Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Korea, Volume VII

795.00/10–1250

Memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency

top secret

[Washington,] 12 October 1950.

G. Conclusions Regarding a Possible Soviet Decision to Precipitate Global War¹

1. The Soviet rulers are simultaneously motivated by Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist doctrine and by considerations affecting the position of the Soviet Union as a world power. They have made clear that their long-term object is to establish World Communism under the domination of the Kremlin. Their immediate concerns, however, are:

a. To maintain the control of the Kremlin over the peoples of the Soviet Union.

b. To strengthen the economic and military position and defend the territory of the Soviet Union.

c. To consolidate control over the European and Asian Satellites (including Communist China).

d. To make secure the strategic approaches to the Soviet Union, and to prevent the establishment, in Europe and Asia, of forces capable of threatening the Soviet position.

e. To eliminate Anglo-American influence in Europe and Asia.

f. To establish Soviet domination over Europe and Asia.

g. To weaken and disintegrate the non-Soviet world generally.

The Soviet Union will try to pursue these objectives simultaneously. In case of conflict between one and another of these objectives, however, it may be expected that the Soviet rulers will attach greater importance to the first four listed, and in that order.

2. On the basis that the long-term object of the Soviet rulers is immutable and dynamic, and that the Western Powers are not prepared to succumb to Soviet domination without a fight, there is, and will continue to be, grave danger of war between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand, and the Western Powers and their allies on the other.

3. The Soviet Union will continue relentlessly its aggressive pressures on the power position of the Western nations.

4. The Soviet rulers could achieve, and are in a fair way towards achieving, the first three parts of their object (see a, b, c above) without risk of involvement in direct armed conflict with the Western Powers.

5. Parts d, e, f, and g of their object are improbable of achievement without the employment of armed force, though there are still factors in the existing situation which might well lead Soviet rulers to consider that, in certain circumstances, and in the absence of effective armed opposition by the Western Powers, they might ultimately attain these parts of their object without the overt involvement of Soviet armed forces.

6. In pressing to achieve parts d, e, f, and g of their object, the Soviet rulers will, at certain stages, inevitably impinge upon the vital interests of the Western Powers and so incur the risk of involvement in a general war precipitated through the necessary reactions of the Western Powers.

7. In the belief that their object cannot be fully attained without involvement in a general war against the Western Powers, the Soviet rulers may decide deliberately to provoke such a war at a moment when, in their opinion, the strength of the Soviet Union vis-à-vis the Western Powers is at its maximum. It is estimated that such a period exists now and will extend from the present through 1954^* with its peak at about halfway, i.e., 1952.^†

8. From the point of view of military forces and economic potential, the Soviet Union is in a position to conduct a general war of limited duration now if Soviet rulers thought it desirable or expedient.

9. While intelligence is lacking to permit a valid prediction as to whether or when the Soviet Union may actually exercise its initiative and capability to launch a general war, in view of the foregoing it must be recognized that the risk of a general war exists now and hereafter at anytime when the Soviet rulers may elect to take action which threatens, wholly or in part, the vital interests of the Western Powers.

1. See footnote 1, p. 933.
2. 1954 being the date by which it is assumed that North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Europe will be built up to such a strength that they can withstand the initial shock of surprise attack; and when the gap between the relative strength of the Western Union forces and those of the Soviet Union will have begun to contract. [Footnote in the source text.]
3. i.e., when the Soviet Union has made good some essential deficiencies in atomic bomb stock pile, and in certain types of aircraft; and before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization economy is fully geared to the war effort. [Footnote in the source text.]