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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections. Collection: Bailey, Norman: Files Folder Title: Soviet Policy (December 1982) Box: RAC Box 3 To see more digitized collections visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit: https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected] Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/ WITHDRAWAL SHEET Ronald Reagan Library Collection Name BAILEY, NORMAN: FILES Withdrawer RBW 2/12/2013 File Folder SOVIET POLICY DECEMBER 1982 FOIA M452 Box Number 3 SHIFRINSON 48 ID Doc Type Document Description No of Doc Date Restrictions Pages 154003 REPORT 3 12/1/1982 Bl PAR 12/21/2015 M452/3 154004 REPORT [ATTACHED TO DOC. 154003] 20 ND Bl PAR 12/21/2015 M452/3 154006 MEMO WALTER RAYMOND TO ROBERT 1 12/6/1982 Bl MCFARLANE RE. ANDROPOV STATEMENTS R 12/14/2015 M452/3 154009 REPORT 1 12/9/1982 Bl PAR 12/21/2015 M452/3 Freedom of Information Act - (5 U.S.C. 552(b)] B-1 National security classified Information [(b)(1) of the FOIAJ B-2 Release would disclose Internal personnel rules and practices of an agency [(b)(2) of the FOIAJ B-3 Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIAJ B-4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial Information [(b)(4) of the FOIAJ B-6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted Invasion of personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIAJ B-7 Release would disclose Information compiled for law enforcement purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIAJ B-8 Release would disclose Information concerning the regulation of financial Institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIAJ B-9 Release would disclose geological or geophysical Information concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIAJ C. Closed In accordance with restrictions contained In donor's deed of gift. filB.Er . = ' ~~,~~5 \ EO 13526 3.3(b)(1)>25Yrs ~ - EO 13526 3.5(c) I 0·.... :'."': r .··: I ~, ~ . DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE December 1982 SOVIET SECURITY POLICY AND SUCCESSION Summary The election of General Secretary Yuriy Andropov and the subsequent Central Committee and Supreme Soviet sessions occurred in the context of national security policy decisions made just prior to Leonid Brezhnev's death. Circumstantial evidence suggests that important national security policy issues were under discussion in the Kremlin during September . and October. These included: (1) Soviet economic priorities and defense spending; (2) the nature of the US threat; and (3) the viability of the Brezhnev Npeace program.N Speeches by Brezhnev on 27 October and Party Secretary Konstantin Chernenko on 29 October appeared designed to bring that discussion to a close and to communfcate the leadership's policies on these issues to internal and external audiences alike. I I These speeches and subsequent comments by Soviet officials suggested that had Brezhnev not died we could have expected to see a security policy based on some elements of continuity and some probing for new opportunities containing at a minimum the fo 11 o.wi ng elements: SOV M 82-0195 This paper was prepared byl~~~-~~~__,lof the Security Issues Branch, Policy .Analysis Div1sion, Office of Soviet Analysis. Comments and queries are welcome and may be directed to the Chief,. Policy Analysis Division,.J \ ~I ~J. * Hei~htened anti-Ame~ican rhetoric; * A diplomatic campaign to pursue detente with those peace forces and governments more receptive to cooperation with the Soviet Union than the Kremlin leadership perceives the Reagan Administration to be; * Geopolitical initiatives designed to isolate the United States by emphasizing relations within the soci~list bloc as a selective policy alternative to improving East/West relations and by obtaining moveMent on such long-standing issues as Sino-Soviet . relations» Afghanistan and arms control in Europe; * Increased pressure against US arms control positions, including the threat to deploy •corresponding weapons• to the American MX and long­ range cruise missiles; and, * Continuation but probably no marked accelerrtion in the growth of Soviet defense expend1t~res. _ While we expect the general di~ection of these policies set before Brezhnev's death to be continued, the fact that Andropov has moved so quickly to consolidate power and had been less outspoken than some other Politburo members in support of Brezhnev's policies may provide the opportunity for the issues of September/October to be reopened. The general direction of policy since Brezhnev's death seems consistent with the a~ove readin~ of where policy was heading just before his death. Nonetheless, it is too early to expect any new ,policy lines on such critical issues. When and if Andropov moves to place his individual stamp on foreign policy, the first changes will likely come with additional initiatives .in arms control (he has already publicized the Soviets' current INF and START positions in an