-· •· · ' ' l · ' 1' I IIEW CLAS IFICATION ·-· C f 0°0'NNCRAOf D OR ' · ·•·· I - -- t · · · ---••·•··-·····--··-·-····•- •• OCC LM 1r1t O f-i ICNA TUP E OF WITNC iS OCSTHOY P l D 0 I J i' f f Jt··· •rr Pt Jl Ml n u1 r Ii U'' ·_ _ ·_ _A _ _ _ _ ______ _ _______ ____ _____ O l ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ ___ r t c a·- i oru t $ Y V UOL or I 0 1' c IJ I I I'_ 0 1'1 1-ll Jl Vl I I• · DEPARTMENT OF STATE TOP SECRET With Attachment MEMORANDUM TO December 22 1967 U MG EUR - Mr Mr Mr Mr EA - Mr NEA INR - FROM SUBJECT S P G PH - Katzenbach Rostow Bohlen Leddy Bundy Mr Battle Mr Hughes ' Mt Owen ✓ Phil ip J Farley Gp- mic oJ f t_ •• l US-Soviet Mili ta ry Re la t·i nships Attached is a copy of the final report on the Foreign Policy Implications of Changing US-Soviet Military Relationships along with three working papers which were prepared in the course of the study by members of the study group I think you will find the rei ort and the attachments of interest I would welcome your comments I ' Attachment As stated ·' ' - ·l J ' V ' c t r C'i r• • 1 j j I I I• - '-·· c • I j 1 · G PN LSloss vl TOP SECRET With Attachment 'i TOP SECRET LIMITED DISTRIBU'rION A Study of US - Soviet Military Relationships 1957 - 1976 Foreign Policy Implications Department of Sta t e Staff Study December 18 1967 'fOP SECRET LIMITED DISTRlUllTION TOP SECRET CHANGING US-SOVIET STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIPS 1 A General Observation - An assessment of relative military capabilities is exceedingly complex £ ertain and controversial It is complex because so many variables enter into the assessment of military capabilities and because military technology is advancing so rapidly and Ot' so many fronts Even for the present many of_-1 i se variables are subject to wide ranges of estimates e g How hard are missile silos How accurate are missiles What is the actual operational reliability of weapons systems Intelligence estimates have not proven fully reliable in the past In the future the variations of these estimates may be even greater because it is inherently more difficult to obtain reliable information on qualitative changes of the type expected The present study confirms the fact that there are great and honest differences of opinion among knowledgeable experts particularly as to the future relationship of strategic forces The truth is elusive partly because our information cannot be complete and partly because the relevant indicators of military capab i lity depend on whnt ycu are trying to measure Unquestionably the same uncertainties exist for the Soviet Union Thus categorical statements including our own about strategic relations particularly projections more than five years into the future should be treated with considerable skepticism 2 Findings on the Strategic Balance - Details at TAB Ii a Dur inp the past· three years the Soviets have substantially increased their abilit y to damage the US in a nuclear exchange Our ability to limit damage to the US has been correspondingly reduced Their rapid buildup of hardened dispersed ICBMs has given them a deterrent in which they should have high confidence In a second strike we estimate they could i nflict two to four times more damage on the US tod y than they could in early 1965 80 - 100 million fataliti es as compared to 25-35 million The Soviet leaders certainly are aware that thei r situation has improved even though their detailed caJ culat i ons may differ from ours TOP SECRET · ' TOP SECRET CHANGING US-SOVIET STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIPS 1 A General Observation - An assessment of relative military capabilities is exceedingly complex uncertain and controversial It is complex because so many variables enter into the assessment of military capabilities and because military technology is advancing so r apidly and on so many fronts Even for t he present many of se variables are subject to wide ranges of estimates e g How hard are missile silos How accurate are missiles What is the actual operational reliability of weapons systems Intelligence estimates have not proven fully reliable in the past In the future the variations of these estimates may be even greater because it is inherently more difficult to obtain reliable information on qualitative changes of the type expected The present study confirms the fact that there are great and honest differences of opinion among knowledgeable experts particularly as to the future relationship of strategic forces The truth is elusive partly because our information cannot be complete and partly because the relr vant indicators of military capability depend on what you are trying to measure Unquestionably the same uncertainties exist for the Soviet Union Thus categorical statements including our own about strategic relations particularly projections more than five years into the future should be treated with consider able skepticism 2 Findings on the Strategic Balance - Details at TAB A a DurinR the past three years the Soviets have substantially increased their ability to dam ge the US in a nuclear exchan B _ Our ability to limit damage to the US has been correspondingly reduced Their rapid buildup of hardened dispersed IC13Ms has given them a deterrent in which they should have high confidence In a second strike we estim itc th1 y cot1lcl inflict two to four times more damage on the US tod iy than they could in early ·1 965 80-100 million fatalities ·as compared to 25-35 million The Soviet leade r s ce r tainly are 'lWat e that their situation has improved even though their clet a ilccl calcula t i ons ma y diffe1 from ours TOP SECRET TOP SECRE1' 2 b Percept i ons of the strategic balance are probably more significant in international relation· than the actual balance Our own pe rceptions of the balance may not have changed as markedly as the above facts suggest This is best assessed by our own l eadership However it should be noted that in the early 1960's we already had credited the Soviets with the ability to do substantial damage to the US and we foresaw the emergence of mutual deterrence by mid-decade On the other hand the Soviets undoubtedly had a feeling of strategic inferiority in the early 1960 1 s which must have declined today c Over the next decade we expect the Soviets to continue expansion of their strategic forces and even to surpass us in some categories of strat egic strength They will equal the US in the number of ICBM launchers deployed during the coming year and wil l probably continue to expand their force beyond 1000 missiles Severa 1 Soviet ICBMs with advanced · performance characteristics now are in development The USSR also will pass us in total intercontinental megatonnage in 1968 or 1969 They could equal or surpass us in nwnbers of POLARIS-type submarines in the mid- 1970 1 s They already have an ABM system in the Moscow area and it seems likely they will deploy ABMs more widely in the 1970's d These trends do not now jeopardize the US deter rent nor do they s eem likely to do so in the next five years or so We believe that the Secretary of Defense makes a pe rsuasive case that our deterrent will remain more than adequate even against quite unlikely increases in the threat However we should point out that some qualified military experts question this conclusion At present our principal mecin s of assuring deterrence into the 1970's is the MIRV program MIRVs will increase our total number of warheads from about 4000 today to 8000 in 1976 with the increase beginning in 1970 However between now and 1970 the Soviets could come close to parity in t otal intercontinenta 1 warheads e The Soviets also have been grciclually increasing the E 9 ach- £ their c ntional military forces In recent years they have developed forc es which while probably originally intended for the general ar mission now provide them with capab ilities for distant limited operations Specific Multiple indepenclcntly··targeted re-entry vehicles TOP SECRl T TOP SECRET 3 evidence of growing Soviet military reach includes greater worldwide naval activity particularly in the Mediterranean the expansion and modernization of airlift and sealift capabilities and a modest expansior of naval infantry marines The Yemen provides evidence of Soviet willingness already to exercise their growing reach We foresee a doubling of portto-port seali ft capabilities over the next decade and a substantial increase in their airlift However the Soviets will remain far behind the US in their over-all capability to move large forces rapidly to distant points and will have less capacity for opposed operations beyond the range of their tactical aircraft f 'fhe Soviets have maintained superiority in Central Europe and have modernized their forces including the pro vision of a formidable tactical nuclear capability · However since the early 196O's our own assessments have recognized that the margin of their conventional superiority is much less than we previous l y assumed particularly in a surprise attack Furthermore the consensus in NATO is t hat a Soviet attack on Western Europe is highly unlikely 3 Political Implications - Details at TABS Band C a The current rapid growth in Soviet strategic nuclear forces is unlikely to increase their willingness to take actions which they believe would have a high risk of leading to nuclear t•1a r with the US either directly or by escalation For in contemplating the possible conseque11ces of any such course their own casualties would still be likely to weigh more heavily upon Soviet calculations than their growing ability to hurt us Such restraint however does not rule out Soviet initiatives that could adversely affect the US or its allies' interests Where a direct conflict of interests develops Soviet leadei s m iy prove tought r in maintaining their positions in a situation of mutual deterrence We should be concerned that I as the Soviets view their higher strater ic force levels as reinforcing deterrence they may be more inc i ned to think t hey can intervene in third s with rcd s cd ri sk f _f 1 _ Fican oppositt-2 • Potential b TOP SECRET ' - - J '- TOP SECRET 4 Soviet options for such moves arc created by the greater reach of their conventional forces As a result they may be more tempted to respond to requests for mil itary support from gover nments or factions they support politically Thus we could be faced with situations in which the Soviets intervene before we do leaving us with the choice of i nitiating confrontation or accepting a fait accompli c While the basic condition of deterrence is not likely to be upset in the next five years a ny close reckoning of the state of the strategic balance will be increasingly complex and difficult In particular net evaluations are becoming more and more sensitive to assumptions about weapons charact eri stics such as accuracy which arc extremely difficult to verify Traditional box score c omparisons of US-Soviet strength relations are becoming increasingly subject to varied interpretations and possible manipulation for polemical purposes both by domestic critics of our defense programs and by the Soviets d Domestic American controversy over defense policy is likely to increase inevitably attracting foreign attention So far foreign reaction to changing Soviet capabilities has been limited but Americ a n discussion will expose foreign opinion to critic'ism of American policy on two lines - one that US programs are pushing the Soviets into a new round in the arms race and the other that American vulnerability is increasing and that American ability to me et its Alliance commitments is declining Either line of critic ism could if it makes an i mpact abroad complicate our fore i gn relations e Uncertainties will tend to generate mutually rein forcing pressures on both sides to use ''worst c ase sump tiOl1£ For the Soviets this will mean having to adopt military budgets which entail a cost in over - all economic growth rates Moscow may seek ways of regulating t he pace of the arms race perhaps using arms talks and even limited arms control agreements for this purpose There appears however to be very little likelihood that the two sides will be able to attune their views on all the complex issues sufficiently to c onclude a comprehensive agreement to end the rc1ce in s trat cgic - eaponry TOP SEGUE'£ ____ __ ' TOP SECRET 4 5 Conclusions a Mutual deterrence is here and likely to persist for at least the next decade In these circumstances the US will have increasing difficulty in defining vital interests for which the use of nuclear weapons would be warranted Moreove even to maintain deterrence we will have to continue spending large sums because of the uncertainties inherent in the strategic equation and the steady development of new weapons systems b Effect on the Soviet Union - The Soviets probably believe that their growing strategic capabilities will deter the US enhance their prestige and improve their ability to influence events in other countries The Soviets may be more prone to take advantage of opportunities to intervene in local conflicts or may be more readily drawn into such conflicts and once involved may be less willing to withdraw Thus we may face situations where the Soviets are there first or where it will be desirable for the US to interveue rapidly to assure they are not At present this seems mt st likely to occur in the Middle East or Africa c Effect on NATO Allies - Soviet military capabilities in Europe will r e ain at least as great as heretofore From a military viewpoint Soviet leaders will certainly feel as able as they have been in the past to engage in a policy of threats or renewal of pressures on Berlin Their increased over-all power may cause our European allies to be more deferential t o Soviet political pressures and lead to questioning of the reliability of American commitments The confidence of the European members of NATO in US nuclear intervention in the event of an attack on Europe already has declined and probably will be further eroded While the Europeans alre idy understand in general terms that mutual deterrence exists they have been slow to acknowledge the full meaning for them Wh re thcy have recognized the implications with the exception o _ France they have chosen to play them down To be sure a sig•tificant deterrent to an attack on Europe will remain so long i the US retains a nuclear arsenal However continued coucern about the US nuclear guarantee and demands for reassurance are l i kely to be prominent in our future relations with the NATO countries TOP SECRET -- TOP SECRET 6 If our allies fee l these concerns are not being met i t could lead either to neutrA1 m or to greater pressures for independent nuclear capabilities - r d Non- Proliferation - Questions about the validity of the US deterrent in protecting other countries could feed pressures for addit iona l independent