CDIM02357. 26 November 1959. "The Likelihood of Global War between the Sino-Soviet Bloc and the Free World"

This document is the British report JIC (59)80 (Final), finished on November 26, 1959, which has the similar objectives as another report from 1958 (see CDIM02254). The report continued to assume that the West would “maintain its strength and cohesion and… act with restraint,” and that “there will be no unexpected change in the political situation, such as… new and recklessly aggressive Soviet leaders.” There were two primary considerations affecting Soviet attitudes towards global war: that communism would triumph without having to resort to war, and that a global war would have “a disastrous affect on the Soviet Union.” The report’s analysis indicated that the Soviets had no defense or offensive capability that could negate Western retaliation, thereby discouraging war. Even as the report warned of growing Soviet long-range attack capabilities in coming years, the British JIC stated that “the Soviet Union is unlikely to start a global war as a deliberate act of policy.” Similarly, in the report’s assessment of the Chinese, it was more likely that aggressive Chinese action could “become more dangerous to world peace,” but that the Chinese were “likely to… believe that they can achieve their ends by methods short of war.” Unchanged from its preceding report, JIC 59(80) (Final) concluded that neither the Soviets nor the Chinese would actively instigate a war, but warned of war “as a result of political miscalculation… or possibly as a result of an incorrect appreciation by one side that an attack had been launched by the other.”