Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [177]
Finally, some people question whether the intelligence products themselves affected the intelligence process. Each year the intelligence community completed a national estimate on Soviet strategic military capabilities (NIE 11-3-8). U.S. policy makers viewed this estimate as necessary for strategic planning, including preparation of forces and budgets. But did the preparation of an annual major estimate also affect intelligence? Did it lock intelligence into set patterns, making it more difficult for the community to effect major changes or shifts in analyses? In other words, once the community had produced an NIE 11-3-8 for several years, how easy was it for analysts to propose dissenting, iconoclastic, or wholly new views? One remedy for these possible flaws was competitive analysis, tried most prominently in the Team A-Team B exercise.
Direct comparison of forces, a legitimate intelligence activity, often took place in a politicized atmosphere. Policy makers in successive administrations and Congresses tended to have preconceptions about the nature of the Soviet threat and thus viewed intelligence as being either supportive or mistaken. They engaged in long debates about quality (a U.S. advantage) versus quantity (a Soviet advantage) of weapons systems. The inconclusive nature of the debates led many to seek other means of comparison. One means was defense spending, both in direct costs and in the percentage of gross domestic product devoted to defense, which were taken as signs of intentions as well as capabilities.
THE EMPHASIS ON STATISTICAL INTELLIGENCE
Much of the intelligence that was produced (as opposed to collected) about the Soviet Union was statistical, including• The size of Soviet and Soviet-satellite forces in terms of manpower and all levels of weaponry
• The size of the Soviet economy and its output
• The amount and percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to defense
• A variety of demographics about life in the Soviet Union
Not all areas of inquiry were equally successful. The capabilities of the Soviet military were tracked quite well. Analysis of the Soviet economy was less successful. Ultimately, the intelligence community both overestimated the size of the Soviet economy and underestimated that portion of it devoted to defense, which probably totaled 40 percent of gross domestic product annually—a staggering level. Demographic data in the late 1980s and early 1990s pointed to a steady decline in the quality of Soviet life.
As important as the data were, the overall effort to quantify aspects of the Soviet issue had an effect of its own. Although much about this issue remained intangible, the intelligence community emphasized its ability to track various attributes in detail.
Looking back, one finds some efforts a bit comical. For example, the U.S. intelligence community devoted a great deal of time and energy—perhaps too much—to various means of comparing Soviet defense spending with that of the United States. Some analysts converted the cost of U.S. defense into rubles; others converted assessed values for the Soviet defense establishment into dollars. Each of these methodologies was artificial, and their respective proponents usually ended up preaching to the converted or to the stubbornly unbelieving regarding the Soviet threat.
What was often missing in this wealth of detailed data were the intangibles: the solidity of the Soviet state, the depth of support for it in the general population, and the degree of restiveness among the satellite populations. Few analysts questioned the stability or viability of the Soviet Union in the near