nuc l ear capabilities and not only in Europe We are likely to encounter increasing pressures for more specific assurances as to our nuclear commitments at a time when the strategic situation and the mood of the American publ ic make it less likely that we will be ab l e to accede to these pressures Given our own obvious vulnerability to nuclear att ack it will be more difficult f or the US t o extend nuclear assurances and it may also become i ncreasingly difficult for us to satisfy other countries that their security requirements can be met through nuc lear guarantees The l ight ABM defense should he l p at l east for some years to reinforce our assurances to Asian countries that feel threatened by Communist China Under these conditions there may be greater pressures for i ndependent nuclear capabilities O u r efforts t o resist such pressures arc l ikely to increase strains in our rel ationships with friendly countries e Limiting Strategic Forces - I n current circumstances the r easonable approach would be for both sides to seek to limit their expenditures on strategic forces However the prospects for l imiting strategic forces by agreement with the Soviets are not promising The difficulties have been noted above particularly the difficulty of controlling technology However the effo-i t to achieve such an unde-i standing should not be abandoned If as seems l ikely a situation of mutual deterrence is destined to persist for some years both sides may become convinced that they shoul d try to maintain deterrence at lower levels of effort Two possible approaches with respect to the Soviets have been advocated in recent years a one stresses our abil ity to maintain superiority and the futility of their competing with us b an alteL-nativ · approach accepts approximate parity as inevitable and seeks specific means of implementing it through disctwsion and TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 7 hopefully agreement Past US public statements of defense policy have stressed elements of both approaches In our view it is preferable to avoid the rhetoric of 'both superiority and of parity Rather our statements should stress the adequacy or sufficiency of our deterrent and make the point that we are doing just as much as is necessary to assure our deterrent We are not attempting to accelerate the arms race by doing more nor jeopardizing security by doing less f Offense-Defense Balance - A major asymmetry exists between the US and Soviet strategies and strategic postures This is the difference in relative emphasis which we and they place on strategic defense In recent years US policy state ments have given increasing weight to assured destruction and lesser weight to damage limitati on This trend has cer tain foreign policy implications First the Soviets see us as offense-oriented Almost certainly they will perceive the sharp increases in US offensive warheads which will resul t from our MIRV program as a serious threat to them This Soviet view contrib1 1tes both to the maintenancEi of political tens ions aod constitutes an obstacle to disarmament agreements It is possible that we could meet this situation without necessarily increasing our total strategic effort by a greater relative emphasis on defense in US strategic doctrine Such emphasis might contribute to arms control in two ways a Greater US defensive effort would complicate Soviet strategic planning and make their strategic effu ·t more costly thereby imposing further economic pressure for limiting arms b If Soviet leaders want to reach agreement a more balanced mixed system might make agreement more feasible because of somewhat gre ater similarity in defense posture Second the eros i on of our ability to limit damage to the US is crenting doubts about the firmness of US nuclear commitments Even if defenses are far from perfect doing som thing about defense could create a psychological climate which could be somewhat reassuring without necessarily being falsely reassuring both f or our public and our allies TOP SECRET I ' '• TnE NA ---· TOP SECRET '· _ f_ ' ·· - · _ · 8 Finally quite aside from its merit s we should also recognize that the prospect of defense against missiles continues to have domestic political appeal If the Soviets continue to deploy an ABM and we deploy only for protection against China this will remain a political issue in this country On the other hand a greater emphasis on defense also prese nts us with many problems As has often been pointed out no combination of defense and counterforce can begin to provide complete protection against the Soviets A larger ABM program could further stimulate arms competition and would be even more likely to do so if undertaken in conjunction with further i mprovements to our offensive forces Furthermore deployment of ABNs and greater emphasis on civil defense will create opposition from many allies who are concerned that this will intensify the arms race Clearly we should make a more intensive effort to analyze the pros and cons of the damage-limiting issue as it affects our foreign relations In the meantime we should not take positions which will make it more difficult for us to expand our defensive programs s hould we wish to do so in the future 5 RECOMMENDATIONS a That the Secretary of State• through the Under Secretary reqL•es t the SIG to arrange for appropriate political-military contingency planning in light of the above analysis Such planning should focus in particular on the Middle East and Africa and should consider where and how the Soviets woul d be most likely to intervene in local conflicts if they should be requested to do so by a local government or revolutionary movement b That the Secretary of State suggest to the Secretary of Defense the need for State and Defense j ointly to develop a rationa le for our strategic forces to be used in the forthcoming DOD posture statement which takes into account the impact of tha t statement on the Soviets and our allies TOP SECRET I ·i f i I i i q r I TOP SECRET 9 Particular attention should be paid to the way in which our assured destruction and damage- limiting objectives and capa bilities are described •' • I • ' ii • · ' 12 18 67 TOP SECRET 10 1t ' PARTICIPANTS IN THE STUDY • j I ' Foy D Kohler Robert R Bowie Mr Phili p J Farley Mr Leon Sloss ' Mr Helmut Sonnenfeldt Mr Richard Rosecrance Mr John C Ausland Mr Robert Baraz Mr Jonathan Dean Mr Raymond Garthoff Mr Vladimir Toumanoff ii 1 I ' i I ' TOP SECRET US-Soviet Military Relationships Attachments TAB A - Comparisons and Trends TABB - Soviet Appreciation of the Emerging Militar y Balance with the us · TAB C - US Strategic Views NOTE -tp f - R These are working papers which were prepared to provide a basis for discussion by the study group TOP SECRET TAB A TOP SECRET 12 20 67 US- Sovi et Military Relationships Ii - Comparisons and Trends Objective and Approach This paper describes t he past present and possible future military relationships between the US and the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1976 While the emphasis is on str ategic forces important trends i n general purpose forces also are covered The assessment is descrip tive rather than statistical A sta tistical annex contains tables and graphs which are referenced in the text For past periods we attempt to describe how relationships were perceived at the time as well as how they are now perceived in retrospect l I '• I I I ' I I j' 2 The Question of Criteria There are a number of ways to measure the relationship of strategi c forces e g launch vehicles number of warheads megatons throw weight fatalities industrial damage While there is considerable debate over what is the most representative measure it seems clear that no single measure can represent this complex relationship and different measur es s eem more appropriate to different time periods For example bombers were the important strategic Capon in 1957 In the early l960's the number of missil e launchers was used as the most significant measure More recently it has been suggested that total megatonnage or tota l number of warheads are a better measure because it is possible for a single lalincher to deliver more than cne warhead and because large weapons c an do more damage than small ones However neither megatons nor lumbers of war heads a r e a fully adequate measure because the effectiveness of a warhead is highly dependent on reliability yield and accuracy and on the type of target it is intended to destroy This issue is discussed further i 1 Annex A of thi s paper The most meaningful measure of strategic capability is the ambunt of destruction that a force can accomplish or prevent However so many assumptions and vari ables TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 2 enter into the calcul ations of damage limiting and damage inflicting capabilities that it is extremely difficult to get precise and meaningful estimates and even more difficult to reach agreement on hat these estimates mean For example some would contend that it is the relative damage that can be done by both sides t hat is important in assessing deterrence However the prevailing view is that deterrence can be defined in terms of the minimum l evel of assured destruction that can be inflicted in a second- strike with respect to the Soviet Union the definition of minimwn has ranged from population fatalities of 40% in 1961-62 to 20% in 1967 Above all uncertainties enter into any calculations particularly estimates that are projected more than a year or two into the future Whil e improved intelligence capabilities have reduced our uncertainties as to numbers of bombers and missiles uncertainties with r espect to system characteristics e g numbers of MIRVs and CEP will increase and become more important in net eva luations Comparisons of conventional force capabilities also are difficult For example US and Soviet divisions are not equal in manpower types of armame·nt number of vehicles etc US and Soviet tactical aircraft are very different in armament payload and performance characteristics Thus simple comparisons of numbers of divisions or numbers of aircraft are not a valid comparison of relative military capabilities Nevertheless such comparisons do have political s i gnificance because they are relatively simple i o make and thus they are frequently made The approach in this paper is to examine the balance in tenns of several criteria on the grounds that an over- a l l judgment can he made only on the basis of a reasonable sampling of the relevant indicators A series of trend charts for several of the important indices is at Annex B 1 Selected assured destruction and damage - l imiting calculations are swnmarized in Annex B 2 The fo l lowing paragraphs discuss the strategic balance in more qualit ative te1 ns for several selected years Key data on these years for strategic forces is an Annex B 3 Key data on general purpose forces is at Annex B 4 TOP SECRET '1- i · ll J I 3• • i 1957 Table B-3-1 In 1957 the key elements in the strategic balance were bombers and numbers of bombs Warning was a l so an important variable because the forces pn both sides were soft and relatively slow in reacting As we now look back on the relati ve balance it is clear that the US enjoyed marked strategic superiority We had a sizeable advantage in number of l ong-range bomber s and in our total nuc l ear stockpile The bulk of the Soviet strategic bomber for ce consisted of medium bombers capable of onl y one-way missions and their inflight refueling capability was very limited We estimated that the Soviets could pl ice 200 - 300 bombers over the US after absorbing a first strike Our air defenses c ould be expected to intercept many of the bombers that coul d reach the US Most of our medium-bomber force was on overseas bases within range of Soviet targets on two-way mi ssions The US enjoyed an advantage over the Sovi et Union in warning as we l l and our bomber defenses were at leas t as good as theirs In sum the US possessed the capability to inflict unacceptable damage on the Soviet Union even in a second strike while the Soviets did not have a_compar able capability However the Soviets could have done considerabl e damage to the US in a first strike Our perceptions were not as optimistic as the above facts suggest Our intelligence capability was not nearly as good as it is today and thus there were considerable uncertainties about the existing balance We knew the Soviets already possessed a considerable nuclea stockpile and t he ability to deliver at least some nuclear weapons by bombers on the US We believed that the Soviet strategy included a possible preemptive attack because t heir secondstrike capability was so poor However we estimated that the Soviets would avoid risking a nuclear war or even a confrontation that might lead to nuclear war While we could not be confident of avoiding damage in a nuclear war we could be reasonably confident of limiting TOP SECRET 4 damage under any circumstances to much less t dn the Soviets would sustain A very significant factor in our calculations was the realization in August 1957 that the Soviets were well along in developing a ballistic-missile capability In 1957 we estimated that they were likely to be ahead of the US in ballistic missiles in the early 1960's This p -ospective threat began to dominate our estimates in 1957 and was an · increasing concern until 1961 Soviet ground forces were considered far superior to the US particularly in Europe Their strategic mobility was assessed as very limited but growing Their tactical air and naval capability was assessed as inferior to the US although they did have a large submarine f orce which could be scd to interdict US and allied shipping 4 1961 Table B- 3-2 1961 has to be considered in two periods In June we were still gravely concerned about the missile gap The US then had 28 operational ICBMs and 80 Polar is missiles The National Intelligence Estimate in June 1961 gave the Soviets 10 to 15 ICBMs but there were vigorous dissents recorded The State Department for example pointed out that the Soviets could possibly have as many as 200 ballisti c missiles The Air Force estimate was at l east 120 and their comment in the NIE stated it was possible that Soviet ballistic missiles alone could bring all SAC a ir bases under attack By September 1961 the missile gap had of ficially disappeared when revised estimates appeared based on better i ntelligence This corf irmed an estimate of 10 to 25 Soviet ICBMs We now estimate there were only four in mid-1961 In retrospect we can see that the US enjoyed strategic superiority in 1961 largely on the basis· of a superior bomber force and this strategic superiority increased from 1962 th -ough 1964 as we began to deploy protected MINUTEMAN and POLARIS missil es in numbers However our perception in mid-19f 1 was again quite different and it