of "soft data," for example. What,
for heaven's sake, is "soft data?" Clearly it includes Soviet
military literature, on which "B" Team opinions rest heavily.
It presumably includes clandestine and other human reporting
on Soviet perceptions, intent, doctrine, expectations, etc.
What about COMINT related to same? "B" Team asserts we are
willing to make judgments about intent by inference from
physical observations on programs rather than from sources
more directly pertinent to expressions of intent. But both
enterprises are very "soft" and require a lot of assumptions.
The "soft-hard" vocabulary is a childish way to talk about
the problem.
4. Nevertheless, I think the "B" Team has a point --
perhaps in a sense it does not realize. Recent estimates
have devoted a lot of paragraphs to issues involved in
understanding Soviet intent and motivation: military doctrine
and disputes, institutional pressures, economic constraints
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and options, foreign and military policy interactions,
perceptions of the West. We write words and pass, usu:.~11_,/
equivocal, judgments about these matters. But we do not
support them with analysis of sufficient depth, volume, and
rigor. Those who participate in developing these judgments,
from working group to NFIB, do not proceed from a common
appreciation of the documentary evidence and analytic base
that does exist. Perhaps worst of all, the more senior
estimates officers -- from GS-14s to NIOs -- do not have
the time to read and reflect on the high volume of pertinent
documents and analysis necessary to develop a good feel for
the subjective side of Soviet military affairs. The result
is that judgments about that side of things are generated in
more of a vacuum than need exist. The judgmental process
involved in passing on so-called "soft" issues with "soft"
data is necessarily subjective and intuitive. For that reason
we cannot afford to have it be as slap-dash and spotty as it
is.
5. The only solutions are really very simple, but not
comforting. We need more qualified Soviet area specialists
analyzing the relevant materials. And officers up the
pyramid of estimative authority must pare their responsibilities
to allow them to be much more intimate with those materials
and thoroughly versed in the analysis that results from them.
6. The "B" Team explicitly assumes that more attention
to documentary evidence bearing on Soviet intentions, e.g.,
military literature or internal propaganda on the "correlation
of forces," will support their more "somber" judgments. This
is not obvious and unlikely to be entirely true. They claim
to rest much on their reading of Soviet military literature.
But I am told that when they met with the "A" Team, they
simply dismissed our work on Soviet perceptions and on
controversy among Soviets about nuclear strategy.
7. When I counseled the "B" Team last September I
argued that, to have a constructive impact, they had to try
to grapple with some 12 key themes or issues bearing on
Soviet motives and perceptions (attached). They had not
only to state a judgment but present evidence as best they
could. They only dealt in the end with a few of those themes,
pontificating and polemicizing, rather than analyzing.
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8. I was particularly disappointed by their complete
failure to attempt defining some sort of operational theory
of strategic victory: An explicit scenario or sequence of
military events and expected consequences during a large-scale
nuclear war. The strenuous assertion that the Soviets are
out for strategic superiority and confident of getting it
requires articulation of such a theory. We have enough good
evidence to piece such a theory together for theater war in
Europe. We are in much poorer shape as to Soviet views on
a strategic exchange. But they have to have a model of
some sort. We have insight into pieces of it. And one can
put together a plausible, if not demonstrably valid, whole
theory. One can then run engagement analyses with the force
projections to get a crude feel for how well present and
future Soviet forces could implement the theory. Although
Nitze claims that his "net assessment" studies represent
this kind of analysis, they really do not; they are to
devoid of operational reality. And the "B" Team report is
completely devoid of this kind of thing.
9. What is the superiority the Soviets are out for, then?
How do the "B" Team feel about the recent force projections?
Do any of the force projections achieve superiority for the
Soviets? Or are ,11 the projections too low? Given the
scope of the "B" Team's assault on the NIEs, it is really un-
satisfying to find they gave no attention to the force
projections at all . . . but not surprising. Had they tried
to develop some view of the force projections, they would
have had to face the problem of the Soviet military planner:
How do you turn an appetite for superior military power into
the real thing?
10. The failure of the "B" Team to support their case
on what Soviet strategic policy is does not invalidate their
case. It may be right or wrong. With all the furor, the
real disappointment in their part of the drill is that they
helped so little in solving the problem. Alas, we still
have i_ t.
Attachment:
One-page "Key Themes" paper
-3-
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 Approved For Release 2007/10/23: CIA-RDP83M00171 R001200210006-5
SOVIET STI A'PEE "IC POLICY AND OBJECTIVES
KEY THEMES
Ends and Goals
1. Soviet purposes in world affairs
2. The total role of military power
3. The "correlation of forces"
4. Deterrence and warfighting
5. The Soviet theory of strategic victory
Means and Method
6. Principles of "military construction"
7. Evolutionary and revolutionary weapons
technology
8. Detente and SALT
Limits and Constraints
9. US competitiveness
10. The economic burden
11. Bureaucratic behavior
12. Political dispute
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