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442 Document No. 57: National Intelligence Estimate 11-4-89, “Soviet Policy toward the West: The gorbachev Challenge” April 1989 This remarkable estimate from the U.S. intelligence community provides one of the clearest expressions anywhere in the American documentary record of the split between hardline skeptics of Gorbachev—a group that in 1989 included President Bush as well as his top advisers Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and Robert Gates—versus those who saw fundamental change happening in the Soviet Union, a less influential group that included former President Reagan as well as most of the senior career analysts at CIA such as Douglas MacEachin. The extraordinary “Disagreements” section of this estimate summarizes the views of both sides, without mentioning that the first group was actually in charge of the U.S. government at that moment. The opening bullet points of the “Key Judgments” are especially striking for their obtuseness, warning that the first two effects of changes in “the nature of the Soviet challenge” would be to “threaten the security consensus developed in the West to combat Soviet expansionism” and “undercutting support abroad for defense programs”! The evidence now available from the Soviet side, including the documents published in this book, which intelligence analysts at the time could only dream of gaining access to, demonstrates that the “fundamental re-thinking” view was precisely on target; yet this view did not have nearly as much influence on U.S. policy after the 1986 Reykjavik summit, (or especially in the first year of the Bush administration), as did the opinions of the hard-liners who were so wrong in these judgments because of their presumptions about the Soviet Union. KEY JUDgMENTS54 Dramatic changes in approach to the West under Soviet leader gorbachev are driven by economic and social decay at home, a widening technological gap with the West, and a growing realism about trends in the outside world. For the foreseeable future, the USSR will remain the West’s principal adversary. But the process gorbachev has set in motion is likely to change the nature of the Soviet challenge over the next five years or so: • New Soviet policies will threaten the security consensus developed in the West to combat Soviet expansionism. 54 Information available as of April 17, 1989 [as indicated in original document]. Melyakova book.indb 442 2010.04.12. 16:20 443 • The Soviets are likely to succeed to a degree in undercutting support abroad for defense programs and in reducing political barriers to Western participation in their economic development. • At the same time new policies will make Moscow more flexible on regional issues and human rights and pave the way for a potentially significant reduction of the military threat. • Alliance cohesion will decline faster in the Warsaw Pact than in NATO, giving the East Europeans much greater scope for change. We believe Moscow wants to shift competition with the West to a largely political and economic plane. In order to prepare the ground for such a shift, Soviet leaders are making major policy changes and promoting a broad reassessment of the West. These new policies serve domestic as well as foreign policy needs: • They aim to create an international environment more conducive to domestic reform and to undermine the rationale for high defense budgets and repressive political controls. • They are seen as more effective than past policies in advancing Soviet foreign interests. There are limits on how far the new Soviet leadership wants to go in the direction of a less confrontational East–West relationship: • Vigorous efforts to protect and advance Soviet geopolitical interests and selective support for Communist regimes and revolutionary movements will continue. • Moscow will continue to employ active measures and covert efforts to advance its objectives. Foreign intelligence activity is likely to increase. given the turmoil unleashed by the reform process, we cannot predict policy trends during the period of the Estimate with high confidence. Nevertheless, we believe that gorbachev is likely to stay in power and that the reform effort is more likely than not to continue. If so, we believe the following developments are probable: • Military power. While increasing so far under gorbachev, Soviet defense spending will decline significantly in real terms. Moscow will maintain vigorous force modernization programs and a strong R&D effort in key areas, but production and procurement of many major weapons will decline. gorbachev is likely to make further concessions to achieve a START agreement , show flexibility on chemical weapons, and take further steps to trim and redeploy Soviet...

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