shoi1ld be recalled that befor c the missile· gap disappeared there was President Kenned_y's meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna and the building of the Berli n Wall TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 5 5 1962-1964 Table B-3-3 By the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 we were more confident that we had a strategic force that would be a powerful deterrent to the Soviets We recognized that we had a good second-strike deterrent and a considerable c apability to limit damage against attacks from the Soviet Union While it was clear that the Soviets could damage us seriously in a first strike we could retaliate and do much greater damage to them and their second-strike capability was still limited Their ICBMs were soft and they were not dispersed presenting only 20 aiming points An interagency study done in August 19628 found that the Soviets were seeking to overcome the advantage which the US has enjoyed in strategic capabilities The Soviet weapons programs are obviously aimed at obtaining greater security for the Bloc and greater freedom for Soviet policy in the f ace of the immense threat posed by US strategic power The study concluded that growing strategic capabilities will strengthen the Soviet leaders' belief in their ability to influence the course of events in all areas of the world However the study also stated We nevertheless regard it as likely that the Soviets will not abandon ca ltion in Soviet-American confrontations including Berlin We believe they recognize there arc severe limits to the challenges which can be posed with weapons which the challenger is as concerned as the opponent to avoid using The study concluded that no basic changes in US foreign or defense policies were required Our relative position got even better at least through 1964 as the MINUTEMAN and POLARIS force expanded By m i d1964 we had o'ver 1000 land and seabased intercontinental missiles while the Soviets had less than 200 ICBMs 2 3 of them soft and 100 SLBMs There was no time during this period when the US Government believed we could maintain or zhould try to maintain a full first-strike capability 'the Ai r Force has generally a Report on the Implications for US Foreign and Defense Policy of Recent lntc lligencc Esti tnates J ug tSt 2 1962 TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 6 dissented from this view However we did still aim for a significant damage-limiting capability in the event deterrence failed The one area where the Soviets had a edge was in IRBMs and ffiDMs They had over 500 in 1962 and over 700 in 1964 We had removed the THORS and JUPITERS from Europe in 1963 depending on our intercontinental missiles and bombers to counter the IRBM MRBM threat to Europe We believed that the Soviet strategy might be to utilize their superior medium-range missile capability for nuclear blackmail against Western Europe and to deter the US through its allies We continued co believe that Soviet non- nuclear capabilities in Western Europe were superior to NATO ' s although the Soviets had undertaken a major reduction in general purpose forces in 1960 We believed our growing arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons would compensate for Soviet superiority in conventional forces in Europe The mobility and reach of US forces was still considered to be superior to that of the Soviets and we believed they would not be likely to conduct military operations far from their borders but would rely instead on proxies to fight their battles The US saw an increasing prospect of limited wars and began a major effort to improve the mobility and strength of our ge neral purpose forces in the e arly 1960's 6 1967 Table R-3-11 By contrast with the late 1950' s and early l960's our intelligence on current Soviet deployments is highly reliable On the other hand uncertainties about the future are as great or greater than ever with the prospect of such developments as multiple independent reentry vehicles MIRVs and ABMs on both sides As a result of these uncertainties there are widely divergent views on the state of the strategic balance Some claim that the US is losing its once su pcri or position to the Soviets Others believe we are about to widen our lead over the Soviets with the introduction of MIRVs What is clear is that in the period 1965 - 1967 the Soviets have substantially increased their abil ity to damage the US i n a second strike · Table B2- 5 It also is clear that they a r c spending considerable sums on strategic for ces and on R D Tab le B-4-5 TOP SECRET ·· i I J 1 · ti • r t t f i ' · 7 I t is wide ly accepted that mut ual deterrence exists accept that the Soviets have a secure s econd - strike deterrent force and there is a widespread belief that there is little we can do to change this in the future What is more we assume that they have reasonable confidence that they have a secure second- strike force We are giving less emphasis to damage-limiting as a major strategic objective vis vis the Soviets Nevertheless the US retains today an edge in mos t indicies of the strategic balance We still have more ICBMs than the Soviets although they are closing this gap rapidly We have considerably more and better SLBMs and can expect to maintain an edge in this category until the mid-197O ' s at least We have more than three times as many long- range bombers four times as many intercontinental weapons war heads and over 50% more to al megatonnage if both bomber and missile weapons are counted The Soviets still maintain their advantage in MRBMs Despite the US advantage in the major indicies of strategic power there is a growing recognition that strategic superiority has limited meaning - at least in a mil itary sense - in a period of mutual deterrence Arms control considerations play an increasing role in US strategy as we seek means of stabilizing competition in strategic arms and limiting nuclear proliferation China also has become a factor in the strategic equation causing us to earmark a larger portion of our force against CPR targets In Europe we have changed our a ssessment of relative capabilities in two major respects First it is no longer assumed that tactical nuclear weapons can compensate for supe rior Soviet non-nuclear forces because the Soviets also have a large inventory of tactical nuclear weapons On the other hand our assessment of Soviet conventional capabilities in Europe has been reduced It is now questioned whether the Soviets can bring to bear superior non-nuclear fo r ces if NATO forces receive and act on warning Other new factors in the over-all milita ry equation in 1967 are the growth of Soviet naval capabilities and the increased worldw ide use of that forc e· particularly in the Mediterranean Table B-4 - 3 and the engagement of the pre ponderance of US general purpose forces in Vie tnam TOP SCCHET 8 1972 Table B-3-5 Any future projections must begin with the caveat that there are great unceirtainties There have always been uncertainties in future strategic projections but by 1972 we reach a period where the US begins to deploy MIRVs in considerable numbers and the Soviets could begin to deploy an extensi ve ABM system While we can be reasonably sure of our own capabilities for 1972 because most of the steps to create these capabilities have already been initiated we ar e less sure of Soviet capabilities because all of the steps they have initiated are not obvious There are even some uncertainties as to the capabilities of our own weapons such as how accurate MIRVs will be and how well we can harden our warheads against Soviet ABMs In the case of the Soviets we are uncertain as to how many missiles they will have what new weapons systems they will introduce into their force whether they will have progressed with MIRVs and ABMs and · if so how far However certain estimates can be made with some confidence Almost certainly mutual deterrence will persist The Sovie ts probably will surpass us in numbers of ICBM launchers and in intercontinental megatons before 1970 They cannot surpass us in numbers of SLBMs and long-range bombers in this time period While they may have some MIRVs in 1972 we are almost certain to be ahead both in numbers and technology On the other hand their larger missiles give them the potential capability to deploy more MIRVs per missile s hould they choose to do so If the Soviets do deploy an ABM beyond the Moscow area it is not likely to be far along by 1972 and it will not have a significant effect on US assured destruction capability It is not possible for the Sovie t s to have a reliable first - strike capability in 1972 However they will have some c ounterforce capability even while holding enough force in reserve for assured destruction Our counterforce capability with the smaller MIRV warheads is highly dependent on ve ry good accuracies Precisely how good f uture accuracies will be is not yet clear Thus there is consider able debate as to how good our damage limiting capability will be See Annex A TOP SECRET I i TOP SECRET 8 1972 Table B-3-5 Any future projections must begin with the caveat that there are great uncertainties • There have always been uncertainties in future strategic projections but by 1972 we reach a per od where the US begins to deploy MIRVs in considerable numbers and the Soviets could begin to deploy an extensive ABM system While we can be reasonably sure of our own capabilities for 1972 because most of the steps to create these capabilities have alr ady been initiated we are less sure of Soviet capabilities because all of the steps they have initiated are not obvious There are even some uncertainties as to the capabilities of our own weapons such as how accurate MIRVs will be and how well we can harden our warheads against Soviet ABMs In the case of the Soviets we are uncertain as to bow many missiles they will have what new weapons systems they will introduce into their force whether they will have progressed with MIRVs and ABMs and if so how far However certain estimates can be made with some confidence Almost certainly mutual deterrence will persist The Soviets probably will surpass us in numbers of ICBM launchers and in intercontinental megatons before 1970 They cannot surpass us in numbers of SLBMs and long-range bombers in this time period While they may have some MIRVs in 1972 we are almost certain to be ahead both in numbers and technology On the other hand their larger missiles give them the potential capability to deploy more MIRVs per missile should they choose to do so If the Soviets do deploy an ABM beyond the Moscow area it is not likely to be far along by 1972 and it will not have a significant effect on US assured destruction capability It is not possible for the Sovie t s to have a reliable first-strike capability in 1972 However they will have some _counterforce capability even while holding enough force in reserve for assured destruction Our counterforce capability with the smaller MIRV 'W3rheads is highly dependent on very good accuracies Precisely how good future accuracies will be i s not yet clear Thus there is considerable debate as to how good our damagelimiting capability will be See Annex A I TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 9 Predictions about general purpose forces for 1972 roust be even more tenuous than prediction for strategic forces because many of the weapons systems involved have shorter lead t imes and thus decisions on 1972 general purpose forces in many instances · are not yet made US capabilities will depend greatly on what happens in Vietnam nd what we do after Vietnam However after the Vietnam war has ended we are likely to have a smaller force than we have today but a force with greater flexibility to meet contingencies and a combat experienced officer corps It is likely that there will be further US force reductions in NATO and this in turn could lead to a further weakening of the Alliance Future Soviet general purpose force capabilities will depend to a great extent on how they decide to allocate their resources in the next several years However the most likely estimate is for a Soviet force that is at or slightly below present levels more modern and more mobile While the Soviets probably will continue to extend the reach of their forces they will not be able to match the capability of the US to project and support military power very far beyond their own borders Limitations on the mobility of their tactical air will continue to be an important constraint unless they gain overseas bases However they probably will be able to move as much as several lightly armed divisions rapidly by air to areas within 1000 miles of the Soviet Union It is quite likely that the Mediterranean Basin will become an area where US and Soviet capabilities are more closely matched than they have been in the past although the Soviets will face logistic probl ms in supporting large-scale forces in the Mediterranean area 8 1976 Table B-3-6 1976 is much more difficult to predict than 1972 However it is highly u nlikely that either side will have a high-confidence first-strike capability Thus mutual deterrence will continue but at higher levels barring a major technical br eakthrough on the one hand or a major arms control agreement on the other It seems likely that the Soviets will be ahead by some criteria such as mega tonnage while the US will be ahead in others e g numbers of warheads The Soviets could have a heavy ABM defense by TOP SECIIBT ·1 'I TOP SECRET 10 976 and so coul d t he US But such predictions are highly ·s peculative because they are based on assumptions as to decisions not yet made on both sides If a major advance on one side appears to threaten the balance the other side will by 1976 have time to react Both the US and the Soviet Union will have a ·l arge R D base to draw on and ample economic resources although the Soviet economy will be more constrained than ours It seems l ikely t hat our uncertainties about t he strategic balance will be even greater in 1976 t han t hey a r e today unless intelligence capabilities improve markedly Soviet military reach is l ikely to incr ease fur t her We project a doubl ing of Soviet port - to- port sealift capacity between 1967 and 1976 Table B-4- 4 The l evel of forces in Europe could be affected by agreements on mutual reduction of forces which are now beginning to receive more serious consideration by our NATO allies However funda mental changes i n the military confrontation in Europe probably are dependent on a political settlement of the political issues dividing Europe TOP SECRET TOP SECRET Annex A Effects of Rel iabil ity of Yield and Accuracy on I CBM Effecti veness I t I 1 · This Annex discusses the effect of yield and accuracy on CBM effectiveness This has become an i ncreasingly important issue because of the US trend toward small yield weapons which are dependent