effort to complicate .the US strategy for the negotiations) or in areas of geopolitical tension like China and Afghanistan. The new General Secretary *in this respect. SOVA's reading of Andropov's speech to the Central Committee Plenum on 22 November differa ~lightly from the interpretation of E■ bassy Moscow, which speculated that it might have implied a reordering of Soviet priorities, on the Food Program for _exa•ple. I I has numerou~ options for movement, depending in large part on his reading of the prospects for Soviet-American relations. I I . " lx INTRODUCTION General Secretary Yuriy Andropo~'s speech to the 60th Anniversary celebration on 21 December and his speech to the Central Committee Plenum on 22 November . indicate that he has decided• to continue in his policy toward the United States along the lines charted by the leadership before Brezhnev's death. During the summer and early fall, there were signs of controversy surrounding Soviet national security policy. While the content of that controversy is not entirely clear, the speeches by former General Secretary .Leonid Brezhnev tti military commanders on 27 October and by Politburo member Konstantin Chernenko in Tbilisi on 29 October appeared to signal that decisions ~ad been made and the immediate course of Soviet national security policy had been determined. We believe the consensus out of which those decisions .grew remains in place. THE CONTROVERSY OVER SOVIET SECURITY POLICY During the past year the soviet leadership has shown signs of defensiveness in responding to US initiatives in foreign and defense policies.· While there has been. a steady hardening of Soviet propaganda concerning the United States, a surprising number of differences have appeared in Soviet assessments of the American threat. ·I~---~ Military figures, for example, have charged the US with "vigorous preparations for nuclea~ war" and "direct ••• mater1al 1 SECREI preparations for a new world war." Ot~er Soviet spokesmen, however, have sought to make a distinction between US intentions and what they perceive as a more modest capacity of the US Government to achieve its policy ambitions. This less alarmist view of US policy has been expressed in several variants by commentators from the USA Institute, Central Committee officials like Vadim Z~gladin, Vitaliy Kobysh and Valentin Falin, and Andropov aide Aleksander Bovin. In essence, these Soviet observers have made some combination of the following arguments: (1) that the United States would not s~cceed in realizing its intentions because economic limitations and political factors such as the peace movement and West European reluctance to endorse US policies toward the East would frustrate it; (2) that the US is striving for "military superiority," "unleasing an unprecendented arms race," and attempting to damage the Socialist economies, but not necessarily preparing to fight a nuclear war; (3) that the military balanc~ between the superpowers and between NATO and the Warsaw Pact is relatively stable, cannot easily be upset, and therefore, that US military programs do not require a precipitous Soviet response. I~ _____, In addition to these contending viewpoints, there were other indications over the past year that the leadership's security policies were the subject of controversy. For example, there was {o_ the circumstantial evidence of Brezhnev's . unusual meeting with the military commanders on 27 October 1982. During the preceding three months there had · been signs of opposition within the military to the timing of the Soviet Union's initiative ·on no first use of nuclear weapons. In a 12 July Pravda article, Defense Minister Ustinov made an indirect allusion to the controversy and subsequently Soviet lecturers defended the "no first use" initiative against unnamed skeptics when addressing domestic audiences. More recently, an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta on 27 October defended the measure while admitting that to take it was "no simple step." These indications that the no first use initiative ran into opposition probably reflect more broadly based reservations within the leadership about the detente strategy. In the late summer and early fall a number of Soviet officials and academics told westerners that the .Brezhnev leadership had encountered military opposition to its unilateral initiatives in the area of arms control. The fundamental issue seems to have been a concern by some members of the leadership that the Soviet Union would not appear sufficiently tough in the face of what they all perceived to be an American Administra~ion determined to compete mo~e vigorously across the board. For example, Chief of Staff N~kolay Ogarkov, presumably speaking for the military, had repeatedly appeared to argue in I public that new arms programs and greater economic resources were required to meet what he alleged to be "direct" and "acti.ve" preparations by the United States for global nuclear war.
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