Early intelligence assessments of COMBLOC computing

ABSTRACT Espionage driven acquisition of Western technology played a key role in the development of computer science and technology for Warsaw Pact services during the Cold War period. US, UK, and other Allied nations, recognized this new field was inextricably linked at its creation to cryptography, navigation, weapons guidance, and a host of other military and dual-use applications. As a result, the Free World powers imposed export control restrictions that were intended to embargo the transfer of equipment and knowledge, in order to preserve hard-won advantage that recent wartime experience had taught could be fleeting under the intense pressures of innovation and adaption in combat. Despite such controls, Soviet foreign intelligence services provided critical early access that led to duplication of systems that were to some degree comparable in purpose and quality from the outset, and loomed larger still in the long shadow of intended future R&D pathways. Western intelligence services were not blind to this behavior; through unique collection approaches and sustained analytic efforts, they sought to track the state of Soviet computing and its role in strategic, military, and economic applications. This effort was effectively the dawn of the cyber intelligence mission.