on very good accuracies to destroy har dened targets and because oi the increase in hardened Sovie t ICBMs 1 ' 1·· ' I I •'I I ' ' ' TABIE 1 Effects of Nuclear Weapons as a Function of Yield and Accuracy Damage Criteriaa 50 kt Rad°ius of Effects 500 kt 1 mt 10 mt 10 PSI Population b 1 0 mi 2 25 mi 2 75 mi 25 PSI Airfield 55 mi 1 25 mi 1 5 mi 3 25 mi 300 PSI Missile Silo • 15 mi 325 mi 4 mi 875 nu • 6 mi a Pounds per sq in max overpressure assuming optimum height of burst b Severe damage to ordinary house reinforced concrete structure Light damage to Table 1 shows the accuracy required to destroy three different types of targets as a function of weapons yield Even small yield weapons e g 50 kt will create very substantia damage to population and industry for a radius of a mile Weapons of more than 1 mt over-kill JllOSt urban TOP SECRET l'OP SECRET 2 •targets in the Soviet Union which are relatively compact in Moscow the largest Soviet city in area has a radius of about 5 5 miles There ar e some 67 US cities l arger in area than Moscow These asymmetries and the fact that the accuracy of Soviet missiles probably is less then our own tend to make large yield weapons' appear a better option for the Soviets than for the US for use against urban targets The characteris tics of the weapons in our missile force and in t he Soviet force in the 1970 1 s are shown in Tabl e 2 Although we are going to maller yield warheads for our MIRVs we are projecting CEP I of a quarter of a nautical mile for each MINUTEMAN III warhead Even assuming tha t our accuracies are considerably less than t h is e g one nautical mile even the smallest missile weapons that we plan to have should be adequa t e for the assured-destruct i on mission and multiple warheads provide better possibilities for penetrating an ABM defense It is against hard targets that the question of yield and accuracies become critical These factors affect our counterforce or damage-limiting capabil ities rather than our assured-destruction capability A single Okt weapon even with a quarter-mile accuracy cannot be considered adequate to destroy a hardened missile sil o However three such weapons could destroy a 300 PSI sil o assuming accuracies of a quarter of a mile or better But if we do not ach ieve better than one-ha lf a nautical mile then ten 50 kt warheads which we plan for the POSEIDON or three 170 kt weapons in MINUTEMAN III would be in adequate against hardened missile silos On the other hand t he larger yield Soviet SS-9 would be adequate to destroy a 300 PSI target even with accuracy of onl y a mile f Circula r error probable The radius of a circle in which statistically one hal f of the impacts will occur TOP SECRET TOP SECRET TABU 2 Characteristics of US and Soviet Weapons Est CEP 1972 us Yiel d Per w h Total Yield MINUTEMAN I I • 50 1 2 mt 1 2 mt • MINUTEMAN III • 25 17 mt 340- 510 mt • POLARIS A-3 • 80 1 1 mt • 1 1 mt POSEIDON • 25 OS mt 5 mt TITAN • 90 9 mt • 9 mt SS- 9 so 18-25 mt SS-11 1 0 1 0 mt SS-Z- 2 Advanced ICBM 1 0 1 5 mt SS- Z- 3 Advanced ICBM s 18-25 mt 1 0 2 mt 1 0 1 5 mt Soviet Union SS-N-4 5 SLBM SS-N- Z- 1 Advanced SLBM ' TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 4 Reliability also is an important factor We are projecting over-all system reliability for the MINUTEMAN force at something over 70% in the early 1970's It is less than 60% today We estimate Soviet reliabilities to be less than our own at the present time but expect them to equal ours by the mid-1970's This may be an optimistic assumption from the Soviet standpoint TOP SECRET TOP SECRET ANNEX B STATISTICAL DATA TOP SECRET TOP SECRET Introduction to the Statistical Annex ' The charts and tables in this annex are intended to · illustrate some of the military relationships between the US and the Soviet Union A cautionary note about the sig t nificance of these s ta tis tics is in order ' i' Statistical comparisons can be illuminating if the statistics are properly understood They can be misleading if they are not The comparisons made i n this paper are not intended as an evaluation of relative military capabilities This would require a much more detailed analysis than has been undertaken here They are intended to illustrate some of the comparisons that are likely to be made publicly of US and Soviet capabilities While such comparisons may not be an adequate indicator of reiative military capabilities they may nevertheless have important political significance because they reflect what many people believe relative capabilities to be In short we are focusing here on the poli tical rather than the military significance of comparitive data on US and Soviet military forces TOP SECRET I I SECTION l TREND CHARTS • TOP SECRET Top Secret BOMBERS· 1957 - 1976 IN Number of Aircraft 1400 UNITS 1200 1000 USSR MEDIUM 800 U S INTERCONTINENTAL 600 400 -- -- _ _ • U S MEDIUM USSR INTERCONTINENTAL 200 b -- · t 0 r -------- ii -- i -- i - -- --- --__ _______ '75 1976 1973 1969 1971 1967 1963 1965 1957 1959 1961 Top Secret Top Secret ICBrJl LAUNCHERS 1961 - 1976 USSR TOTAL LAUNCHERS 1600 1400 1200 U S TOTAL LAUNCHERS 1000 800 31 - - - - - - -· ✓ ' --·-·- · HARD LAUNCHERS I - I I j - 600 II II l 'I I 1 f'I 400 200 I 1963 1965 I I 1967 1959· Top _ Secret 1971 1973 1975 - BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBl 1ARINES 1961 - 1976 Number of Units 80 70 USSR TOTAL UNITS 60 50 U S TOTAL UNITS 40 l '1 30 NEW CLASS 116 Tubes _ J • · ' I U S UNITS ON STATION ' _ · ' __J # q ----- i - ----- USSR ' UNITS ON STATION oa aca 20 10 0 Jama•••• aaaaam9r v ' - - ' --- r- -- t - ✓ · _ _ ··' - 0 0 c s _ · ' 0 ___________________- ·_ _ _________________ 0 1961 ·- - __ _ 1963 1965 1967 1969 Top Secret 1971 1973 ·······- -·--· 1975 Top Secret SUBfv1ARINE BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCMERS 1961 - 1976 Launchers 900 USSR TOTAL LAUNCHERS 800 700 I' U S TOTAL LAUNCHERS 600 500 · I I 400 _ j ' i 300 ' 4 USSR LA UNCHERS · -- · • -- -ON STATION -- ------ '- • - 200 · ---- -- ----- ----------·---- ---· ·--·---- -·-- -----· 0 --------- -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-__-_ _ _-_ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ 100 -- - c ---- - -· 1961 1963 1965 1967 - '- J •- 1969 1971 1973 1975 Jop Secret ·- Chart -· l RBrJI IR BrJI LAUNCHERS 1961 - 1976 USSR TOTAL LAUNCHERS ----- 600 I' ✓- --·-- ' I - ------- _ SOFT 400 ' 500 ' I 1 I • - -- - _ 100 s z - - I r I I I ' ____ _ _MOB L __ - ·- __ 1 ' ' __ __ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ NATO · Thor and Jupiter l _ _______ _ - ·- --- · · • I · -------------· ------HARD______ _ I 300 200 ' '• ' ' I 0 ---'--- i - - 1 --- J ----· --- --- - J---- i --- 1961 '63 '65 '67 '69 '71 '73 '75 1976 __ Top Secret TOTAL INTERCONTINENTAL FORCE 1961 - 1976 Number of Weapons -- 9000 -- 8000 U S WEAPONS 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 USSR WEAPONS ------- ' Y 1000 0 L ---'---- J--- - --- -- --- ---- --- - - -1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 197 3 1975 Top Sacret Top Secret INTERCONTINENTAL MEGATONS -- · · -- · Total Force and Alert Force· Megatons 12 000 1961 - 1976 USSR TOTAL FORCE 10 000 ' 8000 ·- - - - - - - --- _ - U S TOTAL FORCE 6000 t t l - _ - -- _ C I 2000 0 ------ ---- ---- 1963 1965 ✓ ✓ - ✓ • 1967 _ ALERT FORCE ' t m c a ' e t '✓ _ _ USSR - - - - • - ✓·-- - e - 4000 C C U S ALERT FORCE 1969 Top Secret 1961 -- --- 1971 c 0 0 1973 CD IS _o a a e 11 a 1975 Top Secret ALERT INTERCONTINENTAL FORCE 1961- 1976 Number of leapons and 1 ry1T Equivalents 6000 5000 U S WEAPONS 4000 USSR 1 MT EQUIVALENTS 3000 _ _ _ ----- - 2000 ----- --·-- _ _ -- --·--- - --·- -·-- L I 1963 1965 -- r ra _ a a a USSR WEAPONS ' '' I' obc - - - -_ r --L__-1 __ _J -_ 1961 ·u - -- J • - -------- i - 1000 -- - 1967 1969 Top Secret 1971 _ __ _ -l' 1973 1975 Section 2 Limiting and Assured Destruction Calculations Damaee Table B-2-1 TOP SECRET Growth of ·the Soviet Target System July 1966 to July 1967 July 1966 Jan 1967 July 1967 High Priority Nuclear Delivery Systems 1164 1432 1549 Hard ICBMs included above 263 485 638 Other Military Targets 368 362 391 Urban Industrial Targets 339 310 314 Source JCS Comments This table shows the effect on US targeting of the growth of the Soviet ICBM force The growth of hardened ICBMs is particularly significant A single 1 mt weapon with a one mile CEP about the characteristics of our present MINUTENAN force has a high kill probability against a soft target It has a much lower kill probability against a hard target Due to the increase in the number of Soviet ICBMs we have had to reduce the number of our weapons targeted agai nst each Soviet missile thereby further reducing damage expectancies TOP SECRET -------- Table B-2-2 TOP SECRET Assured Destruction Trends in Soviet Fatalities US Retaliation Estimated Fatalities in Mil lions 1' Max Retaliation Januar y 1964 on ·cities 77 Counterforce Retaliation Collateral Damage_ _ 40 1965 82 51 I I 1966 80 46 196 7 81 37 1968 80- 73 37 - 32 Source JCS Corranent Our ass ured destruction capability has remained relatively constant and well above the minimum cri teria of 20-30% established by DOD because forces have been targeted with this objective However to maintain an adequate level of assured destruction it has been necessary to r e -allocate weapons from the counterforce role • • TOP SECRET Tabl e B- 2- 5 TOP SECRE' C Damage Limiting Trends·1n Inclustriat · Damage January I To Preemption us Retaliation To Soviet Union Soviet Pre rnption 1964 28% 52% 66% 1965 19 15 67 1966 41 55 64 1967 15 52 65 68 Sl1 lt8 1 968 Sou - -ce JCS Contn US ability to limit damage to indiistry has declined as in the case wi th population However Soviet industry being more highly concentrated is still more vulne1 ·a le than US industry TOP SECr ET Tab l e B-2-3 · • ' i 1 TOP SECr-ET i Assured Destructior1 Effec t of Greater t han E pect Threats Percent Sovie t Fataliti es i n US Re t aliat i on 1 967 1 972' 1976 l16% 45% 44% Sovie t MllW 4 6% % 3 71 Soviet AtH 4 6% 4 1% J 8% Sovi et MIRV and ABH 46% 39% 9% l16% l1l% 29% High NIE Programmed US Force t'rog1 aume l US Force with US · ltesponses To AnHa ' i b 1'o AtM and MIRV l16% 39% 32% Increase POSEID01· from J O to 11 MIRVs b Add pen aids to POSl- IDO l igh t defense of MINUTi i•IAN l1SO new NINU1'EMAN I II super-hardened Source Systems Analysis Comment 1'he above t ible indic ites that an extensive Soviet ABM and even more an e x tensive Soviet ABH plus NIRVs coulcl reduce our assured destruction capability to an unacceptably l ow level b y the mi cl-1970 ' s These programs would be v ry c ostly f r the Soviets and are therefore consi dei ccl unlik J y Fui thcr mo rc there are a numbeF of possible rc ponscs opcin t o th US which could r - store ot1r assure d des true ti on capability Two cxm plcs a t·c shm-m on the last two lines TOP SECl' t T Table B-2-4 TOP SI CRE' C • amage Limiting Trends in Free World Fatalities Estimated Fatalities in Millions - United S t_1 £ £ § Retaliation Preemption January Euroee and Asia Pr f _ Ption Retal i ation 1964 48 96 96 lll 1965 28 SL 82 112 1966 76 111 102 113 1967 82 102 08 112 1960 91 112 109 112 ·-Source JCS Coir m The most significant development depicted above is the sharp d crease i n our ability to limit damage to th_e US between January 1965 and the present This results from the rapid Soviet buildtip · of hardened ICBHs mnny of which would survive a US f i rst strike It also should be noted that th difference in US fatalities between the preemption ttnd retaliation case has been nnrrowed substantially The impact on the free - orld countries of Europe and Asia has· been less as they have faced a formidable IRtN and N 1Uii'I threat tln oughout the period shown TOP SECRET SECRET Damage Limiting Calculationsa us CASE CASE B CASE A us Sov us Fat j 'n t Fat Sov Fat us Program Sov Response · Fat Sov Fat 1971 Approved None 120 120 100 80 80 80 120 120 120 80 90 90 100120 120 120 90 110 80 80 70 90 100 100 40 110 120 120 10 60 80 · 80 10 40 100 90 110 120 90 80 60 90 20 70 120 120 10 40 80 80 10 30 100 90 100 120 90 80 •70 90 1976 None No ABM Arproved Light ABMb None Pen Aidsc Posture Ad None MIRV and Pen Aidse Adds 100 Mobile ICBMs Posture Bd Source None MIRV and Pen Aids Adds 550 Mobile ICBMsf _ •' DOD - Systems Analysis CASE A Soviets St ike First Against Military and City Targets US Retaliates Against Against Cities Both Sides at High Generated Alert ASE R - · us Strikes First Against Military Targets ·Soviets Retaliate Against Cities US Retaliates Against Cities Both Sides at High Generated Alert CASE C - Soviets Strike Firs t Against Military Targets _US Responds Against Military Targets Soviets Ret i liate Against Cities US Retaliates Against Cities Both Sides at High' Generatcd Alert · SECRET ··--··-- ··- ' SECP-ET The forces used in these calculations arc the US Programmed Forces and the high NIPP Soviet threat modified as described Fatality calculations include tha effects of combined bomber and missile attacks against urban targets Fatalities are r ounded to the nearest tc11 millio11 h The light defense posture - as designed to provide an urban defense against the evolving Chinese threat and some deferise of US offensive forces Ag inst the assu1 ied Chinese threat expected US fatalities with this defense - ot ld be essentially zero -1 ithout the defense they woL lcl be about five million This postllre incl1 1des a light defense of Nli 'll'fE IA • _ Enough chaff is added to the· NIPP threat to prod 1ce 30 area aim points per SS-9 and SS-Z-3 booster and ten rea aim points per SS-11 SS-Z-9 and SS-Z- 2 Th response threats used in this table represent S'Oviet reactions to regain their deterrence If we knew these reactions b forchand we -10uld desien our defenses differently •t •I • 1 ' ' 1 I £ I The yield of the NIRV is 200 kts Each SS-9 and SS-Z - 3 carries 18 each SS-11 aPd SS--Z-2 carries three each SS-Z-9 carries 4 As pe netration aids · each SS-9 carries 30 area aim points and each S-11 SS-Z- 9 and SS-Z-2 carries 10 f Each 1r obile ICDH carries nine 200 kt re-entr y vehicles RVs and has 20 area aim points These numuers of mol ile ICBMs are intended to restore non-At -1 levels of Soviet Ass1 1red Destruction AD scenario is not shm· n This response is additive to the MIRV nd pen aicl resi ons and is over and above the deployment of mobile ICB s shown in the NIPP SECl T •' Sect i on 3 Key Indicat or s of the Strategic Bnlance for Selected Years 1957-1976 •L 1· Table B-3-1 TOP SECRET 1 Balance 1957 Key Indicators of the Strategic us i r - SU I I r Number of Bombers Heavy Nedi um 335 90-150 1296 1350 - i ii • ' l l '· TOP SECRET Table TOP SECRET Key Data on the Strategic l alance 1961 I• • I us · Intercontinental Bo nbcrs 1723 SU 130-1115 3 ICBMs 28 4b SLBl'ls 80 60-80 I i j· i l I '· l Total Intcrconti nental Weapons 2706 322-359 Total Intc1 ontinental Megatons 5560 2368-2715 MRBNs IR nMs a b c 112c 225 In addition 975-990 