In This Review
U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat

U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat

By Lawrence D. Freedman

Westview Press, 1978, 235 pp.

A useful introductory analysis of the diversity and competition in the U.S. intelligence community, correctly concluding that the perception of U.S. vulnerabilities strongly influences most estimates of the Soviet threat. Focused as it is on the U.S. policy process, the book does not provide satisfactory explanations for the substantive problem: the continuing long-term Soviet military buildup of strategic power. Its detailed examination of the issue of ICBM vulnerability does refute several simplistic, but common, myths.