medium bombers were coun·ted as possibly available for one--way missions In Jt1nc 1961 the official estimate was 10-25 Some estim tes ran as high as 200 missiles 6l1 THOR i n UK 32 JUPITER in Italy and 16 JUPITJ r in Turkey TOP SECRET l • 1 11 I J • ' 1• I ' Table B-3 - 3 l'OP SECRET Key Data on the Strategic Dalance 1962 us 1788 Hombe rs SU 175-200a ICBMs 78 38 SLBNs 96 8' J Alert Intercontinental Weapons 1600 Alert Intercontinental Megatons 3400 112 MRBM IRB l a 516-536 Heavy bombersancl tankers only In aclcli t ion we estimated 955 -965 medium bombe- s which could reach the US only on · onc way missions l'OP SECRET Table B- 3-4 ' TOP SECRET Key Data on the Strategic Balance 1967 -SU us intercontinental Bomt el s 200--210 7l O 536--5668 iicm·ls 105 • sLnHs 656 1011-107 Total fai heads · l1l 79 $80-903 Total N g 1 tons 8l189 5120-5006 Alert Force Warheads 2711 459- 85 Aler t Force Megatons 5329 2432-2458 MRBMs June 30 1967 0 700 December 31 figures arc 666-716 TOP SECRET ' Table B- 3-5 1'0P SECRJ- T Key Data on the Strategic Balance 1972 • · · • l • 1 • i us tntercontinental Bombers i1ctNs SU 554 105-130 1054 1059--1 51 656 336-387 '£otal We apons 6233 1535 - lSOS Total Ale rt Force Weapons 3971 1001-1155 Total l·l gaton 4055 Total Alert Force Hee atons 2739 ' SLBi'ls 0 HRI3Hs ' TOP SEC11ET 6244--6317 550-700 I Table B- 3-6 TOP SEC T Key Data 01 the Strategic Balance 1976 -SU - us l nter contineutal 1 01 lhcrs 1CJ3 1s SLl Ns Total Warheads in Alert Force Warheads Total Total Heg ons Force Hagatons Total Alert i SS-80 55 l1 _L ' I· 1090••1482 1036 652-767 656 8190 1802-2339 1122-1465 536 1 3719 21½33 0 HRDi'ls TOP SECRET 9429-ll 5Z6 7070-8116 1 · soo-100 'l I I I I _ Selecte l Data on General Purpose Forces SECRET Comparison of Major Force Components 1962- 1976 Army Active Divisions usa Active Soviet Category X 1962 1967 1972 14 99 - 102 21 100-104 19 91 - 103 II Reserve Divisions US Reserve SU Category III Tactical Aircraftbl US Total Active INV US Total U E US Air Force Marine U E SU Total in Tac Av Units Naval Units Attack Carriers us Soviet Union Submarines Excluding Ballistic Missile Subs US nuclear non - nuclear Soviet Union nuclear non- nuclear Fleet Escorts us Soviet Union 1976 19 85 - 100 3 9 31-46 33 - 46 9 9 20- 30 20 - 30 7336 3828 2100 8083 4084 2264 7807 3971 2145 7691 3923 2145 3100-3385 3200 - 3250 2750 - 3075 2225-2900 15 15 0 15 15 0 0 0 13 82 10- 12 321 305 192 32 73 41- 46 285 - 290 296 184- 185 65 40 62 - 76 244- 253 279 170- 176 ---- ···-···- - -··-· 68 37 74-96 191-195 252 177-187 -· TOP SECRET US divisions range in size from 12 500 to 15 000 Soviet divisions range in size from 4000 to 9000 men in the units Thus they are not strictly comparable US and Soviet tactical aircraft have very different performance characteristics Thus numbers alone are not an adequate measure of relative military capabilities TOP SECRET Table B- 4 - 2 TOP SECRET Comparison of US and Soviet Military Capabilities Defense Manpower In Thousands 1967 1962 1957 Manpower in Armed Forces us Soviet Union 2805 2600-3300 2795 4275 Manpower - A-rmy us Soviet Union 1066 1454 1370-1640 1383-1719 498 2650 Manpower - Navy us Soviet Union 677 725 666 285-386 Manpower - Air Force us Soviet Union 753 305-427 2723 2800-3800 1015 1S29-1887 687 297-421 920 82 b 883 508-694 899 583-777 811 508-818 281 210 200 190 420- 546 497-663 497-685 Marine Corps us 3387 2800- 3600 1972 Soviet Union Other SU Command general support R D 75 a Does not include uniformed security troops not under MOD b Includes Naval aviation TOP SECRET - i ·i· ' Table B- 4-3 SEC1$T Soviet Naval Activity Operating Days in the Nediterranean 750 1963 1824 4162 1965 4943 1966 1967 thro1 1gh October So1 1rce 7305 EUCOM Corr r ent The fig1 1rcs reflect the sharp increc1 se in Soviet Naval activity in the Mediterranean The 1967 rate is almost do1 1ble the 1966 rate through October SECltET Table Ii- 1-l1 · SECRET Comparison of US-Soviet Lift Capability §oviet Union ESTIHATED -1AX11'rJM SOVIET POR'f-TO-PORT SEALll'T CAPA ILITY Number of Hotorized Rifle Divisions at Full Strength Fleet A1 Nid 1967 Mid J 972 Mid 1976 Nort hern 3 0 '• 7 6 0 Baltic 5 3 9 0 12 0 lHa k 8 0 15 0 20 0 Pacific 6 0 10 0 12 5 1 --· The above calcul itions are based on 70% availabilit y of the total c stimated Soviet dry cargo fleet less refrig rator ships for each period and flee t area wit hout reference to heavy life capability Hm- ever it is estiinat ed that the Soviet merchant fleet i n mid- 1967 will i nclude about 250 ships with heavy lift capabil ities ranging from 50 to 60 torts While it is expected th t the number of ships with heavy lift capabilities will increase to a considerable extel1t by micl-·1976 it i s not possible at this time to cs timat i the number of units in this category beyond 1967 A1nphibious Ships 480-590 1967 1972 1976 505-515 545-655 575-6ES SECP ET • ' SECRET United States ' • I 30- day ai-c and sealift of tons To Eln ope thousands of tons i To Asia thousands '· 1976 1961 1967 1972 32 0 120 2 331 5 327 9 ll1 7 65 l 170 4 167 7 SECKGT TOP ·SECl tT Table B-4-5 Lt - ·cl of Exp ndit l cs fc 1 USS end US Forces l il l ioar- i · ' Jul ' 1 1967 us USS R_ _ _ __ Dollars i of t bl cs 1967 J C P 1955 •r t I of I CSP I iI r 1 2 18 • 14 bmbers Total Scc tagic Attnck' C'fot l t il it i y i·l mpoi T i n tho 1r nch l nlci ccpto s SAHs ADHs 1'otnl Stl ' ntcgic Uc cnsci Tot il Hili t icy m pol cr in thous nrlr- · Tot cl Hil i t 1 ry N inpo cr in thous ncls Cor ' 1 nd _ £s cr l St1r port · nd Clcher · 1·ot Tot 11 5 96 1 35¾ 3 1 2 03 1 12 r 2 SS 20¼ 107 1150 t -· 4 9 - 6 3 2 197 2 7 lii 3S O 2 6- 3 1 l 137 - l 3S¾ 27 1 5 - 6 2 1n 11 5 17 - 22 • 43% 1 662 2 000 - 2 69% 1 f i - 9 67 - ------- ----··- - 76'l 25 •1 9 13 59 1 20 11 Hi lit D· --13 ' ' t 3 t Sp £ · xp_t nd 1 t t -c - 1'otcl I 191 300 - • JJ' ll E' 'c _J -_ s_c -f • ·1otnl ' Nil 23 HJ'J l 1 l il •i j 1 5 1 6 _ 1 fiHs 1 ---- TCP St' C f T 10 31 _ TOP SECRET'i• TABB SOVIET APPRECIATION OF THE EMERGING MILITARY BALANCE WITH THE US In our review of t he military balance two trends stand our c l early First Soviet military power has reached an unprecedented level and is still growi ng In particular Soviet capacity t o damage the US in a nuclear war has been increasing dramatically • Second as the capacity of each t o do the other great damage becomes mor e nearly equal the pre cise calculus of the state of the military balance becomes_ more complex and difficult What implications will these t rends have for the Soviets l Soviet Attit udes Toward t he Use of Military Force - The Soviet leaders are moved by their ideological convictions to assume a natural state of conflict in inte rnational politics and to pursue an ac tive and assertive foreign policy They are not howevel' ' impelled or even inclined on the basis of ideological considerations to pursue the ir objectives by military means Indeed while t here is no moralistic inhibi- tion on use of military fo1 ce in the Communist view the movi ng force in history i s social-economic progress and revolut ion and not military advance and· the re is the refore great caution in - e ighing any milit ary involvement TOP SECRET An I · · • · •·· • • TllE- - -· L - -- 1 - - __ - - TOP SECRET 2 sanctioned calculation of the balance of power Realpolitik governs the Soviet approach to questions of use of military power and in practice expedience is the guide At no time has the Soviet Union had military power relative to its potential opponents which would have tempted a Soviet initiation of a major war The Soviet Union has or course indirectly used military means in other ways to serve its ends Military advisors and aid to Spain in the Civil War aid to the Chinese Nati onalistn in 1923-27 and again in 1937-'ll limited as sistance to the Chin0se Communistn in Manchuria in 19115 unleashing the North Korean proxy invasion of the South in 1950 preservation of Communist rule in Hungary in 1956 and military aid p rograms for Cuba and North Vietnam as well as a host of non-Communist countries since 1955 round out the picture of Soviet use TOP SECHET TOP SECRET 3 mil itary i nstruments over the nearly half I I • century since the close of their own Civil War The Soviet leaders have of course used their military power and sometimes vague military threats t o brace t heir diplomatic position on various issues This will no doubt continue and it can in some cases l ead to unanticipated confront ations Similarly military assistance to other states or to national-liberation movements can tend to involve t he Soviet Union in crises - but Moscow can still decide to take local defeats rather than escalate to direct Soviet confrontation with the US As Brezhnev restated in his major programmat ic speech on November 3 1967 the Soviet Union does not believe in war bet •1een states as a way to advance Communism in the nuclear age So long as we maintain a s econd - strike capability even major fluctuations in the strategic balance would be unlikely to change t his Soviet judgment However if the Soviet leaders should come to believe that - regard ourselves as counterdeterred from doing -arious th ngs they may rightly or wrongly judge tha t they can swing their weight around more than before Their assessment of our view is thus more important than the precise balance of power and has been so TOP SECRET -· TOP SECRET past ··--•' i __ __ • 4 The risk is not that the Soviet Union will believe the military balance permits them to attack us or invade Western Europe or even undertake less provocative direct military measures but rather that t hey may be led by their assessment of our mood to extend their prestige so far in support of less direct aggression by proxies or others that they become involved in a direct confrontation with us II Hardware and Teleology - Can Soviet purposes be deduced from the fact of deployment itself Obviously the Soviets do not spend large sums on weapons unless they think they need them If the Soviets ever were content with some concept of minimal deterrence it is clear from current numbers that some years ago they opted for something more It is logical to suppose they first wanted t o gain a higher level of assurance that their deterrent force would be capable of withstanding an American first· strike and second that they also wish to limit damage to the USSR in the event of a nuclear exchange Characteristics as well as the size of the Soviet strategic forces can be adduced as evidence of such a sequence of general objectives Deployment of rather inaccurate ICBMs in dispersed single silos suggests a priority TOP SECRET i • I - · TOP SECRET 5 survival of a force suited to attacking economic and population targets in retaliation for an American first strike '' Testing of a fractional orbital bombardment system - its most likely purpose would appear to be to catch SAC bombers on the ground - suggests thinking about counterforce for purposes of damage limitation But that is about the limit of what can be deduced from the hardware itself To attempt to go further one would have to assume that the S viets wrk out the details of the strategic and political implications of weapons systems before they procure them - a proposition •hich as a matter of history is in at least some cases demonstrably untrue In general Soviet strategic and political thinking has followed the hardware rather than preceded it Once the hard- ware was develoged there was a rrocess of discovery of new purposes to which it might be put The SA-2 for exampl e was developed and deployed to defend the USSR against American bombers it would be hard to imagine that those who designed it were thinking of the ways in which the USSR could support national liberation struggles But the SA-2 has bo ome a major trade good in Soviet military aid programs to regimes in the third world and the principa l form of Soviet military TOP SECRET TOP SECRET · 6 to the colll llunist war effort in Vietnam e Similarly ' Soviets ere roundly berating Secretary McNamar a ' s ideas strategy they branded his 1962 Ann Arbor • l speech as an effort to legitimate nuclear warfare when they began work on the ICBM system SS-9 whose appearanc e now in such large numbers suggests t hat the purpose of deployment is in part for dama ge limitation by means of counterforce Since the hardware itself cannot provide answers to questions about politi cal implications we have t o fall back to a broader examination of how the Soviets are likely to l ook at the military balance and an effort to estimate how such views may affect their actions III From Numbers to Characteristics - Half a decade ago the number of ICBMs on each side sufficed at leas t as a rough index of relative capabilit ies longer so But this is no As both sides acquired f orces for counterforce use a net evaluation came to require a calculation of interact i on of weapons systems aga i nst each other And this evaluation in turn becomes more complex as new technology is i ntroduced on both the offense and defense Moreover these evaluations become increas in gly sensiti ve to the characteristics TOP SECRET 7 TOP SECRET Accuracy of ICBMs mattered little when the · primary targets were population centers but it becomes a critical fac t or in reckoning the chances of destroying a hard sil o While each side has quite accurate information about numbers of the others launchers intelligence about characteristics is in general harder to come by We know how many SS-9 silos the USSR has but we have less confidence in our estimates of how hard they are Thus it is in the nature of the weapons systems that in the next five years net assessments of the strategic balance are going to be more complicated harder to under stand and more likely to be subject to controversy In the US we have already seen public debate on the emerging relation strategic in which opinions range widely from one extreme which sees the Soviets as building for a first strike capability to the other which regards American programs most recently Sentinel -- as pressing the Soviets against their will into new rounds in the arms race We do not of course know precisely how the Soviets do their strategic bookkeeping Kosygin implied that there might be profound differences when he said publicly in February TOP SECRET 8 TOP SECRET was unseemly for the US to use cost as the criterion or deciding whether to invest n offense or defense What- ever the Soviets think of the macabre aspects of costeffectiveness it is logical to suppose that they too make an effort to calculate the net balance by working out the probable results of a nuclear exchange But given the variety of mathematical models available in this country for such purposes and the sensitivity of the calculations to estimates or assumptions about characteristics it would be an improbable accident for the Soviets to have arrived at the same net fatalities figures that we have in our computations IV Soviet Expectations - Whatever the niceties of reckoning the Soviet policymaker will doubtless know that his capacity for inflicting damage on the US has grown His propensity actually to use his nuclear forces will not in all likelihood be greater for he will still have to reckon with American capability to damage the USSR One can hardly be precise about what constitutes an acceptable leve l of damage in the minds of the Soviet leaders Hist0rical data on how 11 iny casualties the USSR suffered in World War II or in the collectivization of agriculture mean little -- in neither TOP SECRET ' iI ' TOP SECRET 9 the Soviet leaders voluntarily decide to accept of fatalities Any judgment must be basically a priori but it is difficult to believe that the Soviet leaders would find any figure in the tens of millions of fatalities attractive as a policy option Indeed so long as reasonable expectations of fatalities range in the tens of millions one number is likely to be about as appalling as another Moreover the kinds of uncertainties to which net assessments are increasingly likely to be subject will tend to reinforce deterrence Elements of doubt will t end to make the military planner even more pessimistic about the outcome than the actual result might in fact be Prudence will prompt the planner to make worst case assumptions Such evidence as we have had over the yea rs bears out the impression that the Soviet military do in fact lean to this kind of prudence in estimating risks involved in courses of action At the same time such prudential calculations based on worsircase assumptions may produce pressures in the Soviet Union for Jrther improvements in the ir strategic forces As the Soviets look five years ahead they probably s ee TOP SECRET - TOP SECRET • · - •• J • • • 10 ' cutting into the relative improvement their posture vis-a-vis the US which is being produced by their current deployments This is likely to be true despite the fact that certain dral l8tic crossover points will have been reached Next year the Soviets will have more ICBM launchers than the US and a year or so later will be able to deliver more megatonnage to the US than the US can to the Soviet Union -- and for at least a vociferous minority of Americans the situation may seem increasingly unfavorabie to the US Among Moscow's concerns American deployment of MIRVs will loom largest Although the Sentinel decision occasioned vastly more comment in the American and European press the MIRVs are likely to weigh more heavily i n Soviet calculations of the world of 1972 For years the Soviets have taken a rather matter of fact view of ABMs as a logical weapa system f or both sides to develop and deploy but they may see MIRVs as being of a somewhat more sinister nature Riding the coattails of American strategic thinking the Soviets some years ago decided to protect their force by switching from tripl e silos to dispersed single ones in deploying their present generation TOP SECRET '' '' '' 11 Having spread their forces so as to create more an attacker the Soviets may see the 'American dcci sion to put more warheads in each hol e rather than to build additional launchers as creating a system better suited to a first than a second strike Doubtless the Soviets are sophisticated enough to understand that warhead count we anticipate 6 000 American vs 2 000 Soviet in 1972 is not an index to relative strategic capabiliti es any more than the box score of l aunchers They will never - the less be concerned by the multiplier effect of MIRVs A key variable in the effectiveness of American MIRVs will be our ability to attain the accuracies necessary to make small warheads effective against hard targets Whatever skepticism American cr5 tics of US defense policy may express on that account the Soviets will most likely make their decisions on their own worst- case assumption v New Directions in Soviet Weaponry - How will the Soviets react to American programs which threaten to erode the gains in relative posture which they have been making They could simply do more of the same continue deploying the ICBMs they have now and deploy the Moscow ABM system elsewhere TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 12 the Soviets will seek t o improve the characterl s tics rather than s i mply the numbers of their weapons For two years the Soviets have spoken of mobile solid-fuel ICBMs and they may be devel oping one for the y recently tested the solid-fuel KY-6 to intercontinental range We have had no evidence of Soviet testing of multiple warheads but despite what the Soviets may have though t of American MIRVs they probably will develop t heir own To the extent·that the Soviets emphasize c haract eris t ics such as these they may creat e new uncertainties in American intelligence We may know_ when the Soviet FOBS becomes operational but we may never know exactly how many have bee n deployed We may know t hat the Soviets have deployed mobile missiles but we may not know how many If the Soviets choose to deve l op MIRVs which can·be retrofitted t o exist i ng mis s ile s rather than more sophis t icated ones for a fo l lowon ICBM we may not know how many have been installed We do not of course know how much of what the Sovie t s will in fact c hoose to do While our es timate s of t he Soviet strategic forces are quite good for present force levels and for about t wo years out i e for the period when we deal TOP SECRET • TOP SECRET 13 things which are in being or under construction O ' for longer term estimates is only fair at best drt of the Intel l igence Community ' s judgment that the Soviets will turn from increasing numbers of current models to greater sophistication in characteristics of strategic weapons rests on the consideration that the Soviets too will find such an approach economical VI Can -The i Afto·r-d Yt As we look at th Soviet forces projected in the National Intell igence Estimates we have to ask Can the Soviets afford it The answer is yes but at a cost to their overall economic growth rate We do not have agreed Intelligence Community figures for a decade ahead but projecting existing data we can illustrate the interaction of defense spending and growth rates GNP Grew by % p a Defense by In Yea -s 66 7% 5 2% 36% A high defense spending program for 1967-77 would mean 61% 4 8% 27% A low defense spending 70% 1957 -77 %p a 3 1% 2 4% program for 1967-77 5 4% 12% increase in 1970-73 dropping back to current level in 1976 Thus the defense burden - even projecting from the high side TOP SECRET ·DEC_l S IFlED ' · AutM iiymD· 'f79 - £1 ·0 TOP SECRET 14 NIE force levels - appears quite bearable Neverthe- advantages to overall Soviet economic growth of lower of military spending are appreciable We ar e i n gene ral skeptical of analyses which postulate the division of the Soviet leadership into two basic groups one tending to f avor and the other to oppose defense spending a harder line in f oreign policy etc So far as we have been able to see over the years the pressures of the one-party system have tended rather to make for more of a bell-curve distribution of Sov ie t political l eaders on the spectrum of opinions in Moscow one which peaks in the center And the political arguments over budget i s sues seem to i nvolve shifting c oalitions which vary with the questions of the day Be that as it may cost will doubtless be an important factor in Soviet decisions on military programs And in particular the Sovie t s will find it important to manage the pace as well as the amount of their military s pending For while Moscow can - and probably will - afford substan tial outlays for continuing i mprovement of its military posture the Soviets would find i t particularly troublescme to have to compress the time frame for mi l itary programs If too many programs peak at once the Soviets would have to cut deeply into overall economic gr owth r a t es - perha ps to the point of impos ing a negative growth rate upon themse lves - ' TOP SECRET 15 Factors- Affect ing Pace - Vietnam Disarmament - This • f actor of pace in the arms race is important to the Soviet view of such i ssues as Vietnam and arms control In the US one hears the argument that the Soviets must welcome the war in Vietnam as tying down the US and inhibiting American spending on strategic weapons Doubtless the Soviets perceive this side effect of the war in Vie tnam But at t he same time Vietnam poses problems for t he Soviets While the Sovie ts seem to be operating on the judgment that the risks are manageable they stil l do not appar ent ly see the outcome clearly And the potential risks of varying degrees of involvement would be likely to introduce a major f actor of uncertainty into t he ir calcul ations of future military require ments Indeed the Soviets face the possibility that Vietnam them may impose upon equirements to· -pe ak several military programs at once - and that would be the kind of multiple requirement which would force the Soviets into unpleasant economic straits With regard to disarmament one can set out a strong case for the Soviets' being interested in ending or limiting the arms race Increments to high ·r rce l evel s add only marginally to security but become increasingly costly as TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 'i grow more sophisticated 1 16 Nevertheless there are obstacles to any major agreement Soviet strategic are in a state of dynamic growth at the moment and would hardly wish to freeze them -at a point when the USSR was gaining ground relative to the US Any proposals or negotiations on vital security issues would doubtless be clouded with suspicions of the other side's purposes With the advent of MIRV 1 s and mobile missiles the problems of verification are compounded And finally the intrinsic problems of developing reasonable tradeoffs among US and Soviet weapons systems may be insuperable On balance we believe that the Soviets probably look upon chances of a major arms limitation agreement with the US as quite poor We believe that the Soviets would not see attainable arms control as a meaningful alternative to the arms race but rather aa a means of regulating its pace The exampl e of the test ban agreement is r elevant it did not reduce Soviet f orces if anything it add d to the cost of Soviet nuclear weapons tests atmosphere in which the But it did inter alia create an US was less disposed to press its own strategic spending and afforded the Soviets some breathing space before they set out on t heir own rapid ICBM deployments TOP SECRET • • '' _j - · •·• I • - • TlHENATIONAJi - - __ _ --·i TOP SECRET 17 Strength and Foreign Policy - Whatever the vagaries readings of the balance in 1972 the fact remains that the Soviet Union will be stronger than it has ever been before and that its military strength relative to t hat of the US is growing What effect will this have on foreign policy There is of course a substantial body of opinion in the US which is disposed to the view that Soviet foreign policy 1s a function of Soviet military strength and which assumes that the Soviets will necessarily grow more assertive as they grow stronger As a historical pi'opos1t1on we are skeptical of the view that assertive or aggressive Soviet behavior can be closely correlated with peaks 1n Soviet military strength The Soviets have not been markedly more assertive with 700 ICBMs this year than they were with less than half that number a year ago The heyday of Khrushchev's missile rattling in the late 1950 1 s occurred well before the Soviet Union had any operational ICBMs deployed though the fact was not widely realized at that time If anything a stronger historical case can be made for the proposition that Moscow's nastier periods were ones of relative weakness The 1961 Berlin crisis occurred at a moment when the Soviets had no ICBMs to speak of and moreover TOP SECRET ' ' TOP SECRET 18 had cut the general purpose f orces i n 1960 Cuban missile crisis was t he p oduc t of s t rategi c rat her t han a move from a position of str e ngth Whether t he Cuban missiles were intended as a t emporary e xpedient until more ICBMs coul d be deployed or less l ikely as a permanent substitut e for t hem is pr oblematical But either way the venture was not based upon Soviet s t rengt h In general we doubt that t heir i ncreased s tra t egic strength will make Soviet leaders mor e prone to del iberat ely precipitate major crises or confrontati ons wi th the US For at the end of the road to nuclear war one ' s own casual ties are more relevant than t he damage one can i nflict However i f t he Soviets see 1972 as we do it will be a period in which dynamism in the development of strategic forces on both sides wil l r sult i n stabl e utual deterrence and the very uncertainties which prompt weapons procurement may heighten t he effect of deterrence And in t hat case t he Soviets may see greater prospect of using conventiopal military force without risking crisis or confrontation '11th the US H nce some trends in the development of the Soviet Union ' s general purpose forces may be even more re l evant to foreign policy TOP SECRET - · · t • • - - · · -' -- ·- - 19 TOP SECRET 197O 's than the big picture of strategic weaponry IX• Trend Toward Greater Reach - The Soviets have been gradually increasing the reach of their military force Moscow ' s increasing ability to project military power rapidly to distant areas was not the result of a dec1s1o l to develop capabilities f or distant limited operations We s ee no evidence for example that the Soviets intend to build aircraft carriers as distinc t from helicopter carriers and the major limit ation upon Soviet capabilities for opposed operations in remote areas remains l ack of air cover Rather t he Soviets appear to have developed forces with greater reach as part of their capabilities for general war and now seem to be in the process of discovering other potential a pplications The Middle ·East crisis has· ·nighlighted the trend toward greater reach in Soviet general purpose forces The Soviet Mediterranean Squadron gradually came into being as part of the general trend toward wider ranging activity by the Soviet Navy The peak number of Soviet ships in the Mediterranean this summer was not r adically different from what one might have anticipated by ·projecting the trend of the past two years But the usual sharp autumn decline in TOP SECRET i • - I TOP SECRET ✓- l •ATllE ·' ' TlONilf · _ 20 of the Squadron has not taken place t his year and Soviets have found new uses for their naval presence in t he Medi terranean They have not only used visits to Arab por ts to make a show of military strength and support of the defeated Arabs but also seemed to place ships i n UAR ports to discourage the Israelis from military moves a risky practice for it seems to have been based on the assumpt ion t hat the Israelis would in fact avoid the Soviet ships While we doubt that the Soviets would wish to develop an infrastructure of permanent bases in Arab countries the Mediterranean Squadron has become a permanent factor in the seascape Moscow has most recently added a variant to its naval visit theme by sending medium bombers on a visit to the UAR The Soviets developed landtng ships with an eye to possible operations in the European theater they have 500 or 600 of all types now However the appearance of landing craft as a more or less permanent adjunct to the Mediterranean Squadron adds a new option to Soviet po_licy i n the area Soviets have - whatever the unwisdom of doing it - the capacity to land quickly a token force TOP SECRET The - ' · · TOP SECRET 21 Simila rly the Soviet AN-12 transports were developed Ior mil itary ope r ations i n the European theat e r But these too found new application in the Middle East crisis when Moscow dramatized its s upply of new weapons to the defeated Arabs by mounting an unprecedented a i rlift operation Since t hen the Soviets have used much sma ller airlifts to de l i ver military aid t o Nigeria and the Yemen As to future trends we foresee a doubling of port-toport sealift capabi lities over the next ecade When the large AN-22s begin to be operational in a year they will add substantially to Soviet airl ift capabilities 25 of them could transport as many as 10 000 l ightly equipped troops in a single l ift t o a distance of as much as 5 000 mi les or one might say Baku to Stanl e yv ille The Soviets are building two new helicopter carriers one will be opera tiona l next year and the other the year after these may be for ASW purposes vertical assault missions or perhaps space recovery or rescue The development of greater and speedier reach will pose questions for Soviet policymakers which they did not face before In the past the typical c i -isis in the third world -- to· the degree that there was anything typical about such crj_ses -- was TOP SECRET 22 TOP SECRET they were out of the reach of Soviet military power is no tonger true and as Soviet naval forces range more widely and as Soviet capacity for lift increases the Soviets will have more instances in which they have capabilit ies for intervening in distant areas One can hardly attempt to foresee all of the trouble spots of the next five years but we have no doubt that there will be a good number of them And the chances that the Soviets have forces which are in the area or can get there will be greater Each Soviet decision will of course be sui generis -- the nature and relative strengths of t he local forces at work in any given crisis will always be different Perhaps a local gover_n- ment may ask for Soviet help in which case Moscow may feel that it has firmer ground for its action The Soviets would be unlikely t o attempt to put their military forces into a situation in which they would face American opposition -Soviet capabilities for distant limited action will not match America's The Soviets may however be more prone to be- lieve that we will not oppose them in part because of the strategic relation which is developing particularly if they are already on the scene If so the question fo the Soviets of intervention in the third wor ld may tend to be one of who can get there first TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 23 Asian Threat and European Theater A favorite theme of journalistic fancy these days is one of Soviet withdrawal from Europe in order to meet the Chinese threat However we have no evidence that the Soviets have materially reduced their forces arrayed against Western Europe for this reason And the estimates expect the basic orientation of the Soviet military establishment toward th European theater as likely to continue We do anticipate that the present gradual but st ady build- up of Soviet forces in Asia will continue The appearance this year of Soviet combat troops in Mongolia · not was a milestone in that trend While we would expect the Soviets to thin out their present European oriented M IRBM deployments new systems may well appear in the Asian area One early step n Soviet ABM dey lopment may be development Soviet of capabilities against third countries Despite assertions to the contrary in clandestine-source reporting the current Noscow system was not designed to cover approaches from China or France either and has only incidental capabilities in those directions While there appears to be no major change in Soviet deployments relevant to Europe the application of new TOP SECRET 24 to the study of ground- force problems has led to some r e-evaluation of Soviet_capabilities for reinforc ing · and sustaining a major campaign in Europe Th is year's National Inte lligence Estimate revised the estimate of Soviet • divisions ready for immediate conunitment Cate gory I downward from 61 to 46 X How Others See US So far the very rapid growth of Soviet strategic forces in the past two years has had remarkably little effect upon foreign opinion even in Western Europe where sensitivity to such issues has usuall y been great For the present political l eaders and journalists in Europe are more interested in Soviet intentions -- which are seen as detente minded in Soviet capabilities than Nevertheless the point at which the Soviet Union has- more ICBMs titan ·the US will not go unnoticed in Europe and in another year or so the fact of the great increase in Soviet military strength vis - a-vis the US will begin to sink in As we have already noted the precise state of the-military balance is becoming more difficult to appreciate and doubtless some of the kinds of arguments now being generated in the US will have their reflections in Europe too · TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 25 • It is possible that a new reputation for military trength may tempt the Soviets to renew pressures on Western Europeans by starting another Berlin crisis balance we think that is unlikely On The Soviets seem to have more to gain from a continua tion of their present tactics than by a line which would tend to force the West back together And Moscow's Eastern European allies would have little enthusiasm for a new crisis in Europe Even in the absence of new Soviet pressure the image of new Soviet power -- and perhaps exaggerated or distorted images of it -- wil l lead many in Europe to fresh questioning of whether the US would go to war on Europe's behalf and of the meaning of alliances in the nuclear age And that in turn may tend to make West Europeans increasingly loathe to put things to a test by offending Moscow Indeed the greatest threat to NATO seems to be that without any great crises in the alliance the allies may feel a need to assure themselves of Soviet goodwill and a habit of deference to the Soviets may gradually take hold in Europe XI Quality of Soviet Decision Making Obviously the Soviet leaders will have more than·a few important decisions to make in the next five years both TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 26 of what kinds of military hardware to buy and in what quantity but also in terms of new options which ' their ability to reach new areas will present to them Equally obviously we cannot predict how the y may react to an event such as a coup somewhere in East Africa five years from now And we could not do so even if the military esti- mates were perfect For ·many of the factors in Soviet decision- making will be unrelated to military considerations Looking back over the years we are not impressed with the quality of Soviet· decision making Khrushchev was at times a brilliant tactician in international affairs but his strategic blunders included the Cuban missile venture His ' successors have studiously avoided his flamboyance and given an impression of much greater conservatism in their handling of foreign policy But their contribution to bringing on the June war in the Middle East ··and their_ eagerness to supply arms to areas of tension hardly inspires confidence And in a period when the Soviet Union is becoming more powerful and in which the Soviets may have more options open to them for limited use or military forc e we have reason to be concerned over the caliber or Soviet political leadership TOP SECRET TOP SECRET Attachment C - Working Paper December 20 1967 S P - R Rosecrance U S STRATEGIC VIEWS U S strategic concepts for the past six years have stressed the twi n objectives of Assured Destruction and Damage-Limit ing The first has always had priority in American calcul ations because the devel opment of a secure second-strike capability is the most effective means of deterri ng an attack on the United Sta t es At the same time tpe strategy has attached a certain amount of importance to limiting the damage to the United States in event of nuclear war Role of Damage-Li iting Damage limitation of course can be performed in a number of different ways Traditionally U S posses- sion of a sign ficant counterf ce capability made it possible to think of limiting the impact of Soviet retaliation on the American homeland Civil defense measures were an alternative means of restricting damage to t he U S population In more recent years ant i- ballistic missile systems have been s een a s an additional method of damage-limitation Various combin i tions of TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 2 techniques could have possible r e l evan ce i n a s trategi c environment ities Damage-limiting capabil- conferred by s uch systems could have importa nce side from the intrinsic value of limiting American casualties and property damage in the event of war They have also been i mportant in American reassurances to European allies if the impact of a war upon the Unitep States could be reduced the Soviets could believe that American willingness t o r espond to Soviet strategic and tactica l challenges would be reinforced Since it was believe d for a considerable time that a war in Europe would quickly escal a te to strategic exchanges betwe en the United States and the Soviet Union U S pos session of a damage-limiting capability helped t o make the U S guarantee more credible and therefore to discour age a Soviet attac tc Possession of a damage -limiting capability however did not confer t he ability t o execute a first - strike with impunity Tr aditionally and over a ten-year period such capacities have been rejected as neither feasible nor desirable In 1962 Secretary McNamara explaine d this policy TOP SECRET 3 out that it is almost certainly infeasible would be extremely costly According to available evidence American ·Presidents and secretaries of State over the past decade have uniformly believed that a nuclear war would involve millions of American deaths For a considerable time therefore the U S has credited the Soviet Union with the capacity to des troy a small but not insignificant fraction of the American population and industrial capability U S possession of a significant damage-limiting capability then did not detract from the basic relationship of strategic deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union Given the ability to inflict substantial damage on the United States the Soviets appear to have paid somewhat less attention to the de facto strategic balance than to its perception in American ey s When the Unf ed States appeared to be uncertain of its capabilities the Soviets felt able to exert pressure on Berlin even though they possessed an inferior strategic force Their apparent calm in face of such balances was indicated by failure to press to the utmost their capacity to acquire strategic TOP SECRET _ -✓- TOP SECRET 4 off sive weapons in several past per iods For 1 example the soviets did not expl oit their capacity to produ e long-range bombers in much larger numbers nor did they even approach economically feasible production rates for first generation I CBM' s In the Cuban crisis again the Soviets posed a veriy substantial chall enge to U S interests even though they and the world were aware of U S strategic superiority Clearly the Soviets never accepted strategic in eriority as an immutab le feature of the international environment At the same time they did not make the attainment of a secure second-strike capabi lity an overriding priority on their resources at each previous juncture De Facto they frequently acted from an unequal posture but it does not seem that they ware intimidated lour strategic preparedness from initiating risky foreign policy moves as both Berlins and C 1ba indicate However U S strategic superiority clearly was a significant factor in the Soviet reluctance to press any of these confrontations further than they did and ll timately to back off • TOP SECRET TOP SECRE'f 5 ' Change in Soviet Posture Several years ago however the Soviets apparently took steps to c hange the existing set of strategic relationships These changes apparently involved a phasing and interlinking of two discrete steps first t hey improved their retaliatory force t hrough acquisition of hardened missiles and they increased the readiness of their bomber forc e By 1962-63 Soviet strategic forc e s were able to inflict tens of millions of American fatalities on second strike As a result t raditional U S disinc lination to attempt to develop a first-strike option was strongly reinforced Second the Soviets decided not only to strengthen the existing fabric of strategic deterrence but also to challenge U S strategic superiority This clearly involved an attempt to reduce American capabilities to limit damage in the event of war The most substantial cha nge in the actual balance of operational forc es in the last decade has occurred since 1965 In January 1965 a U S strategic initiative would have held Soviet r etaliation to infliction of 25 million American fatalities today a Soviet retalia tory stroke would bring 90- 100 million U S death s TOP SECRET TOP S CRET ·j 6 Implications of the New Relationship The increase in Soviet capacity to hurt the U S involved in the Soviet buildup pose s important strategic questions While the American commitment t o Europe is founded on tradition precedent and national interest it has also been buttressed by reducing or holding to a minimum the vulnerability of the Arnarican population Viewed from both Western Europe and the United States if damage to the U S population could be limited then a United States decision to respond strategically to an attack on American allies becomes proportionately easier As the secretary of Defense has pointed out our ability to hold down Chinese damage to the United States in a missile attack offers reassurances to Far Eastern allies · Traditionally moreover though Europeans would not put it in these t erms it was the ability to limit damage in respect of the Soviet Union which provided substance to the American nuclea r guarantee in Europe It is of course true that American r eadiness to respond strategically to an attack on Europe has not rested solely on estimates of damage t o the United Sta t es TOP SECRET An · DECLASSIFIED ' All 'i ii'j WD' ' frri'i · 's- 6E ·1V1JV oa ·1TOP SECRET American President might decide to respond to very damaging Soviet initiatives such as for example the mili tary absorption of Europe even if scores of millions of Americans would be kil led in the process Nevertheless U S damage- limiting capabilities reinforced U S assured destruction capabilities backed up U S commitments in Berlin and probably played a role in dissuading radical Soviet initiatives there As U S involvement proceeded in a c r isis buttressed by a superior strategic force the Soviets could never be sure that the U S political stake would not become so large that it could not be faced down U S involvement in Europe was in this sense different from the Soviet involvement in Cuba in Cuba the USSR hoped to avoid challenge by relying primarily on its political stake since both i t s local and strategic capabilities were inferior in Berlin the U S l ocal d_e ficiency was more than offset both by the s uperior American str ategic forces and by a strong political commitment In the Berlin episode of 1961 U S planners became increasingly aware as the crisis unfolded of the degree of Soviet inferiority The Soviets were in no doubt on that TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 8 score and were not tempted to test U S determination beyond certain narrow limits Despite the strengthening of U S offensive capabilities the substantial increase of Soviet capabilittes to damage the United States clearly affects allied relationships European partners understand that the current Soviet force is capable of doing grave harm to the U S population They recognize that mitigation of this condition is an expensive and exacting task As a result there is a growing consciousness that the United States could live up to its strategic commitments to Europe only at the cost of catastrophic damage to the American population Such an awareness does not necessarily lead to fatalism or a conclusion that U S guarantees are no longer effective Some Europeans are convinced that the Soviets will not precipitate another major crisis so that U S responses are not in question Others believe that the United States would respond regardless of the impact on the continental United States The bona fidcs of U S policy are so clearly pledged in Berlin that TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 9 may seem an impossible task Acceptance of the present strategic relati'onship however seems to rest as much or more on Soviet hesitancy to provoke a renewal of tension as it does on U S strategic prepar edness If a new challenge occurred the adequacy of U S capabilities for damage- limiting could be called i nto question and this in turn could affect Amer ican responses For the first t i me in some years then peace and stability i n Europe today is not the sole result of u· s· strategic preparedness it is also a function of current Soviet tactics An increase in U S damage limiting capabilities howeyer would not represent a universal European prescription for strategic ills Some would see a heavier ABM defense as provocative or as indicative of a possible trend toward fortress America Others would view it as a further reinforcement of U S and Soviet military advantage over other powers It is unlikely to be believed that a reduction of the vulnerabi l ity of the American population would restore NATO to a position of high resolve and cohesion Nor would Europeans wish to equate damage-limiting capabilities TOP SECRET 10 TOP SECRET with defensive capacities Improvements in the penetra• tion and accuracy of offensive missiles might be seen as a desirable way of r educing damage to the U S In any foreseeable conjunction of circumstanc es damagelimiting is unlikely to be the strategic panacea that some have claimed At the same time increased U S vulnerability is likely to have consequences for a variety of other countries In Europe a further questioning of the U S guarant e is l ikely t ogether with a further erosion of NATO solidarity This could lead on t he one hand to lower priorities assigned to defense matters and a gradual trend toward neutralism On the other it could lead both within and outside Europe to strengtheni ng of national consciousness with nat ional nuclear capacities as a possib e result We m y face increasing pressures for more specif ic nuclear assurances at a time when the strategic situation and the mood of t he American public make it less easy to accede to these requests Given our own obvious vulnerability to nuclear attack it will be more difficult for the U S to offer nuc lear TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 11 ·j _ it may be harder for us to satisfy other countries that their s ecuri y requirements can be met through nuclear guarantees These outcomes would feed pressures for independent nuclear capabilities U S efforts to resist these pressures would be likely to increase strains in our relationships with friendly countries On the Continent a European defense organization is a third possibility but its s uccess would partly depend on technical military assistance and political support from the United States As European countries increasingly take an independent posture and dilute their ties to NATO such help seems less likely to be forthcoming It is a paradox that when NATO ties are close and cohesive the U S is most willing to offer support and assistance to interallied sharing arrangements on the other hand when ties··are close intra-European arrangements are less needed When NATO solidarity has declined there is greater need to construct a purely European defense force but the U S incentive to contribute to the success of that force is reduced The ultimate impact of the great increase TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 12 American vulnerability may vary but its possible impetus in fostering proliferation neutralism or a purely-European approach to strategic forces does not appear to advance American interests as now construed The l essened U S ability to limit damage to the United States reinforces and speeds the erosion of the trans-Atlantic relationship which is already in train Further the most recent increases in soviet capabilities afford a marked challenge to the s tructure of U S -Soviet strategic relationships since the Second world War Until 1965 bilateral deterrence existed but only the United States possessed a damage-limi ing capability In another year in contrast the Soviet Union will equal the United States in ICBM launchers it will surpass the United States in total intercontinental megatonnage in 1968-69 it has the capacity to match our Polaris force in the mid-seventies Further- more the Soviets will probably deploy ABM ' sin other areas besides Moscow in the next decade The Russians will not only be abl e to reduce our damage-limitin capacities to minimal proportions they may acquire a damage-limiting potential of their own TOP SECRET 13 TOP SECRET Possible Implications of Increase in U S Damage-Limiting Capability It is of course uncertain how the Soviets would ' react if we sought to restore a portion of the damagel imiting power we previously possessed It is possible that they would insist that a ve ry high level of U S fatalities was essential to t heir r 'e qui rernents and woul d act to augment their offensive force accordingly There are some historical precedents which suggest that t hey would feel impelled to respond within feasible economic and technical constraints On the other hand there is nothing intrinsically more stable or rational about present force balant es than those of the past Indeed the present force relationship is a departure from past precedents The Soviets of course may not think in terms of Assured Destruction capabilit i es agaf st the U S population They have apparently aimed over time at better capacities to damage t he U S but they have not always assigned a n overriding priori t y to the attainment of these capabilities as a sine qua of Sovie t st_ ategy There have been considerable periods in which the TOP SECRET - • TOP SECRE'f 14 United States possessed a substantial damage- limiting capability Assured Destruction requirements for both the United States and the Soviet Union have never represented an immutable standard U S Assured Destruction tasks have varied between 40-20 percent of the Soviet population In shor t there is no necessary inevitability t o an increase in Soviet Assured-Destruction requirements any more than there i s an inexorable tendency to reduce or increase our own Implications of Changed Relationship for Soviet Po cicy In still another way Soviet force deployments of recent months pose questions for U S defense policy If damage-limiting capabilities are reduced the United States will be less inclined to respond to threats which do not imperil the American homeland I n turn greater strategi c qu3lity focuses attention on local-conventional balances of force The increase in Soviet general purpose capabilities and their enhanced capability to project force over di stance TOP SECRET TOP SECRET 15 suggests that third areas may become more subject to Soviet challenge The Russians will have a capability for intervening locally and for doing so quickly in relatively distant areas particularly in the Middle East and Africa · With an approximation to strategic parity in the next few years they may believe they can intervene in third areas with reduced · ·isk of American opposition Such conclusions would have to discount the greater U S general purpose capability and presume that the United States would be disinclined to challenge Soviet conventional forces at a time when U S forces are heavily engaged in Viet Nam Positing a lessened U S read iness to respond the Soviets might be tempted to fulfill requests for military assistance and support from governments r fac tions they_support politically The United States in turn could be faced with threats of local faits accomplis Prior Soviet intervention would face us wi t h the choice of local or strategic confrontation or non-involvement Dangers of l l S Puhlic Del ate Finally i ncreased Sovi et abiliti es to damage the United States may have repercussions aside fr om their TOP SECRET ' - _ -- · - · _• i TOP SECRET precise i mplications f or t he strategic balance 16 During the Berlin crises of 1958 and 1961 there were public expressions of doubt concerning the adequacy of the U S • I ' strategic force In 1958 these were not reflected at ' governmental levels because t he dangers then foreseen had to do with t ime periods two to three years distant U S decision- makers in 1958 did not question our ability to strike back after absorbing a Soviet a ttack In 1961 the f i r st months of the Berlin crisis were endured eve ' though there remained some uncertainties abou t existing capabilities Our margin of superiority was not fully r evealed until the crisis was underway On both occasions however public uncertainties and controversy over the state of the U S strategic force may have played a r ole in soviet initiat ion of crisis Deterrence of provocative actions by an adversary of course depends upon our ability t o influence his perceptions If his perceptions are inaccurate he may misread governmental attitude and miscalculate accordingly There is some evidence t hat the Soviets have responded as much to their assessment of our view both pt1bli c and governmental as to the actual balance of power at a given moment 1'01' SECRET ' I DECLASSIFIED • ' Aulllo ii't'WP _ E - ·-· • 7 7 - AT n£ NATION' NIOtl VE S I - - ____ NARA 0 1 ''-7 TOP SECRET 17 If there should be a major public controversy in the United States over the state of our strategic preparedness and if the r esponses of U S decision-makers did not succeed in laying the issues to rest the Soviets could find incentives for foreign policy initiatives that they would otherwise abjure Conclusions 1 Prior to the most recent increases in Soviet forces the Soviets possessed a significa nt a bility to damage che United States in a strategic war 2 Until 1965 the United States possessed a significant capacity to limit damage t o the U S population Since that time the Soviets have s i gni fic a ntly increased their ability to damage the Ame1·ican homeland 3 This ability reinforced U S guarantees to European and other a l lies While the United States might be wiiling to accept -high level of U S fatalities in order to r espond to a n attack on allies the lower the level of damage to the United States the more likely wou l d be U S will i ngness to fulfill its guar antees 'fOP SECRET 18 TOP SECRET 4 For a cons iderable period indeed for most of the past decade the Soviets possessed a capability which was much inferior to the one they now possess and to one which they might feasibly have possessed at the time An unequal capability did not prevent them from initiating political crises and it did not foreclose a strategic crisis at the time of Cuba In accepting such a position the Soviets on more than one occasion did not seize opportunities to press toward strategic parity or advantage 5 Present Soviet force increases give the Soviets a c apability which tl ey have never hnd before antl they represent a signal increment to the Soviet f orce increas e s of 1962- 63 which first made possible a secure Soviet retaliatory force 6 Thes e increases could affect U S guarantees to its allies a nd impinge upon other states ' willingness to accept or rely on U S guarantees They could give grounds for further trends toward neutra lism and or nuclea r proli feration 7 The associated increases in Soviet general purpose forces and the Soviet ability to project force through c istance r a i s e the possibility of ndcli tional Soviet mili tar ' involvement in third arc is TOP SECRET 19 TOP SECRET In the a bsence of effective U S counter moves tlte enhancement of Soviet strategic power may lead t he Russians to believe that they can engage in thirdarea commitments with diminishing risk of American counteraction This in turn could give rise to lo al faits accomplis 8 Soviet force increases will probably occasion publ ic controversy in the United States In the past such controversies may have l ed Soviet l eaders t o miscalculate the American mood possibly to believe that American leaders thought themselves counterdl1terred from 1iiaking certain r esponses and therefore to believe that they could exercise a greater fore i gn policy ini tiative than before Under certain circumstances there is risk that they may be led by their assessment of our attitude to extend their prestige so far in support of less direct aggression by proxies or others that they become involved in a direct confronta tion with us TOP SECRET